YORK'S futuristic new superbus the ftr was launched today. With its sleek lines and jointed middle, it looks more like a modern tram than a bus.

No further excuse is needed to take a look back at the great days of the tram in York.

Trams have always held a special place in our affections.

Our selection of photographs - reproduced courtesy of the Imagine York archive - range from workmen preparing the lines for the new electric tram on The Mount in 1910, to a wonderfully evocative image of trams at their depot in Fulford Cross the following year.

There is also a great shot of a motor bus in Museum Street overtaking a tram which is already passing a parked car, taken in 1934. The open-topped tram being overtaken by the bus is a number 14. The single headlight makes it look oddly like Doctor Who's K-9 - and the Bovril advert gives it a friendly, homely look that somehow buses never quite managed to recreate. Not even the ftr.

  • Pictures reproduced courtesy of the Imagine York archive. Visit www.imagineyork.co.uk to see more great images of York's past.