DARLINGTON DISCARDS ITS TRAMCARS..
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The Corporation Finally Decides in Favour of the Adoption of Trolley-buses.
A, S HAS been stated in previous sn_issuesi of The Ommercial Motor,. the Darlington Corporation has for some months past been giving very serious attention to the advisability of effecting a change in its passenger transport facilities by the substitution of trolley-buses for the existing tramcar services in the town, and at last the question has. been definitely settled by the decision of the general purposes committee of the corporation to recommend the authority forthwith to make application to the Ministry of Transport fmpermission to discard the trams, and to replace them by the more flexible mode of passenger
locomotion. The significance of this latest development is that the committee in question comprises all the members of the council and, therefore, the motion having been agreed to with only two dissentients, the final confirmation of the resolution by the corporation will be merely a matter of observing certain formalities.
The fact that Darlington would indeed "scrap " its. tramways has for months been practically a foregone conclusion, for almost the whole of %the tracks in the town are either due, or overdue, for renewal, and at present-day costa the relaying of fhese lines was almost out of the question, for it was computed that an expenditure of at least B96,000 would be necessary for the purpose, whilst the inauguration of a num
her of contemplated extensions to parts of the town not already served, would have entailed an additional cost of about another•100,000.
In view of these figures, the corporation has been giving attention to a mode of transport which would serve the requirements of the town without necessitating anything like the same outlay, and the choice rested between 'railless ears or motorbuses: In order to leave no
stone unturned in an endeavour to provide the best and cheapest facilities, the electricity and light railways committee, which deals with these matters, induced Mr. Baker, general managesof the Birmingham Tramways, to visit the town and prepare a report, in which he indicateti trackless buses as being the most suitable form of public passenger con
veyance for Darlington. In addition, deputations visited Wolverhampton and Birmingham in order to glean first-hand information on the operation of the two forma of transport under consideration, and having done so, they made the recommendation that railless traction be substituted for the tramcars, a proposal which the general purposes committee has now endorsed.
The estimated coat of replacing the existing tramway system by railless cars, inclusive of alterations to-overhead equipment, is £35,000, and including the proposed extensions, it is estimated that the cost will be £60,000, which, as will he seen, represents a substantial saving.
Petrol buses have had many staunch advocates in the town clueing the period of indecision, but against these the main argument has been on the score of operating costs, for it has been proved that trackless vehicles, drawing their power from the electricity works and supplied at the low cost of ad. per unit, which is the rate ruling in Darlington, would prove about 3d. per mile cheaper to run, this being equivalent, on Darlington's car mileage, to an annual saving of about E7Axpa.