2026 Bradford Literature Festival: The Lost Tramways and Trolleybuses of Bradford — notes

The tramshed at the edge of the villageThere's an old tramshed near our house in Saltaire. I've walked past so many times over the past 25 years — and I've always noticed the archive photos dotted around the area of trams and trolleybuses gliding along roads that now carry buses and cars.This week I got some background into the old trams and trolleybus system, at Bradford Literature Festival talk The Lost Tramways and Trolleybuses of Bradford, given by Andy Feather, a former overhead linesman on Bradford's system. Andy also later helped establish the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft.Andy Feather - standing beside a screen showing an archive photo of an early Bradford horse-drawn tram - talking at the Bradford Literature Festival about Bradford's lost tramways and trolleybusesFrom horses to electricityBradford's public transport story starts in 1882, with horse-drawn trams on Manningham Lane.At the time, the city council (then called Bradford Corporation) had the power to build tramways…