The old picture this week shows Durban’s bus terminus on Monty Naicker (Pine) Street. It was originally part of the City’s Point Railway line, but created after the railway closed in 1936 and sits adjacent Durban Station.
The street in the foreground is Walnut Street and judging by the vehicles it was probably taken in the decade after World War 2.
Durban has a long history of public transport. According to Kevan Mardon on Facts About Durban, the first public transport was a coach service between Durban and Pietermaritzburg which was started by John Dare in 1860. The Dale brothers started a horse coach service in the CBD in 1870 and in 1880 horse-drawn double-decker trams were introduced by Ramsay Collins.
In 1899, the Durban Municipality bought out the private Durban Borough Tramways Company for £114 000. Since then the city has seen electric trams, electric trolley buses, and petrol and diesel single and double-decker buses.
Electric Trams were introduced on 1 May 1902 and the last tram, affectionately known as Old Faithful, ran in Durban on August 2, 1949.
July 1919 saw the introduction by Indian entrepreneurs of truck buses which were trucks converted to carry passengers. The first truck bus was apparently owned by Mr Siddhoo and operated between Riverside and the centre of town. A second truck bus belonging to Mr Marimuthu was operating between Clairwood and town. The truck buses were the forerunners of the more than 250 bus lines and more than 450 buses which provided a valuable service to the community.
Durban Transport received its single-decker Thornycroft petrol-engined buses in 1925, and in 1934 its first Dennis diesel single decker bus and in 1938, its first diesel-powered Daimler double-decker bus. The last double-decker bus ran on 30 April 1967.
The Transport Department decided that its trams were getting old and electric trolley buses were modern and flexible alternative. Locals named the new buses Silent Death because they moved so silently that people couldn't hear them coming, unlike the clanging trams.
A feature of Durban's trolley buses was that they were all equipped with fishing rod racks at the back. The last trolley bus, a Sunbeam (NDC 2040), left the streets on 11 April 1968.
The busses and trams belonging to Durban Transport had always been racially segregated with the front seats reserved for whites and blacks being allowed to use the ones in the rear.
The first municipal bus service serving a black area (Chesterville) was introduced in 1943 and in 1955, Durban Transport inaugurated a Green Line service which served mainly black residential areas to complement the Blue Line service which operated mostly in the white areas. The Green Line buses became known as Green Mambas. All apartheid on Durban's busses was abolished in 1986.
In 1987 Durban Transport introduced its Mynah Bus service with 72 Mercedes Benz 21-seater buses. In terms of the size of its bus fleet Durban Transport was the largest municipal operator in South Africa. It was sold to the Remant (Pty) Ltd and Alton Coach Africa Consortium on 1 June 2003 for R70-million.