The Yorkshire Traction Company Limited was formed in 1902 and was originally called The Barnsley & District Electric Traction Company Limited. It operated trams around the Barnsley locality until around 1930. In 1928, prior to the trams being withdrawn, the company title changed from the Barnsley & District Traction Company Limited (the 'electric' part of the name being dropped some years earlier).
Wombwell depot opened in 1923 and was previously a tram and trolleybus depot before becoming a bus depot. Locally it was known as "Car Barns".
'Tracky' - as the company became affectionately referred to - was sold in 1986 by the then Tory Government in 1986 to a management team lead by Frank Carter. Until selling the business to Stagecoach on 14 December 2005, Carter expanded the business by purchasing other operators including:
Barnsley & District ( which was formed in July 1990 when Traction bought the bus business of Tom Jowitt Travel of Tankersley)
Yorkshire Terrier
Andrews (Sheffield) Ltd
Lincolnshire RoadCar Company
Lincoln City Transport
South Riding
Strathtay
Methans
Yorkshire Traction bus depot in Barnsley (head office) and its subsidiaries were owned by The Traction Group, which was owned by Frank Carter, together with small shares owned by a Carter Family Trust and employees who worked for the company when it underwent privatisation.
In December 1999, bus drivers, engineers and clerical staff united on the picket lines in their battle over pay with Barnsley based Yorkshire Traction buses. Around 567 workers across west and south Yorkshire joined in the one day official strike. Workers had rejected his latest 2.7 percent pay offer by 474 to 83 votes and had voted by six to one to strike.
In 1994 the workers held a ballot to strike over pay. The boss of Yorkshire Traction, Frank Carter, sent letters to each worker threatening to sack them if they took action. "Unfortunately it frightened staff enough to withdraw the action," said David Levitt, the branch chair of the workers' TGWU union at the time.
There were picket lines across depots in Barnsley, Wombwell Huddersfield, Doncaster and Rawmarsh. The picket line at Shafton, near Barnsley was close to the Grimethorpe pit that shut under the Tories' mass pit closure plan of 1992. A number of those sacked miners then went to work on the buses for yorkshire traction.
One of them said, "Carter can get away with paying low wages because there is high unemployment in the area. He divides everybody with the pay rates. This is the first time everybody's been united. We're all just fed up with the conditions."
Yorkshire Traction management used managers and inspectors to take out around 15 buses from the Barnsley depot. This enraged the 40 picketers there, who stood in front of each bus and shouted, "Scab!" Several eggs were thrown at windscreens by the picketers.
The drivers on the lowest rate were drivers contracted by Yorkshire Traction to drive long haul journeys for National Express coaches. They got as little as £3.70 an hour basic pay - only just above the minimum wage. Another driver said, "I get £138 for 38 hours flat. I've got to put in six days a week to get a decent wage."
The solid strike cost Carter £120,000 for each strike day as services across west and south Yorkshire were hit.
Since privatisation Carter built up a lucrative bus empire, Carter tried to intimidate the strikers by attempting to victimise three picketers at Yorkshire Traction's Rawmarsh depot. The best way for the union leadership to fight any attack on the strikers is to step up the action.
Wombwell depot's last day of operation was 28th July 2000. The majority of drivers transferred to either Rawmarsh or Barnsley depots, although 1 driver went to Doncaster depot and 2 drivers went to Shafton depot. At the time when Wombwell shut there was approximately 100 staff employed there including drivers, fitters, clerical staff and canteen staff. No drivers or fitters were made redundant when the depot closed, only clericaql staff and canteen staff. The canteen staff were made redundant as they were not actually employed by yorkshire traction they were paid for by the depot's sports and social club.
The vehicles of which there were approximately 30 left and routes were shared out between Doncaster, Rawmarsh and Barnsley depots.
Source of information: - Stephen Greaves (Foxydebs Dad) - ex ytc driver of 25 years.
