Created 8-Jan-22
Modified 8-Mar-24
Hastings Tramways developed their trolleybus system relatively early, replacing trams in the town in 1928. The initial fleet started to be replaced before the war but demand reduced during the war since Hastings, as a holiday resort on the South Coast, was quiet and demand was low. Ten Sunbeam Ws joined the fleet in 1946, 21-30 (BDY 796-805). These had Park Royal H30/26R bodies of a more relaxed utility specification. A further fifteen were delivered in 1947/48, 31-45 (BDY 806-820). In contrast to the 1946 batch, these had Weymann H30/26R bodies built to peacetime standards.
The Hastings Tramways Company had been wholly-owned by Maidstone & District since November 1935, but on 30th September 1957 they were fully absorbed and the trolleybuses started to carry Maidstone & District fleetnames. Maidstone & District abandoned the trolleybus system on May 31st 1959.
Bradford had been hoping to purchase some new trolleybuses but the decision was deferred by the Transport Committee. However, some of the pre-war AECs really needed replacing . As a result Bradford bought the ten Sunbeams with Park Royal bodies . As the last two had registration numbers that corresponded to the next fleet numbers in the trolleybus sequence, they were numbered first, so the batch became 804-813 (BDY 804-805,796-803). Entry into service in Bradford was spread over an extended period of almost two years, from November 1959 to June 1961.
One of the actions carried out by Bradford was to remove the valances over the saloon windows. This gave them a much more austere appearance and made the upper deck windows seem very deep. When in Hastings they had looked very similar to the Weymann bodies.
Of the Weymann-bodied vehicles, all ended up being sold for further service after the system closed in 1959, but just two of them came to Bradford. 45 (BDY 820) became Bradford 814 and 40 (BDY 815) became 815 - another attempt to match fleet and registration numbers. They were little changed in Bradford, apart from the fitting of a standard destination display. 815, like 797, 799 and 802 before, received an experimental livery with blue lower deck windows. Both 814 and 815 entered service quite quickly, in October and August 1959 respectively.
All the trolleybuses from Hastings had featured pedals arranged as on a motor vehicle, with power on the right and brake on the left, but these are normally the opposite way on trolleybuses. This caused problems and eventually they were converted to the conventional trolleybus layout - the same happened on the rest of this batch when they moved to other systems (Maidstone and Walsall).
As with the Park Royal-bodied Sunbeams from the same source, Bradford was to remove the valances over the saloon windows although in this case they left the ones over the front, which gave an appearance consistent with Bradford's own Weymann-bodied buses and trolleybuses. Unlike the native Weymann-bodied trolleybuses, these had an exposed trolley gantry.
Their time in Bradford was relatively brief, abandonment of the cross-city service from Eccleshill to St. Enoch's Road Top, then trolleybuses to Bradford Moor and Crossflatts meant that there was just no need for these older vehicles and they were all withdrawn in 1962/63.
© David Beilby
