City icons past and present?

[Ladder23]

I visited New York City in the early 2000's when the Ford crown Victoria was dominating both taxi and the police department. Now they're no longer in use and haven't been for quite some time I see due to age/ licensing and so on.

Similar to the old London Route master I feel that these were huge identity's of the cities, and solely missed!

What else from other cities around the world do you feel can relate to this which have gone, or soon to be going?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Hindustan Ambassador. India's quintessential taxi. The car's origin is the 1956-1959 Morris Oxford.
When I travelled around South India, early 2005, I hired an Ambassador, plus driver, for a day - I still recall the sumptuously padded seat cushions, the pillar-mounted fan and a sense of "it's better to travel, than to arrive".

 

[GusB]

I visited New York City in the early 2000's when the Ford crown Victoria was dominating both taxi and the police department. Now they're no longer in use and haven't been for quite some time I see due to age/ licensing and so on.

Similar to the old London Route master I feel that these were huge identity's of the cities, and solely missed!

What else from other cities around the world do you feel can relate to this which have gone, or soon to be going?

The FX4/Fairway taxi and, to an extent, its TX successors; there will be some TX around for a while, provided they comply with the relevant emissions legislation, but the newest Fairways will be over 25 years old now. If there are still any on the go (as taxis), I'd be surprised!

 

[Springs Branch]

What else from other cities around the world do you feel can relate to this which have gone, or soon to be going?

I think Melbourne's W-class trams fall into this category.

Previously, large numbers could be found clattering and rumbling around various parts of the city and suburbs.

They were gradually replaced by more modern designs of tram over the years, with the last handful of 'proper' revenue-earning services losing their W-class cars around 2013 (IIRC).

A dozen or so refurbished and modernised cars (dubbed W8s) are still in daily use on the tourist-oriented City Circle around the Melbourne CBD - a longer-lasting, more successful version of London's half-hearted attempt to retain Routemasters on its two heritage routes. AFAIK the remaining W8s have a secure future on the City Circle for a few years yet.

 

[32475]

Those wonderful green single decker Paris autobuses with the open verandah on the back. They were so elegant.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Does the city of Kingston-upon-Hull still have many funny-coloured phone boxes?

 

[Iskra]

San Francisco cable cars and trams/street cars are iconic in my opinion.

The tube/underground roundel are pretty world-renowned too.

 

[Ladder23]

San Francisco cable cars and trams/street cars are iconic in my opinion.

The tube/underground roundel are pretty world-renowned too.

I would strongly agree too!

 

[alex397]

In Bruxelles, the PCC trams. I like the design, and I think the STIB/MIVB livery is classy, and suits these trams well. Not exactly sure if they are seen as iconic or not amongst locals or tourists though?
While they have been refurbished, they are not low floor and are quite inaccessible. I’m surprised that a capital city in Western Europe still has such a large fleet of these in service (routes 18, 39, 44, 51, 97). Seeing as they have no low-floor variants, I can’t imagine they be around for much longer. Does anyone know if their days are numbered?

While the Tatra T3 (and similar types) are iconic across the former Eastern Bloc, they are obviously very closely related to Prague, seeing as they were built there. They are obviously held in high regard seeing as semi-preserved examples are allocated to route 23. There are a huge amount of these still in service, many of which have been rebuilt with low floor sections. I imagine they’ll be in Prague for a long time yet (so probably doesn’t fit the criteria for here) Especially as they are apparently cheap to run and easy to maintain

 

[JD2168]

Blackpool had it’s old Trams, both double & single deck, since replacement by the Bombardier versions they are only available on heritage & lights tours.

Sheffield had it’s Twin cooling towers at Meadowhall next to the Tinsley Viaduct until they were demolished in the early 2000’s & also in South Yorkshire the Dennis Dominator buses which were very rarely seen outside of the area.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Sprague Stock on the Paris Metro.

 

[Springs Branch]

Another in the tramcar / metro camp . . .

• orange-painted, classic Peter Witt trams in Milan.

I wonder if you can count the sound of certain public transport vehicles as iconic?

In Manchester city centre, even a street or two away from the Metrolink lines, you will often hear the regular, characteristic toot of the Metrolink trams in the background - which in my mind has now become an indication "you're in Manchester".

San Francisco cable cars and trams/street cars are iconic in my opinion.

SF Cable Cars also have their characteristic 'musical' bells (apparently there's an annual bell-ringing competition for the Muni gripmen).

Several Hollywood movies or US TV productions with plots ostensibly set in San Francisco have helpfully added regular background street-noise of ringing Cable Car bells "just so you know it's meant to be San Francisco". Of course, there's a very limited number of streets traversed by the cable car lines, so it's quite contrived.
(My own SF 'background music' is the much more commonplace clatter of trolley bus skids passing over junctions in the overhead)

 

[Strathclyder]

What else from other cities around the world do you feel can relate to this which have gone, or soon to be going?

For Glasgow:

The Leyland Atlantean, known far more commonly in the city as the LA. Glasgow Corporation and it's various successors ordered and operated over 1,400 examples for over 40 years, the first one arriving when the city still had a sizable tram network. Very much the second 'Glasgow Standard' which evolved as the first one did over it's production lifespan.

The Class 303s/311s aka the 'Glasgow Blue Trains': the face of modern train travel in the 1960s in the Glasgow/Strathclyde region and an enduring symbol of the city's transport heritage, even 21 years after the last sets were withdrawn. The plethora of sounds they emitted, the creaks and groans, the clattering Gresley bogies... I could go on and on.

The tram network, as primarily represented by the Standards, Coronations & Cunarders (the last of which also represent the final evolution of full-size double-deck trams in this country). I suspect it's hard to imagine for a young Glaswegian of today that this city had any trams at all, let alone the size of the network at it's peak, given how little of it survives beyond a handful of preserved trams at the Riverside Museum.

And the original Glasgow Subway rolling stock. Hopelessly out of date by the late 50s and emblematic of the city's lack of investment by the mid-70s they may be in the eyes of some, but they had a character all their own and for many Glaswegians growing up in that time, the definitive iteration of the system.

I visited New York City in the early 2000's when the Ford crown Victoria was dominating both taxi and the police department. Now they're no longer in use and haven't been for quite some time I see due to age/ licensing and so on.

Before the Crown Vic, it was the Checker Marathon that filled the role of New York's taxi on the world stage. To me, the latter embodies New York even more than the Crown Vic did. Seeing a pic of one with the pre-September 2001 Lower Manhattan skyline as part of the backdrop certainly hits different now. Production ceased in 1982 and the last example was retired from NY service in July 1999.

 

[GatwickDepress]

Toronto's Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) streetcars - and their articulated variant - are still considered an iconic part of the city and appear in plenty of contemporary art and products, despite being formally retired from service in 2019. I'm glad I got to ride on them before they finished, but the single cars were always absolutely rammed and the smell of the heating was very reminiscent of the old slam door stock here in Blighty.

I visited New York City in the early 2000's when the Ford crown Victoria was dominating both taxi and the police department. Now they're no longer in use and haven't been for quite some time I see due to age/ licensing and so on.

Similar to the old London Route master I feel that these were huge identity's of the cities, and solely missed!

What else from other cities around the world do you feel can relate to this which have gone, or soon to be going?

Believe the New York Sheriff's Office may still have a few Crown Vics around - they tend to keep older equipment for longer as they're much less intensively used than the various NYPD divisions, although I think the NYPD Auxiliary also kept a few until just after COVID.

 

[Busaholic]

Does anyone miss Paris's pissoirs? I used to reckon their aroma was one of the main reasons that so many Gauloises were smoked in an attempt to avoid it.

 

[Springs Branch]

For Glasgow:

The tram network . . . . I suspect it's hard to imagine for a young Glaswegian of today that this city had any trams at all, let alone the size of the network at it's peak, given how little of it survives . . . .

One legacy of the trams was that for many years after their demise, a large proportion of Glasgow's street lamps remained bolted onto redundant, green-painted former tramway traction poles.

Bit of a niche iconic feature of the city's streetscape - possible only registered by aficionados of this sort of thing - but I always noticed this during visits to Glasgow in the 1970s, and still today when trawling through old photos of GCT/GGPTE buses on the internet. Wonder it there are any survivors in the age of LED street lighting?

 

[AY1975]

Does the city of Kingston-upon-Hull still have many funny-coloured phone boxes?

Yes it does.

For Glasgow:

The Leyland Atlantean, known far more commonly in the city as the LA. Glasgow Corporation and it's various successors ordered and operated over 1,400 examples for over 40 years, the first one arriving when the city still had a sizable tram network. Very much the second 'Glasgow Standard' which evolved as the first one did over it's production lifespan.

And for Nottingham, the distinctive bespoke design of Northern Counties bodied Leyland Atlantean and and the East Lancashire bodied Volvo B10M for Nottingham City Transport.

And for Manchester, the Northern Counties bodied Atlanteans with "Greater Manchester Standard" bodies.

See also this thread from 2021 on bus operators with bespoke vehicle designs: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-than-lt-with-bespoke-vehicle-designs.215840/

Does anyone miss Paris's pissoirs? I used to reckon their aroma was one of the main reasons that so many Gauloises were smoked in an attempt to avoid it.

According to Wikipedia there is one still in situ and open for use in Paris, on the Boulevard Arago, which I presume has been preserved as a historic relic.

 

[westv]

Does the city of Kingston-upon-Hull still have many funny-coloured phone boxes?

Cream isn't that funny a colour.

 

[Bevan Price]

Municipal bus operators. Now mostly disappeared. Their own distinctive liveries and types, and almost all far better than their "corporate" successors.

 

[HullRailMan]

Does the city of Kingston-upon-Hull still have many funny-coloured phone boxes?

Yes, our phone boxes are cream and can be found both in and beyond the city boundary across the 01482 phone code area. Not sure why that makes them “funny-coloured”.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Yes, our phone boxes are cream and can be found both in and beyond the city boundary across the 01482 phone code area. Not sure why that makes them “funny-coloured”.

They were different in Hull to the majority of the rest of the country as they are / were run by KCom / Kingston Communications, not BT, although, if memory serves, there are, or certainly used to be, one or more (non-red) green-coloured 'K6' type BT phone box(es) at Exceat, close by to the South Downs / Seven Sisters coast (between Newhaven and Eastbourne in East Sussex).