Brief History of a Prominent Passenger Transport Association
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Invaluable Work Has Been Done by the Public Service Transport Association Since it was Founded in 1897 MONGST the oldest passenger 11 readtransport organizations in this country is the Public Service Transport Association, for it was founded in 1897 under the title of the Tramways and Light Railways Association. In those days tramways were in their youth and the tramway industry was facing legislative and other problems.
To deal with these problems some scheme for co-ordinated action was clearly necessary. So the Tramways and Light Railways Association was founded to encourage, amongst its other objects, the construction, extension and development of electric and other modes of mechanical traction.
Among the founders of the Association Were Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. Mr. Emile Garcke, managing director of the British Electric Traction Co., Ltd., Mr. Stephen Sellon, the civil engineer, and Sir Charles Craufurd.
The first president of the Association was Sir Charles Rivers, and he was followed, in turn, by Mr. Alfred Baker, then general manager of Birmingham Corporation Tramways, and the Hon. Sir Arthur Stanley. In 1906 the Duke of Argyll became president and Sir Arthur Stanley was elected chairman of the council, a position he filled with the same distinction as he now fills the office of president, to which he was re-elected in 1920.
In the early lists of members of the council ale such well-known names as Harry England, Sir James Devonshire, A. L. Coventry Fell, E. H. Edwardes, C. G. Tegetmeier, and H. J. Howley. And a name which will always be associated with " The Tramways Association," as the Association was known for many years, is that of Mr. A. de Turckheim, who was secretary from 1906 to 1939. Mr.
• de Turckbeirds efficiency and charm -of personality played no small part in the continual building-up of, the • Association to its present position of importance.
The Association's founders realized that there was room in the tramway business for both company and municipal operators of light railways and tramways, and that these two operating interests both depended on, and were vital to, the manufacturing side of the industry. Thus it came about that the Association has its unique structure, for since its earliest days it has had this excellent quality of providing a common link between the operating and manufacturing sides of the road passenger transport industry.
Times change, and with the years so the title of the Association has twice been altered. In the early days of the Association the motorcar was still only a luxury for the very rich, and at a dinner of the Association in 1904 a speaker referred to the Automobile Club as " a society for the promotion of a new industry."
Tramways reached and passed their peak in this country, and there were newcomers in the road passenger transport field in the motorbus and the trolleybus, so in 1930 the words " and Transport" were added to the original title; following this, last year the name was changed to the "Public Service Transport Association."
At the Congress which opens in London next week, the Association will 'hold its 43rd annual general meeting—the half-century of invaluable work is drawing near.
The assembly will be at the Hotel Victoria, Northumberland Avenue, W.C.2, at 9.45 a.m. on May 2.