Trolleybus at East Street

1950's photograph of a trolley-bus in the old town. It is showing the Hastings Tramways motif which was change a short while later to Maidstone & District when that company took them over before replacing the trolley-buses with Atlanteans in 1959.

The trolley-buses were quiet, smooth running and very popular, remembered with affection by older residents.

This would be before September 1957 when Maidstone & District took complete control, and rebadged them with the M&D motif. I would put it around 1956 early '57 by the ICI paint advert.
The Hastings TB system was one of only two in the country that had an eighteen inch span between the positive and negative overhead wiring, with the exception of the short stretch from The Vic to the turning circle at the top end of Battle Rd ( now where the Observer office was last time I was there) which was the normal two foot. This was added just after WW2 as the former reverse triangle by The Vic was far from ideal, and I believe was the site of the only fatality on the system when a conductress tragically hit her head on a lamp post or pole during the war time blackout.
The East Anglia Transport Museum at Lowestoft has lovingly restored Bdy 870 the last TB to be used on the closing ceremony in 1959, going on to work in Maidstone until 1967, in full working order.
Well worth a visit!
Comments welcome
Peter E. Hastings resident 1950-67.