The Association's Constitution, para. 2.1, says -

The Association shall be a non-profitmaking and financially - and politically - independent body, with the principal object of advocating and otherwise supporting the retention, extension and development of efficient public transport, and especially of light rail transit systems and tramways. The secondary objects shall be to publish a monthly magazine (which shall be the official organ of the Association) and other periodicals and books dealing with the principal object, and with the historical aspects of such systems, and to collate and maintain an archive and library devoted to all facets of such systems."

As you can see from its Constitution, the LRTA is primarily concerned with present day public transport and its development and improvement through the use of light rail transit and tramways wherever appropriate and possible. As you will discover from reading Geoffrey Claydon's history of the LRTA (Click here to see), in the early days of the LRTA there was a division between those who were interested in trams as history and those who saw the role of the Association as being about the present and future. Nowadays, both camps are well catered for - there is the TMS - Tramways Museum Society and the National Tramways Museum doing excellent work in preserving both the trams themselves and information and history of the old tramways. The LRTA's own journal Tramways & Urban Transit carries news and articles and other information about museum and heritage matters and also publishes as a quarterly companion journal Tramway Review.
 

BIRMINGHAM	Although, inevitably, the principal purpose of this website is the public transport of today and tomorrow, we intend through this page and it's sub-pages to present brief histories of the many U.K. tramways. Where appropriate, this will also include information on the heritage front.  For starters, you can select a region and you will see a list of the tramways which existed in that area.	MERSEY
EAST ANGLIA		MIDLANDS
IRELAND		NORTH EAST
I.O.M.		SCOTLAND
KENT/Sth COAST		SOUTH WEST
LANCASHIRE		WALES
LONDON		YORKSHIRE

With the inclusion of the remainder of the regions in the above table our history/heritage page editor Alan Jobson is standing down due to other committments. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan for his efforts in getting these pages up & running. If you have any comments or ideas or wish to volunteer to take over the maintenance of the History/Heritage pages please click here to contact me - Brian Lomas LRTA Webmaster.