London Transport Executive

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The London Transport Executive ( LTE ) was a transport authority that was responsible for local public transport in and around London from 1948 to 1962 . Like all traffic authorities in the years 1933 to 2000 it appeared under the brand name London Transport .

history

Under the Clement Attlee Government's Transport Act 1947 , the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) was dissolved on January 1, 1948 and transformed into the London Transport Executive. LTE was a subsidiary of the British Transport Commission, which was created on the same day . Thus nationalization actually took place, albeit with a certain autonomy. Another branch of the British Transport Commission was the Railway Executive (which operated as British Railways ). This meant that for the first and only time, all public transport in the London metropolitan area was under the control of a single government agency.

The first thing to do was to eliminate the consequences of the Second World War . Damage to the infrastructure had to be repaired and the outdated vehicles replaced or modernized. LTE also oversaw the completion of the extension of the Central Line , which had been part of the New Works Program decided in 1935 but had been delayed due to the war. Another important project was the electrification of the outer sections of the Central Line (1957) and the Metropolitan Line (1961). The AEC Regent  III (RT) bus series, introduced as early as 1939 , whose production had to be stopped after 150 copies due to the war, was produced in an improved form by the thousands for London. By 1952, the last London tram lines were replaced by bus routes. The next step was to replace the numerous trolleybuses that were considered obsolete with diesel buses, which continued until 1962. In addition, a new series of buses was created in 1954, the now famous Routemaster . Its series production began in 1959 in various versions.

In the late 1950s, the British Transport Commission was in serious financial trouble. It was criticized as an excessively bureaucratic organization that was nevertheless not able to coordinate tariffs and timetables. Harold Macmillan's government dissolved the British Transport Commission on December 31, 1962 with the Transport Act 1962 . The LTE was replaced by the London Transport Board (LTB), which was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Transport.

London Transport Executive was also the name of the transport authority that was under the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1970 to 1984 .

literature

  • John R. Day, John Reed: The Story of London's Underground . 10th edition. Capital Transport, Harrow 2008. ISBN 978-1-85414-316-7
  • TC Barker, Michael Robbins: A History of London Transport - the Twentieth Century to 1970 . George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1974
  • Oliver Green, John Reed: The London Transport Golden Jubilee Book (1933–1983) . The Daily Telegraph, London 1983, ISBN 0-901684-96-1 (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Day, Reed: The Story of London's Underground. P. 150.
  2. ^ BWC Cooke: The Why and the Wherefore: London Transport Board . In: Tothill Press (Ed.): Railway Magazine . 110, No. 761, Westminster, September 1964, p. 739.
  3. ^ Michael R. Bonavia: British Rail: The First 25 Years . David & Charles, Newton Abbott 1981, ISBN 0-7153-8002-8 , p. 14
  4. ^ Bonavia: British Rail: The First 25 Years . P. 194
  5. ^ Day, Reed: The Story of London's Underground . P. 162