Trams: S, SB, SC, QS
Trolleybuses: 62, 62A
Road Service Licence No’s: BH101/5, /50, /70, /77, /93, /113, /114
The fourth electric tramway in Hull travelled westwards along Spring Bank and terminated at the Botanic Gardens railway crossing. Operation had commenced in June 1900, but by October further tracks had been laid which took the route across the railway lines and along the length of Prince’s Avenue terminating at Queen’s Road. Services along the extended route were later denoted by the route letter ‘QS’, whilst the original Botanic Gardens route remained ‘S’. In January 1903, further trackwork along Queen’s Road and Newland Avenue had been laid and the ‘S’ route now terminated at Cottingham Road and the ‘QS’ became a short working. July 1919 saw the Newland Avenue tracks linked to those along Cottingham Road, and a new service to Newland Park, lettered ‘SC’ commenced operations. During the same year a circular tram route which linked Beverley Road and Newland Avenue commenced. This was lettered ‘SB’ in the clockwise direction and ‘BS’ in the reverse direction. The circular service was discontinued in 1923.
Trams on route ‘S’ were discontinued on Sunday mornings in October 1923, the service being replaced by motor buses. Under the 1930 Road Traffic Act this was to become service number 22 and was granted on Road Service Licence BH101/5. The tramway service ‘SC’ was further extended westwards along Cottingham Road to the Goodfellowship Inn and this point became the terminus for three services, BC, SC and SWC which ran via Beverley Road, Newland Avenue and Chanterlands Avenue respectively. The ‘SC’ was, however, withdrawn upon co-ordination of public transport services with East Yorkshire in July 1934. Also at this time another motorbus service 22 commenced, replacing the late evening tram services, Road Service Licence BH101/50 is believed to have covered the route.
Although not strictly a Prince’s Avenue service, there was a special shopper’s service, which commenced in December 1935 running over the Christmas and New Year period. The route was via Spring Bank, Derringham Street, and Argyle Street and returned to the city via Anlaby Road and Ferensway. Road Service Licence BH101/70 is believed to have been granted for the service and route number 2 was used. Operations on service 2 ceased in January 1936, and it never re-commenced.
The first successful conversion of trams to trolleybuses had commenced in July 1937 with the Chanterlands Avenue route, albeit with motorbuses operating the route pending renewal of the overhead wires and poles. The Prince’s Avenue routes were the next to be undertaken utilising the motorbuses displaced from the Chanterlands Avenue route. The two remaining tram services ‘S’ and ‘QS’ were withdrawn and replaced by motorbus 22, which joined the existing night and Sunday morning services, Road Service Licence BH101/77(?) was granted on a temporary basis to cover the conversion period. After three months, the re-construction of the overhead being completed, all three service 22’s were discontinued, being replaced by the trolleybus services 62 and 62A. The former terminated at the Cottingham Road end of Newland Avenue, whilst the latter was a short working to Pearson Park, where a turning circle was installed. The three licences BH101/5 /50 and/77 were also surrendered at this point. In line with services 61A and 64A the 62A was renumbered in February 1942, taking number 66.
From October 1937 to October 1949, there were no scheduled motorbus services running from the city along the trolleybus route, even then there was only one service introduced until the early 1960’s. This was service number 14 which had been granted on licence BH101/93 and covered a service from the Coach Station via Spring Bank, Prince’s Avenue, Park Avenue, Chanterlands Avenue and Bricknell Avenue where it terminated at the Hotham Road junction.
The next major change to services along Prince’s Avenue and Newland Avenue occurred in November 1963, and was similar to the last major change, but this time, the trolleybuses were being replaced by motorbuses. In order to facilitate the change-over a provisional licence, BH101/113, was granted under the 1930 Road Traffic Act, for three services to replace the trolleybus services. Route numbers 20, 120 and 220 were allocated to the three services, and 20 and 220 were direct replacements for the 62 and 66 services respectively, whilst the 120 denoted services to the junction of Newland Avenue and Ella Street, both the 120 and 220 were ‘extra journeys’ having no times given in the public timetables. Subsequently a substantive licence was granted to the Corporation, this being BH101/114, the provisional BH101/113 was then surrendered. In April of 1964 the city centre terminus of the services was moved from the trolleybus stop in King Edward Street around the corner to Paragon Street. It was also at this time that the 14 was extended from the Hotham Road junction, further westwards along Bricknell Avenue to the St Mary’s Avenue junction. The former terminus was, however, brought back into use in September 1965, when a school service commenced with the number 814. In the change from numerical prefixes to alphabetical suffixes, which occurred in April 1967, the 814 became 14B, but was otherwise unchanged, it was now classed as an ‘extra journey’ and was not as a consequence given times in the timetables. The short workings of the 20 were both discontinued at this point, and so were not given any alphabetical suffixes.
Changes to the 20 service took effect from October 1967, when the service was extended from Newland Avenue, along Cottingham Road and Cranbrook Avenue and terminated at the Endike Lane junction. Services to Newland Avenue only, now were short workings of the main route and were numbered 20B. Another service commenced to the junction of Cottingham Road and Chanterlands Avenue, this was hardly new as the tram service ‘SC’ had run the same route some forty four years earlier! it was given route number 20A Peak hour journeys from Endike Lane were given the number 20D as they terminated at the Guildhall, rather than at Paragon Street.
An echo of the tramway circulars BS/SB was raised when a circular service was introduced linking the 20 and the 18 services, the linking point with the motorbus was along Endike Lane rather than Cottingham Road as the trams had done. The 18 was on the Beverley Road licence BH101/115, which was the 63 trolleybus replacement service. It was transferred to the Newland Avenue licence BH101/114, which in addition to the 18 saw two services added to form the circular, these being the 18C and 20C. The changes were first listed in the timetables dated October 1968, the success of these services cannot have been very great as the timetable ceased to show the circulars at all, the 18 however remained on the licence until May 1970 when it was transferred to the Beverley Road Licence BH101/76. Prior to this, in March, the 20 group had undergone some alterations, the chief of which was the moving of the city terminus from Paragon Street to Chapel Street, 20E also commenced at this time, running to a terminus at the end of Endike Lane adjacent to the 18 terminus on Beverley High Road. In March, 1972, the outer terminus of the 20 and 20D was extended along Cranbrook Avenue, Greenwood Avenue and Ellerburn Avenue North, terminating at the northern end of the latter, this enabled the service to serve the northern part of North Hull Estate as well as the Orchard Park Shopping Centre. Transferred from BH101/76 was a school route, the 20S, previously 85, which commenced at the junction of Marshall Avenue, with Newland Avenue and ran through to the new Sir Henry Cooper High School on Orchard Park. The 20E was discontinued at this time. September 1973 saw the inner terminus of the 20 group alter yet again from Chapel Street to the stands outside the ABC cinema in Ferensway.
In the timetable for September 1975, another route was shown on licence BH101/114, numbered 21 it ran the 20 route to Endike Lane and then ran westwards along that road to the Hall Road junction. The route was, in July 1976, transferred to BH101/158 on a differing route, it was largely replaced by an extended 20, which now ran through Orchard Park to terminate at Hall Road.
The other licence in use for this area BH101/93 was very limited in developments, the last one having taken place in April 1964 and it was not until May 1978 that another route was added to the licence, this being the 14D which ran to the Guildhall. It must be stated, however, that the outward journeys only on the 14 had been re-routed at the outer end In September 1971 to run via Hartoft Road and in 1975 it was further re-routed via Lythe Avenue. Also in May 1978, the inner terminus of the school service 20S on BH101/114 was altered to Ferensway ABC Cinema, from Newland Avenue.
Service revisions of June 1980 had very minimal effects on either of the licences, those on BH101/114 being confined to alteration of the city terminal points the 20 group being moved from Ferensway to the Coach Station, whilst the 20D now commenced at Castle Street and ran back to the Guildhall. On BH101/93 a new 14A service commenced which like the original 14 ran directly along Bricknell Avenue. There were no return 14A journeys as these would have been identical to the normal 14.
In January 1981, the 20B which had been the tram and trolleybus service was reduced to ‘extra journey’ status and in May 1982, the 21 of 1975/6 was re-introduced under the route number 20E. BH101/93 lost the 14A and 14B variants in May 1983 and September 1985 saw the end of the 20E route, while the 20A was discontinued in May 1985.
The 20 was extended yet again from its junction with Orchard Park Road and Hall Road and it now turned eastwards along the latter road running through the estate and terminated at the new Tesco store situated on the corner of Hall Road and Beverley High Road.
The pre-deregulation network of July 1986 saw both the 14 and 14D on BH101/93 being renumbered 18 to which was added service 6 which terminated at Hall Road/Endike Lane and 81/81A two school services to Grammar School Road and Bishop Alcock Road respectively. BH101/114 lost the 20B, 20D and 20S variants whilst the 20 was renumbered 5. All four services continued until October when the deregulation took effect and the two licences were duly surrendered.
Keith Easton
01/2012
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