On Top o't' Job

"On Top o't' Job", by Chris Thornburn, is a record of life on the Leeds City trams in the mid-1950s when Chris was a student Conductor.

During the summer vacation periods of 1955, 1956, and 1957, Chris Thornburn worked as a student conductor on the Leeds City Transport tram system. What makes this experience historically significant is that he witnessed the inexorable decline and rundown of the Leeds trams during the middle three years of their abandonment, which ended at the final closure on 7th November 1959, when he bade farewell to several of his former colleagues.

This book is a comprehensive development of his experiences. Its focus is the crew who operated the trams: not merely what they did, but how it was done. Running to 206 pages with a full index, it represents what appears to be the only detailed first-person account of working as a conductor during the closure period of a British provincial tramway system.