At Hampton Court

Click on picture [306] for an enlarged version

From: "Jeffrey White" <trolleybusnut@hotmail>

According to former London trolleybus drivers at my garage, sadly all have now retired or gone to the great turning circle in the sky, London's trolleys were licence as light railways and were not subject to the speed limits of the road traffic act. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I do remember travelling on the 604 between Hampton Court Palace and Kingston, which was a hairy trip to say the least. The road was dead straight for about a mile and a half and all request stops, very rarely used .Most drivers would notch up fairly quickly to a speed that I would estimate to be between 50 and 60 mph. Sitting upstairs at the front with thew windows open would give your hair a blow wave that stayed there all day!

I have waited many years to drive a trolleybus, but in spite of many false dawns, usually after yet another oil crisis, all gets forgotten and the powers that be order a worse diesel than the one before.

At Plumstead we now have lacklustre Dennis's and the incendiary Mercedes bendy, which despite TfL's publicity are hated by the honest travelling public because of their lack of seats and unreliability.

I just hope that whoever gets enough common sense to install a trolleybus system in London gets a move on as I only have 10 years until retirement. It took the Croydon Tramlink 25 years from drawing board to reality and I don't have that time scale to wait.