Borough of Darwen Transport Department – Souvenir of the Abandonment of Tramways, 5 October 1946

I wonder, given the winter that lay ahead, if the Borough of Darwen’s Transport Department had any second thoughts of abandoning their last tramway in October 1946, and completing the replacement of their system with diesel buses given the state of the roads? I suspect it is unlikely as Darwen’s system was likely in poor condition after years of wartime demand and neglect and I suspect the trams would have gone some years earlier if war had not intervened.

It was a small system although it was, for a municipal electric network, an early started as the first car ran on 16 October 1900, a year after the Council had acquired the privately owned steam tram lines. This first route ran to neighbouring Blackburn and indeed joint operation of the ‘main line’ took place when that town electrified its share of the steam tramways that appears to have been the case from 1901. In that year Darwen opened the line to Hoddlesden and it was to be the first to close in 1937 and be replaced by buses, Darwen having first introduced such vehicles in 1926.

In 1940 the tramway service between Whitehall and Circus went but by then, with wartime controls on the delivery of new buses and also of diesel fuel, the tramway was expected to ‘carry on’ as it did. Blackburn’s last tram ran in 1949. The fleet interestingly included some very modern, streamlined cars with central entrances, that look very “Blackpool” in style. The booklet however is suitably “edwardian” in style to match the opening of the system with a gothic style typeface and much use of printers decorations. It also carries, with suitable municipal pomp, the names of the Mayor, the Chairman of the Transport Committee, that of the General Manager G Beckett, and the Town Clerk.

Printed by the local Wardleys (Printers) Ltd.