|
The March meeting welcomed back Dave and his brother Chris Warren from Hove with a slide presentation of thier car trip to Spain way back in the early seventies. I have to admit I was not sure of their subject matter but it is usually entertaining to say the very least.
In these early days of the seventies era this would be quite an adventure compared with today's jetting around the globe plus the fact that Spain was still a dictatorship with all the usual restrictions on photography.
We started off with the ferry across the English Channel to France and then it was a slow drive through the country where we would sample some home grown French buses which I have to admit where never my favourites except when they had sticks on their roofs! For me the interest started when we crossed the Spanish border with a look at light rail and of course the proliferation of trolleybuses. As it happens there was a decree by the government in or about 1973 all electric traction will go.
This prompted me to go with a colleague to Spain to film the trolleybuses. We were taken through the northern reaches of Spain and into Portugal where we saw the trolleybuses of Braga, Coimbra and Porto along with the trams of Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra. All these bar Lisbon have still to be discovered by me so it was especially nice to see these cities. Braga was interesting for the fleet of buses and trolleybuses were immaculate. Quite bizarrely the whole fleet and infrastructure was purchased from Heilbronn in the then Western Germany.
Whilst I imagine this would not please every member I was glued to the screen and the presentation was over all too soon. Before any member asks I honestly did not know what was to come! Cannot help thinking that this was compiled with me in mind - never mind!
John Bishop
|