Hongkong Tramways

Description

A History of Hongkong Tramways Limited and predecessor companies.

The original ‘Hongkong Tramways’ book by Peter Atkinson and Alan Williams was published by the LRTL (now the LRTA) in 1970 but has been out of print and even hard to obtain second-hand for decades. Now, 47 years later, an overdue but welcome, larger and updated edition has appeared, thanks to the persistence and determination of new authors John Prentice and Joseph Tse Yiu-hon. Most of the original text is unchanged and all of the original illustrations have been re-used, although there were relatively few to start with. The bulk of this new edition adds to the story from 1970 to 2016/2017 but, as the new authors say, keeping up-to-date is like trying to hit a moving target. The main update is the addition of hundreds more photographs, including many older images from the earlier days of the tramway, which add greatly to the historical content. As far as the trams themselves are concerned, the book describes in considerable detail how the fleet has been rebodied and modernised without losing all of the old character of this unique British-style tramway. The routes are essentially the same but the areas and streets through which they run have changed out of all recognition for those that knew Hong Kong in the 1970s or even earlier. This is brought home in many of the new pictures. Naturally, the real value in this book is the more recent history and development of the tramway since 1970.

216 pages, over 550 photographs, plus maps, drawings and diagrams.