Bradford 028 - Bedford Tower Wagon  

(KUG 577 )

Keighley 5 - Straker-Clough Trackless  

( From CoBMDC ) - ( WT 7101 )

Was numbered 037 originally then later renumbered to 028

WT 7101 : Straker-Clough Brush

H26/24RO 1924

 Although trolleybuses ran in Keighley for a relatively short period from 1913 to 1932, during that time there were two separate and quite different systems. The original 1913 installation comprised three separate routes acting as extensions to the tramway system - Ingrow to Oxenhope, Keighley to Oakworth, Utley to Sutton. These routes used the unsuccessful Cedes-Stoll system, whereby 4-wheeled trolleys ran on top of a pair of overhead wires and were towed by a cable connected to the trolleybus itself. On single track installations such as Keighley, this meant that trolleybuses had to stop and exchange trolleys when they met. For various reasons - the pioneering nature of the system and the difficulty of obtaining spares after the outbreak of the Great War (Cedes had Austrian origins) - the system operated intermittently and finally expired in 1921.

Trolleybuses, this time of a conventional nature, returned to the streets of Keighley in 1924, replacing trams on the Utley, Stockbridge and Ingrow routes and using double and single-deck vehicles supplied by Straker-Clough with Brush, and in a few cases second-hand Dodson bodies. The Ingrow - Cross Roads section continued briefly to use the Cedes-Stoll overhead with one of the Strakers specially adapted. The new trolleybus system, however, proved to be short-lived. Faced with growing competition from inter-urban bus operators, the last trolleybus ran in August 1932, a month before Keighley Corporation's services - they also ran buses - were absorbed into the joint Keighley West Yorkshire company.

Many of the relatively new trolleybuses found further use as sheds, stores and caravans in and around Keighley and the Dales. 5 was itself discovered serving as a caravan in the Grassington area. From there it was rescued by local transport historian J.S.King and presented to Keighley Corporation. It has been conserved as a static exhibit and for a time was on display at the Victoria Hall and later in the Peter Black Collection. It has been owned by Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council since local government reorganisation in 1974 absorbed Keighley and has been in store at Bradford Industrial Museum since 1994.

From early 2000 it has been placed into the custodianship of Keighley Bus Museum Trust, enabling it to return to its home town once more for display. It is believed to be the world's oldest surviving double-deck trolleybus.