When trams ruled the roads: 7 great photos from 100 years ago

The York Corporation had bought out the assets of the City of York Tramway Company the previous year for £8,856 (equivalent to more than £800,000 in today's money). It took over operation of the horse-drawn trams - but also immediately put into effect a programme of electrification and extension.

It must have seemed like a bright new future to Alderman Birch that January day in 1910 - although in fact, the era of electric trams in York was to last only half a century, until 1935.

To this day, however, there remains something very special in many people's minds about the days of the tram. Press reader and retired railway engineer John Meredith certainly thinks so. As a boy growing up in south London he used to watch trams trundling past on the London to Brighton road.

He moved north to York with the railways in 1967, but never lost that childhood fascination with trams.

January 1910: the Lord Mayor of York, Alderman J Birch, atop a tram at the opening ceremony for the city's new tram fleet

Which is lucky for us. A keen photographer and collector of old photographs, John, now 87 and living in Copmanthorpe, has has a great collection of transport-related photos of York.

As well as the wonderful photograph of Alderman Birch on that inaugural tram ride in 1920 (above), he has a whole series of other tram photos which many Press readers won't have seen before.

They include:

Holgate Road

A tram passes St Paul's Church in Holgate Road (above) in what John believes was the early 1910s. He thinks it was a shuttle service running from the iron bridge, which was still being built, to Acomb.

Acomb

The same tram (you can, if you look carefully, make out the No 10 written on it) at the terminus in Acomb. It is at what used to be the Regal Cinema, before you get to Front Street, John says.

Tadcaster Road

A tram on Tadcaster Road in Dringhouses, with Knavesmire visible just to the right of the picture. The tram operated on the 'Haxby Road to Dringhouses' route, as you can see from the destination board at the top.

The Mount

A tram operating on the Dringhouses to Fulford route in The Mount

Rougier Street

Two trams on the corner of Station Road and Rougier Street, in a photograph taken in the 1930s by John's friend William Crawforth.

We have one more photograph today, also from John's collection. This one isn't a tram at all, but an electric bus. To be precise, John says, it's a First World Ear Edison battery-powered bus. "They had a charging station at Clifton Green and at Stockton Lane," John says.

Electric buses are now making a comeback a century later. They don't look anything like as elegant as this one, though...