Station Road, West Croydon pictured in 1935 and in 1999

Station Road, West Croydon c1935 This picture [btd654] is from:

Station Road, West Croydon, November 1999 Picture 10007b - No enlargement available

Notes by David Bradley

This 1935 picture of #65 in Station Road, West Croydon, comes from Mick Webber's London Trolleybus Chronology 1931-62, published by Ian Allan in 1997 and is probably a view taken shortly after service 654 commenced. This route ran between Sutton and West Croydon before the section to Crystal Palace was opened, and was not joined with Route 630 until some eighteen months later.

Assumed to be the original standing location for bus routes terminating here and with SMETs tram services 4 to Penge, and 5 to Crystal Palace, boarding on the opposite side of the road there was very little, if any, room for other traffic attempting to use this road. Tram tracks can be seen clearly in the foreground and were not recovered when services ceased in fact when Tramlink was digging to move all the utility pipes a few feet in 1998, a piece of SMET rail was unearthed at this very location and unceremoniously thrown to the side of the trench.

Returning to the same location in November 1999, there is little change from sixty years previously. The last trolleybus had long gone, together with former businesses of the retail shops in the background, but things are almost ready for a tram service that was to start carrying passengers several months later.

The design and style of the present shop fronts sit uncomfortable with the architectural design of the buildings. How long before all that disappears in the new millennium with bland building designs?