Manors Power Station

Tramway Generating Station
Manors Power Station in 2009
Location of Manors Power Station
Official name	Manors Power Station
Country	England
Location	Tyne and Wear, North East England
Coordinates	54°58′16″N 1°36′22″W / 54.971°N 1.606°W / 54.971; -1.606Coordinates: 54°58′16″N 1°36′22″W / 54.971°N 1.606°W / 54.971; -1.606
Commission date	1901
Decommission date	1936
Operator(s)	Newcastle Corporation
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Coal
grid reference NZ253642

Manors Power Station or the Tramways Generating Station is a former coal-fired power station located in the Manors district of the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear in North East England. The station's turbine hall and other remaining buildings are Grade II listed.

The station was commissioned by the Newcastle Corporation to supply electricity to the Newcastle Corporation Tramways system, that was in the process of electrification, and to contain the organisation's offices. Construction of the station was initially delayed by a bricklayer's strike, but laying of the building's foundations commenced on 14 January 1900. The construction of the station was completed in 1904.

The station generated electricity until 1936. The origins of this action dated from the 1920s. A Parliamentary report by Lord Weir led to The Electricity (Supply) Act 1926 (repealed 1989), which created the Central Electricity Board and the National Grid operating at 132 kV (50 Hz). Manors Power Station was deemed too small in generating capacity and its associated plant operated at 40 Hz, thus it suffered the same fate of many other municipal power stations and ceased generation.

However, it was still retained for electrical function. The introduction of the Newcastle Corporation's trolleybus system, together with the commissioning of new electrically-driven cranes on the Corporation-owned Newcastle Quayside in the 1930s, turned the Manors site into the central control point for the many suburban substations used by the trolleybuses. These substations took the 6 kV AC distributed from Manors and transformed and rectified this to the 550 V DC used by the trolleybuses and rapidly diminishing tram fleet. Manors itself became a substation and supplied the city centre area with the DC power for the trolleybuses and Quayside cranes. The electrically-operated lifts used on the Tyne Bridge were supplied by Manors station.