Leeds Tram Network

Podlover · Post by **Podlover** » Thu 12 Apr, 2007 2:23 am

Hi,Is anyone aware of places you can go for evidence of the old tram network/any pics?The Roundhay Park Car Park is the obvious one- but apart from that have found it hard to find any evidence.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Thu 12 Apr, 2007 10:22 am

There's a few bits. There is some trackwork still down in the taxi licence place in Torre road yard. Somebody on here mentioned some trackwork still visible in Middleton woods. Obviously the tram poles in Roundhay park. Untill recently the tracks had reappeared alongside the East stand @ Elland road (since re-surfaced) The tracks could also be seen outside the old tram shed on Stanley road Harehills untill it burnt down. There is an old tram crossing & railings still intact going towards Crossgates passed the old Charlie browns place just off the York road.

liits · Post by **liits** » Thu 12 Apr, 2007 10:53 am

I recall, many moons ago, when Halton Dial was being hacked about, being able to see the remains of the point-work where the branch headed off towards Halton from the main York Road track. Also, from the terminus at Crossgates along Crossgates Road, down to the roundabout at York Road, the track is still in place and is regularly exposed when they dig up the central reservation. Finaly, at the top of Halton Hill, just behind where the Irwin Arms pub was on the road heading towards Temple Newsham, a few feet of track was always exposed in the edge of the grass verge.

Loinerpete · Post by **Loinerpete** » Thu 12 Apr, 2007 1:41 pm

Best thing to do is everytime you see roadworks have a good old peep down the hole, last month there was a beauty outside asda house on great wilson street, down the hole about 2 feet down were some very nice tram lines, they are all over Leeds still. The gipton cutting as it was called, its now gipton approach, if you dig, the tracks are still there, Stanningley road outside the KFC was another place where the tracks had surfaced in the cental res, but late last year the road was updated. The trams finished in 1959 so i was only a year old, but i remember as a kid, tram lines all over the place.

jf · Post by jf » Fri 13 Apr, 2007 3:31 pm

Maybe they should do a budget version of supertram where they just dig out the old tracks! They'd have to drop the 'super' from the title, but 'Leeds Tram' sounds OK to me.

LS1 · Post by **LS1** » Sun 09 Mar, 2008 11:51 pm

Found this on youtube tonight. Its pretty interesting...!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLrBZ9huv-8

Trojan · Post by **Trojan** » Mon 10 Mar, 2008 12:13 am

LS1 wrote: Found this on youtube tonight. Its pretty interesting...!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLrBZ9huv-8 Alan Bennett. Despite the Brummie accent very evocative of Leeds. Two of the pictures are not Leeds trams though - Binns shops tend to be in the North East.I'm a big Bennett fan. The film "A Private Function" mainly shot in and around Ilkley is one of the best comedy films ever IMO. Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Palin, Maggie Smith Alison Steadman and Liz Smith - all big names today - some not quite so big then.

D A Young · Post by **D A Young** » Mon 10 Mar, 2008 7:54 am

The "tram" poles in Roundhay Park car park are misleading. There was never any tram track in there. The poles went in sometime in 1953 or 1954 but I believe the car/bus park had been laid out long before that.They may or may not have been former tram poles-all but identical poles I think were used for electric street lighting on non-tramway streets until concrete light poles for the sodium vapour discharge (orange) street lights started to be used around that time.Using former tram tracks (now buried) for SuperTram would be impractical. Most Leeds tracks were just about worn out when they were abndoned; those that weren't were picked up and used elswhere on the system eg tracks on Stanningley Road laid in the summer of 1953 were re-used elsewhere after the 14 tram closed in October 1953.Some tracks from Cardigan Road (tram 27) and Lower Wortley (19) were re-used on the Belle Isle (tram 26, 27) extensions of 1948 and 1949. Much of the remaining track and pointwork in good condition (and there wasn't much of it) after the 1959 closure, went to Crich, (Crich Tramway Village, the National Tramway Museum) for example some of the track and track fans at the Torre Road top shed.Even that is well beyond its sell-by date; the Crich main line has just about exhausted its supply of second and third hand track from tramways across the UK and had embarked on a long-term rail replacement programme that uses newly manufactured rails. But in the last three or four years of Leeds trams, the tracks were simply awful. Moreover, after being buried for 50 years the integrity of the steel that makes up the track must surely be suspect with rust, metal fatigue, crystallization and a myriad of other mechanical and chemical flaws. As it is, the tracks on any given route are incomplete-some have vanished with road widening and junction expansion, others have been cut through over and over again for underground utility repair. Its a nice idea, but just not doable. Such tracks certainly would not be up to present European and Railway Inspectorate requirements, never mind the fact that wheel profiles on Light Rail cars are different (deeper flange, wider tread generally speaking) and so would not be able to us old tram track without either the track or their wheel profiles being expensviely modified. D. A. Young

Reginal Perrin · Post by **Reginal Perrin** » Mon 10 Mar, 2008 1:29 pm

The building opposite the Whale "Jawbones" on the junction of the A61 and Wood Lane (top of Bell Hill) in Rothwell Haigh is an old Tramshed I think.

Bramley4woods · Post by **Bramley4woods** » Mon 10 Mar, 2008 10:20 pm

Podlover wrote: Hi,Is anyone aware of places you can go for evidence of the old tram network/any pics?The Roundhay Park Car Park is the obvious one- but apart from that have found it hard to find any evidence. I have a pretty strong feeling that the trams never crossed Prince's Avenue and never ran into what is now the car park at Roundhay Park. They just stopped at the end of the still obvious trackbed.What was used for the lighting columns in the car park are what might be called "Tramway Surplus". Understandable if they were put up as the tramways dept was tearing them down and iron & steel was in short supply.NB I COULD BE WRONG.The old tram depot on Queens Road Morley (Off Fountain Street) has around a metre of tram track heading towards the (tall !) doorway. Although permission has been given for the building to be converted to the dreaded apartments it is conditional on the tram tracks being protected.