Met Feltham

Since the beginnings of tramways and light rail systems in 1807 with horse drawn carriages, the development of light rail systems across the world has been a continuous affair, with many modern systems resembling railways in all but name.

But it's important to remember that although modern vehicles are known colloquially as "trams", they are not really a tram. Instead they are a "Light Rail Vehicle" or "LRV" built for longer distances with more infrequent stops and smoother gradients/curves than a traditional tramway. Traditional tramways of the first generation largely died out in the 1950s and completely in the 1960s, and they ran on existing surface streets and roads in the larger urban centres of the UK. They were developed before the introduction of mainstream motorbuses, however once corporations and operators got the taste of effective motorbus operations and the greater flexibility they offered, the tramways were quickly seen as a liability and scrapped in favour of buses.

However before the tramways were scrapped, the larger cities kept various highly used lines as a strategic network of lines to provide faster links to the city centre. One of which of course was London, with the size of the city necessitating fast and frequent transportation links between various locations. In the 1930s, the tramcar fleet was aging across the board, with tramways in London being operated largely by London County Council Tramways, but also supplemented in part by Metropolitan Electric Tramways or MET. The 1930s was the streamlining age, where smooth flowing lines are at the heart of every design put to paper of every architect and designer. The LCCT had the successful E1 tramcar series, and the MET and London United Tramways produced this series of prototypes, constructed by The Union Construction and Finance Company Limited of Feltham, Hounslow, Greater London. Due to the location of the companys headquarters and manufacturing centre, the tramcars were referred to as "Felthams"

They were double ended double deck bogie cars with a central entrance layout as opposed to the double ended entrance layout of previous tramcar types. They began to enter service in 1931, and after 100 examples were produced and saw service in London , they were later displaced due to problematic operations and saw further use in Sunderland and Leeds. After the closure of the systems in the 1950s, all but 3 of the tramcars were scrapped, many in the traditional fashion of rolling into the scrapyard right after their final turns of duty and being burned to a crisp. Sunderland car number 100/MET car number 331 is the sole survivor of the original 5 prototypes, and is located at Crich Tramway Village/The National Tramway Museum, Crich, Derbyshire, England.

Here she is seen whilst posing on the apron of the main depot at Crich during the enthusiasts running day on 14th September 2013.