The Flickr Municipaltransport Image Generatr

The cover of the April 1954 timetable issued by Rotherham Corporation Transport Department, the municipal operator in this then highly industrialised county borough in the West Riidng of Yorkshire. The Department operated a fleet of trolleybuses and motorbuses; the former included joint operation with the neighbouring Mexborough and Swinton company and the latter jointly on certain routes with both Doncaster and Sheffield's municipal operations.

This timetable was to be the last to show route 1 to Maltby via Wickersley as trolleybus operated as it also includes the insert dated 4 May 1954 confirming the conversion of this route to motorbus operation although trolleybuses continued on the short workings to Wickersley. This was not the first trolleybus to be abandoned as the route to Greasbrough had already gone and Rotherham was finding operation, especially of its single deck trolleybuses, more expensive; rebodying these vehicles to create double deck vehicles helped stave off the seemingly inevitable complete replacement by motor bus. This was agreed in 1962 and by 1965 the motor bus reigned supreme. It is worth noting that the Department's last trams, on the joint operation to Sheffield, had survived until 1949.

The Department was eventually merged into the new South Yorkshire PTE in 1974. The booklet, unusually, was produced by a Harrow, Middlesex, based company M.L. Pepper Publicity and printed in that town.

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

Motoring through Ipswich in August 2015 and a chance encounter with this resident of the town's Transport Museum. Preserved ex-Ipswich Corporation Transport's 63, ADX 63B, one of two Massey bodied AEC Regent V buses delivered in 1964; the relatively small municipal undertaking generally bought a small number of vehicles every year so as to avoid large numbers of vehicles being required and then replaced in a short time span.

Celebrations of 125th Anniversary of trams operating in Pilsen (CZ)

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.

At one time I could have drawn that coat of arms - or heraldic achievement to some - from memory as there was a version of the shield above the stage at my Junior School in Hampstead, West Bromwich and so nearly everyday from 1965 until 1969 I sat in assembly looking up at it! No supporters but a motto; Labor omnia vincit or work conquers all.

Here it is on the side of one of the town's splendidly liveried buses that wore this livery until 1969 when municipal operation and ownership passed to the new regional transport authority the West Midlands PTE. The Corporation had rather doggedly stuck to this complex livery unlike many others who had amended or simplified theirs for economy and spray painting although West Bromwich had adopted a more cream based livery with a blue band for the last batch of low height Daimler Fleetlines that had broken the mould of many years deliveries of traditional Daimler CVG6 chassis with rear platform bodywork. This is 248, 248 NEA, a 1963 CVG6-30 with locally constructed Metropolitan-Cammell bodywork. The vehicle saw quite a lot of depot changes within the new PTE fleet and was withdrawn in 1978 being purchased by the Wythall Transport Museum where it is seen here.

The first is the historic KONSTAL 5N / 5N1 tram, used in the years 1957 - 1991, currently as an attraction, a tourist line. The second tram set is PESA 122N, which has been in operation since 2008.

From the 1966 Official Guide to the County Borough of Wolverhampton that had that year been extended to include the former smaller neighbouring boroughs of Bilston, Wednesfield and Tettenhall. Amongst the municipal services covered the Corporation's Transport Department is included. Wolverhampton, an operator I recall both in the pre- and post-PTE days of 1969 was an interesting undertaking. In this edition the soon to be finally abandoned trolleybuses, that used to proudly feature in the Handbooks, have already been airbrushed from history and the motor bus reigns supreme.

The Corporation were slightly unusual for a municipal and largely urban undertaking in that they also ran 'country area' bus services out into surrounding towns, villages and indeed hamlets and these routes were a great joy! They were handed over, eventually, to the NBC operator Midland Red in 1974 when the WMPTE acquired that operators Black Country routes. This map was used for advertising for many years and is almost identical to the 1953 version with one slight extension - that to Donington. The undertaking also made use of the 'Mercury' municipal transport symbol that appears to have been an attempt to 'brand' council undertakings and that a few transport departments used.

Needless to say Wolverhampton nearly always bought 'local' and that meant a large fleet of Wolverhampton built Guy Motors chassis.

The advertising and publicity leaflet issued by Glasgow Corporation Transport who had introduced such City Tours, aimed as much as the citizens of the city as well as tourists who made it to this vast industrial city on the Clyde. The tours had been introduced in 1932 and although undated the name of Mackinnon as General Manager means it must be before the end of 1935 when he retired. The bus shown is of the six-bay style and carries destination boxes of the style that were delivered on vehicles such as the 1931 intake of buses - looking very modern in comparison with the design of double deck buses only a few years earlier.

Two tours were generally offered - one north of the Clyde and including Knightswood, one of the Corporation's vast new suburban housing schemes and a second tour south that included the heights of Cathkin Braes. The tours started and finsihed at George Square and enquiries where at the time dealt with at 45 Cochrane St.

The advertising and publicity leaflet issued by Glasgow Corporation Transport who had introduced such City Tours, aimed as much as the citizens of the city as well as tourists who made it to this vast industrial city on the Clyde. The tours had been introduced in 1932 and although undated the name of Mackinnon as General Manager means it must be before the end of 1935 when he retired. The bus shown is of the six-bay style and carries destination boxes of the style that were delivered on vehicles such as the 1931 intake of buses - looking very modern in comparison with the design of double deck buses only a few years earlier.

Two tours were generally offered - one north of the Clyde and including Knightswood, one of the Corporation's vast new suburban housing schemes and a second tour south that included the heights of Cathkin Braes. The tours started and finsihed at George Square and enquiries where at the time dealt with at 45 Cochrane St.

There's a lot to like on this folded timetable sheet issued by the Tees-side Railless Traction Board and dated November 1964. It shows the trolleybus services operated on the two routes, that between North Ormesby and Grangetown and the second between the former and Grangetown as well as the few 'through' services and depot runs.

The TRTB was a remarkable outfit for various reasons - resolutely retaining the old name for trolleybus "Railless" in its name, along with Traction, and the use of the word 'cars' to denote buses - all harking back to the earliest days of trolleybus operations in the early decades of the Twentieth century when the 'railless' indicated one of the major differences between this electrically operated vehicle and the tramcar.

The routes served the heavily industrialised villages just outside of Middlesbrough in Yorkshire and the routes were in the midst of some of the most striking landscapes of iron, steel and chemical works to be found in the UK - they served these and the homes of the workforces employed in them. Indeed, the origins of the undertaking was in a system promoted by local iron & steelwork owners Bolckow Vaughan in 1912. Constructed during WW1 by the North Ormesby, South Bank, Normanby and Grangetown Railless Traction Company this oufit sold out before operations started to a joint Board comprising of Middlesbrough Corporation and Eston - that said for most of its existance the traction current came from the Bolckow Vaughan Company! The Board started operation on 8 November 1919.

I suspect this timetable may have been issued at around the time of the extension in Grangetown and astonishingly, given the rapid abandonment of UK trolleybus systems at the time, a further extension would be opened on 31 March 1968 - the day before the Board finally passed to the new merged fleet that included Middlesbrough and Stockton's municipal bus operation, Teesside Municipal Transport. However, the tide was running against trolleybuses and on 18 April 1971 the trolleybus network here was abandoned, the penultimate closure of a UK system.

The timetable also carries the 'Mercury' symbol of municipal transport that was also used by a few other Corporation undertakings notably Wolverhampton, another great trolleybus outpost in its day.

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.

Seen at the north end of Fettes Avenue at the start of the Running Day was Leyland Titan PD3/6, new to Edinburgh Corporation Transport in 1964 as their 690 (ASC 690B). It served with ECT and Lothian Region Transport until 1977 and eventually entered preservation in 1990. Repainted in 2020, it features period adverts for Britain’s state owned long haul airline, BOAC, and on the side of the vehicle shown here, Drinka Pinta Milka Day, the terse slogan dreamed up in 1958 by advertising agency, Ogilvy, for its client, the National Milk Publicity Council.

Fleet number 300 was in service with Edinburgh Corporation and Lothian Region Transport between 1972 and 1988.