The Flickr Cityandroyalburghofedinburghtransportdepartment Image Generatr

Edinburgh’s municipal transport undertaking published transport maps throughout most of its existence. This is the cover of the 1953 Coronation year edition. HM Queen Elizabeth II had been crowned at Westminster Abbey 2nd June 1953 and visited Edinburgh from 23rd to 29th June 1953

(Photographer unidentified). Tram 73 is seen travelling south on Newhaven Road in the north of the city while working route 7 from Stanley Road to Liberton via Junction Street. Constructed by ECT at Shrubhill, the tram was new in 1947 and still in the Department’s fleet when tram service ceased in November 1956. In this summer view, probably in the 1950s, the “car” is travelling towards the junction with Ferry Road, where it will turn left. The driver wears the summer white topped hat and the boy on the bike seems interested in what is happening on the bowling greens next to Victoria Park. Note the ex-Leith Corporation lamp standard on the right with its elaborate scrollwork and the side bracket arm poles for the overhead power supply - these also appeared elsewhere on the onetime Leith system, e.g. Duke Street, Ferry Road etc. The house with the visible gable end on the right is No. 138. Leith Depot - itself to close to trams on 5th May 1956 - operated tram route 7 which was withdrawn and replaced by bus service 7 on the 11th March 1956.

Fleet number 801 was Edinburgh Corporation Transport’s first rear engined bus. New to the operator in 1965, it served with the municipal transport undertaking and its successor, Lothian Regional Transport, until withdrawn in 1983.

OFS 777 entered service with Edinburgh Corporation Transport in January 1957

This single door Leyland Atlantean with Alexander bodywork was new to Edinburgh Corporation Transport in 1967 and was originally used on the Corporation’s regular city routes. After local government reorganisation in Scotland in 1975, the fleet became Lothian Region Transport and the vehicle was one of eight in 1976/7 which became dedicated to tours work and the airport coach service from Waverley Bridge to Edinburgh Airport. The vehicles were repainted in this white and black livery and had seating reduced from 74 to 70. Post 1981, the vehicle passed to the driver training fleet as TB5, eventually passing into private hands. It has now been restored in LRT white and black coach livery

This Leyland Atlantean entered service with Edinburgh Corporation Transport in 1972 and was in service in the city with ECT and its successor, Lothian until 1988. The two door vehicle was privately preserved after withdrawal from service. In recent years it returned to Scotland, its latest owners undertaking restoration at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum.

In service in Edinburgh between 1972 and 1988, this Atlantean was a visitor to Bridgeton Bus Garage for the 2021 Open Weekend.

For those who have been missing similar open days owing to COVID-19, here is a reminder of what is believed to be the first such event in Edinburgh. This double sided flyer advertises the Open Day organised by Edinburgh City Transport at their workshops at Shrubhill on Leith Walk, Edinburgh in October 1972. No doubt the “Conducted Tours of the Workshops” and the Relic Shop would have proved popular. Note the reference to the Transport Museum - a short lived feature at the site during the sixties and early seventies. In recent years, Lothian Buses - successors to Edinburgh City Transport - have organised many open days (until 2019), sometimes combined with a vintage running day event, at their Central Garage (acquired for ECT in 1926) in the city’s Annandale Street. The nearby and historic Shrubhill site - first used for the horse trams in 1871 - is no more and is now a housing development marketed as The Engine Yard.

Edinburgh’s last legacy trams were withdrawn on the 16th November 1956 and as if to herald a new era, the municipal transport undertaking (City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh Transport Department, at different times also referred to as Edinburgh Corporation Transport or Edinburgh City Transport) decided to leave their long time Head Office at St. James Square. A new home was found elsewhere in the New Town and the organisation moved into 14 Queen Street (tel: CAL 3941) on the 13th January 1957. Originally built as a house in 1787 - some twenty years after the first properties were built in the New Town - and reconstructed for the Caledonian United Service Club in 1838, the building was listed Grade A in 1966. Transport manager at the time of the move, W M Little, had been in charge of the department since 1948 and had overseen the rundown of the tramway system and the bus replacement programme. When the department became Lothian Regional Transport in 1975, Head Office remained here and did so until the late 1990s when it moved to Shrubhill and then Annandale Street (location of Central Garage since 1926). The current occupants at 14 Queen Street are the British Medical Association.