Shropshire Routes to Roots

1. Introduction

About this theme

The 7th November 2004 sees the anniversary of a hundred years of motor bus operation in Shropshire. This study traces the many twists and turns in the story of public road transport in the county (including Telford & Wrekin since 1998) during these years.

This online theme is a brief introduction to the history of bus and coach services in Shropshire, which has been kindly contributed by Chris Warn. The text here is an excerpt from his much longer examination of the subject.

Background

Shropshire has always been a relatively sparsely populated area and so could not justify the heavy expenditure involved in building tramway or trolleybus routes. In other ways, however, the county mirrored national trends in the ways in which its bus and coach services developed.

The story begins in 1904 with faltering and sometimes dangerous pioneering services with inadequate vehicles struggling along very rough roads with virtually no suspension, solid tyres and poor brakes.

1904 Clarkson steam bus Larger image, in a new window [27kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of The Omnibus Society]

A modern Volvo B7 bus Larger image, in a new window [26kb] [Photograph: Chris Warn]

It ends a century later with increasing numbers of bus services being operated by comfortable, energy efficient low floor vehicles that are capable of good turns of speed when opportunities arise.

Index to Pages

The history of bus and coach services can be divided conveniently into eleven distinct phases. Before you begin, you may like to browse through a photograph album of A Century of Bus Services in Shropshire (Opens in a new window).

Use the index of pages below, or on the sidebar, to find a particular period and study the topic in more depth. Alternatively, start at Pioneering services and go through the theme.

There is an album of buses in Shropshire by Chris Warn arranged by the towns and villages in which they were photographed. Please see the separate section on Shropshire buses (Opens in a new window).

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