Buses and Trolleybuses Before 1919 by David Kaye (Hardcover, 1972)

This is the third of David Kaye's books on

buses

in the Blandford

Colour

Series, following Buses and Trolley-buses Since

1945 and

Buses and

Trolleybuses, 1919 to 1945.

It starts on the muddy

roads of

Elizabethan England with the carrier's wagon, and goes up to the years of the First World War when the spate of early bus company formations had reached a temporary halt.

In between, the stage coach and its faster successor the mail coach, had appeared,

gathered

momentum,

reached

their heyday in the early

years of the nineteenth century, and disappeared with the advent of the railways. In their wake had appeared the short-stage coaches and, with the opening of Shillibeer's Paddington to Bank route in London in July 1829, the first horse-drawn omnibus services, which were to wax and grow all through that century until the early years of the next, when the age of the petrol-engined motorbus was ushered in. At the same time, the steam carriage had appeared and been revived in the streets of Edwardian London, and horse and steam tram services had flowered, only to disappear in the late 80s and 90s in the face of competition from electric power. The period ends with the coming into being of the first regular trolleybus services.

The book's 120 full colour illustrations will delight enthusiasts professional and amateur, and David Kaye's text, packed with fascinating technical and anecdotal detail relating to the buses, bearing the stamp of someone who really knows them well, will add to their pleasure.