page_title: Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles
section_title: Trolleybuses
hierarchical_section_title: Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles / Products / Trolleybuses
caption_attribution_description: Bradford&#39;s last Trolleybus at Thornbury Depot
context_page_description: Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles was a commercial vehicle manufacturing offshoot of the Wolverhampton based Sunbeam Motor Car Company when it was a subsidiary of S T D Motors Limited. Sunbeam had always made ambulances on modified Sunbeam car chassis. S T D Motors chose to enter the large commercial vehicle market in the late 1920s, and once established they made petrol and diesel buses and electrically powered trolleybuses and milk floats. Commercial Vehicles became a separate department of Sunbeam in 1931.
  Ownership switched from S T D Motors to Rootes Securities in mid-1935, and later that year their Karrier trolleybus designs were added to Sunbeam production lines. In 1946 J. Brockhouse and Co of West Bromwich bought Sunbeam but in September 1948 sold the trolleybus part of the business to Guy Motors. In the early 1950s the amalgamated Sunbeam, Karrier and Guy trolleybus operation was the largest in Britain and possibly the world. In 1954 Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles moved within Wolverhampton from the Moorfield Works in Blakenhall to new extensions at Guy Motors Fallings Park.
context_section_description: The first trolleybus built by Sunbeam entered service on the Wolverhampton system in 1931. It was a model MS2 with bodywork by Weymann, and carried the fleet number 95. It had three axles and could carry 61 passengers. The 1930s saw a fairly rapid expansion in the number of trolleybuses which were operating in Britain. There were 400 such vehicles on the roads in early 1931, but the following years saw many tramway systems replaced by trolleybuses. Bournemouth Corporation Tramways began that process in 1933, when they placed an order for 103 double-deck vehicles with Sunbeam, which were fitted with electrical equipment manufactured by British Thompson Houston (BTH) of Rugby.
  Sunbeam exported their trolleybuses to a number of countries. In South Africa, Cape Town Tramways operated a fleet, where all of the 3-axle buses were bought from Sunbeam. An initial order for 60 was placed in November 1937, and the vehicles were fitted with BTH electrical equipment while the regenerative rheostatic braking system was produced by Ransomes. Bodywork was of all metal construction, and was made by Metro Cammell Weymann. 11 more vehicles were ordered in 1939. The Cape Town network ran into the foothills of Table Mountain, requiring them to negotiate long gradients, but they performed well. One of the worst routes in this respect rose 352 feet (107 m) in 1 mile (1.6 km), with a maximum gradient of 1 in 8 (12.5 per cent).
  Following trials with two Swiss-built trolleybuses, Coimbra in Portugal ordered six Sunbeams in 1950, with a view to replacing the tram system if they proved successful. The vehicles supplied were based on Sunbeam's MF2B model, with two axles and a wheelbase of 16.25 feet (4.95 m). They were fitted with single deck bodywork by Park Royal Vehicles, with 40 seats and room for 35 standing passengers. In order to enable them to be operated by just the driver, they included an overhang of 8.25 feet (2.51 m) beyond the front axle, allowing the entrance door to be mounted just behind the windscreen, so that payment could be made to the driver when entering the vehicle. To cope with the steep gradients of the Coimbra system, they were fitted with 125 horsepower (93 kW) 600-volt motors, and each trolleybus carried two compressors, normally designed to work together, but each capable of maintaining the air supply for braking and door operation if one should fail.
  The expanding trolleybus network in Perth, Western Australia, placed an order for 50 F4 vehicles in 1950/51. These were shipped to Australia as chassis, with bodywork provided on arrival. Ten of the trolleybuses carried bodies by Commonwealth Engineering of Sydney, while the remaining 40 were bodied more locally, by the bus manufacturer Boltons of West Perth. Boltons and Commonwealth Engineering formed a close working relationship during this period, with Boltons effectively working as a sub-contractor. All of the vehicles had 2-axles, with an entrance in the centre of the vehicle.
  A variety of configurations was available and Hull Corporation trialled a Roe bodied Sunbeam in February 1953, which had a separate entrance and exit, and twin staircases. This reduced the seating capacity to 54, but the design, which was specified by the Transport Manager Mr G H Pulfrey, was well-received, and an order for a further 15 such vehicles was placed in April 1953. Electrical equipment was by Metropolitan-Vickers.
  Many early British trolleybuses were of 3-axle design, partly because of legislation which restricted the length of 2-axle designs and partly because of the difficulty of designing a back axle which could cope with the torque supplied by an electric motor. It took until 1954 for official attitudes to change, when Walsall gained permission to run 30-foot (9.1 m) long 2-axle trolleybuses, and it was the Sunbeam Trolleybus Company, by then owned by Guy, which built them. They were officially model F4A, and 15 of them were ordered. Bodywork was built by Willowbrook, later acquired by Duple Coachbuilders, and the vehicles could seat 70 passengers. They were of a lightweight desig
caption: Bradford Sunbeam F4
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