Buttons
Buttons are listed alphabetically in five separate
categories. To go to a particular entry, click on the
corresponding tab at the top of the page and then on the
tramway company title in the list.
Each individual button entry consists of:
- a potted history (chronology) of the tramway company
- a description of the button
- a list of known materials (eg, nickel, brass, chrome etc)
- a reference to Alan R Williams' excellent 'Button Lines'
articles (Issue/Button Number)
- an image (or more if there were different types or
variants of one type)
If you can't find a particular button, this may of course
mean that the company in question never issued 'marked'
buttons, however, it may also be that it is one of the
missing ones I'm looking for, a completely 'unknown'
button, or more complicated still, a button from one of the
companies owned by bigger combines such as British Electric
Traction (the situation here is still very unclear)! Please
note that I am always happy to add buttons from others'
collections, as long as people can provide me with a decent
quality image (jpeg, tiff etc). Of course, if you have a
button spare and would be willing to sell it to me, then
even better
Acknowledgements
I should confess now to being a long-time collector of
British railway company buttons, with only a very recent
interest in tramway buttons. To this end I'd like to thank
Roger Revell for helping me with my initial fumblings in
the field (and for selling me several buttons!) and Rex
Butler and Graham Prescott for bringing Alan Williams'
excellent 'Button Lines' articles to my attention.
Particular thanks go to Graham, Gary Bayfield, John Burford
and Nick Thurlow for providing me with numerous photos of
buttons from their extensive collections.