Town and City corporations had to make decisions in the 1960's as far as local public transports was concerned. Diesel engine busses could be purchased at a lower cost than maintaining / renewing tram and trolley bus systems; many of which were pre WW2 especially the power supply equipment. Also diesel engine busses gave far greater flexibility of routes.
People look back with nostalgia at trams and trolley busses, but would people use them any more than a diesel engine bus?
Not necessarily true, trolleybuses were still cheaper and would last longer in the 1960's. In Reading's case it was a number of factors which led to their demise, and at the beginning of the 1960's, when many places had done away with their trolleys because the first generation of vehicles was up for renewal, Reading didn't envisage disposing of theirs. A
DfT» one way system was forced upon the in the late 60's and this probably had the biggest effect on Reading's trolleys. The second reason was the single supplier in the U.K of the overhead equipment lost their biggest customer, London, and consequently stopped manufacturing the equipment. Reading and several other operators of trolleys did get quotes from abroad for the equipment. Reading's system was lost on one vote within the council and I do think, had it have made it into the mid 70's it would probably exist today (and be much larger).You could suggest that the much loved Routemaster bus in London was what killed off trolleybuses in the U.K.
Reading's two most popular bus routes were trolley routes and neither have changed route since the demise of trolleys save for the noted one way sections in the town centre, so why is greater flexibility necessary with public transport?
As far as nostalgia is concerned, my opinion is not driven by it, I was born long after the trolleybuses disappeared in Reading but I drove Reading's buses for twenty years and it has always struck me as an enormous piece of short term thinking and budgeting burning all that diesel, and now
CNG▸ , for 50 years on routes that don't change. I've ridden on the modern trolley system in Solingen, Germany and it basically operates as a tramway and tramways are always more popular to the travelling public than the diesel OPO bus. One of the problems this country has is not being willing to use tried and tested infrastructure for new projects (third rail included here) and continually waiting for the latest thing to come along, it's why nothing ends up standardised, or changing in areas like urban public transport. The nation also find it hard to use what worked in the first place and continually question the cost of anything at a point in time, rather than over fifty years, and look to renew, update and clear out the old. It's why we're in this position currently with public transport and it's why we have absolutely no chance of meeting any climate targets set. It's worth noting that the deep level tubes in London are old technology but still enormously necessary and do the job and the internal combustion engine is just as old as electric trams and trolleybuses. It is also worth noting that the subject of this very forum is fixed infrastructure that's very popular, so popular that people have based their lives around it.
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