OUR picture today shows work being carried out in Station Avenue on one of York's new electric tram routes in 1910.

Just one year earlier, the Corporation of York bought the assets of the York Tramways Company and began an immediate modernisation programme.

It inherited a horse-drawn tramway, but soon began extending and electrifying the network.

Their were six main routes, leading from the city centre to Acomb, Dringhouses, Fulford, Haxby Road, Hull Road and South Bank.

The new electric trams made public transport affordable for ordinary, working people and made commuting to work much easier. Previous to the arrival of the trams, horse-drawn trams and cabs were the main transport on offer – but a preserve of the better off in society.

But the new trams soon faced competition from motor-buses and trolley-buses (which were powered by electricity from overhead cables).

By 1929, private bus companies introduced services which ran to the new suburbs of York, beyond the run of the tramlines, creating more competition for passengers.

By 1935 these services were provided by motor-buses alone: the trolley-buses were withdrawn in January and the trams in November that year.

The age of York's electric trams was over.

Maxine Gordon