Trams provided a wonderful service in Brighton from the start of the last century until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Older people will remember them clanking and groaning through the streets as they carried millions of people each year. Now some people are hoping they will be restored to the streets of the town following the successful launch of a new tramway system only 40 miles away at Croydon.

There have been other modern tram systems in the North in cities such as Manchester but this is the first fairly close at hand. The Croydon system is impressive and extensive. The trams are quiet, pleasant and frequent. They link up with the main railway system and they will make a tremendous improvement to public transport in this congested and successful town.

But I doubt if they will ever come back in Brighton. It is hard to imagine anyone having the political will, let alone the cash, to put a new system into place. There would also be opposition from local bus companies who already run one of the best services in the South within the conurbation.

Trams can only run where there are plenty of people to use them which makes Brighton the only possible town in Sussex. They would never be viable going into the suburbs and any network would have to be very much along the lines of the one established almost a century ago.

They would take up space currently used by buses, cars, bikes and even pedestrians. Now that Brighton and Hove has expanded, many journeys would involve transferring from a tram on to a bus at some point which would not be convenient.

The cost would be enormous. Brighton and Hove councillors visited the French city of Rouen a few years ago to look at their spanking new system which also converts into a metro close to the centre. But when they heard the cost was well over £300 million, no one knew where to find the money.

Bus companies reckon that for this kind of investment they would be able as an alternative to provide a door-to-door service for many people. The French are used to subsidising their public transport. We appear to have largely given up the idea.

Not long ago, experiments took place with a mini tram in New Road, Brighton. It went through its paces well and would be a much cheaper system to install but it is hard to imagine such a system being sufficiently robust to deal with the hills, gales, vandalism and the volume of passengers in Brighton.

It is a great pity that the old tramway system was ever dismantled and that the successor trolleybuses went the same way in 1961. Modern trams are a far cry from the creaking giants of the past. They are smooth, silent, sleek and sophisticated. But they still have the tremendous advantage of being able to carry vast numbers of people quickly.

I would love to see a succession of trams powering up Elm Grove carrying people to the racecourse as they did so effectively in the past. It would be lovely to see the routes radiating out from the Old Steine. But sadly I do not think it will ever happen and enthusiasts will have to nip over to Croydon instead.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.