Neil Mortson

Sunderland Transport takes the reader on a ride back in time on the trams and buses that once plied the city's streets. Put together by local transport enthusiast John Carlson, this book is packed with photos, illustrations and diagrams that depict the growth and change in public transport when Sunderland was still a town, including the many different types of trams and buses that were in the corporation's employ and at the Wheatsheaf, Hylton and Fulwell depots including the repair and maintenance facilities. Also covered are the services of Sunderland and District Tramway Company and its follow-on bus operations and those of the Economic bus company. Along the way there is a good glimpse of some of the local features such as the Wear Bridge, town centre shops and the long tramline up Durham Road that make Sunderland such a unique place in which to live.

Roughly moving around the town along the old ‘figure of eight’ electric tram route that opened in 1906, this book rediscovers the lost world of the horse-drawn and electric trams through to trolleybuses and motorbuses operated by South Shields Corporation Transport. The Corporation boasted that there was no part of the town that was more than a quarter of an hour’s walk away from this route.

This book is part of the Images of England series, which uses old photographs and archived images to show the history of various local areas in England, through their streets, shops, pubs, and people.