468 History of Inland Transport 



to neighbouring towns or the nearest railway ; and for the 

 transport of goods or minerals to or from railway stations or 

 harbours over the same routes as passengers ; (6) that the 

 cars are more reliable and cheaper to operate than petrol, 

 petrol-electric, steam or battery-driven vehicles ; and (7) that 

 inasmuch as the running of railless electric traction is prac- 

 tically noiseless, house property is not likely to be depreciated 

 in value as in the case of the tramway. 



The disadvantages of the system as compared with the 

 motor-bus are (i) that the railless electric traction bus can 

 only run along streets which have been provided with over- 

 head wires ; (2) that, even allowing for the absence of rails, 

 the expense involved in overhead wires and power stations 

 will still be necessary, as in the case of a tramway ; (3) that 

 by reason of the standing expenses, and in order to utilise the 

 electric current to the best advantage, a frequent service 

 will have to be maintained, whether the traffic really warrants 

 it or not, whereas the motor-omnibus can be brought out and 

 run only at such hours of the day as remunerative traffic is 

 likely to be obtained ; and (4) that railless electric traction 

 goods vans or lorries being able to go only along certain 

 streets, and being unable even there to load or unload, in- 

 asmuch as these operations would prevent other railless cars 

 from passing would be less better adapted for urban trading 

 purposes than commercial motors. 



Railless electric traction seems to have been first adopted 

 at Grevenbruck, Westphalia, in 1903, and since that date it 

 has been resorted to in various other places on the Continent. 

 In this country, apart from a short experimental line con- 

 structed at the Hendon depot of the Metropolitan Electric 

 Tramways, the first applications of railless traction have been 

 at Leeds and Bradford, where, following on the obtaining of 

 Parliamentary powers in 1910, municipal railless electric 

 traction systems were formally opened in June, 1911, the 

 system adopted being that of the Railless Electric Traction 

 Construction Company, Ltd. In each case the railless traction 

 supplements the existing municipal tramway. 



At Leeds the tramway route from the City Square is 

 followed for about a mile, and then, with the help of a special 

 set of wires, the new system diverges, and continues to a 

 point three miles further on ; though the Parliamentary 



