The history of public transport in Lancaster and Morecambe is an interesting one. Initially there were company operated horse drawn tramway systems and following takeover by the Corporation, horse drawn trams remained in Morecambe until 1925, making it the last town on mainland Britain to operate such services. The first petrol operated trams entered service in Heysham. Lancaster's first buses were battery operated and although it was claimed that they were 'not very good on hills', they remained in service for around 12 years. Both had their own municipal transport systems and but unusually there was no joint working between them, the service between the two towns being operated by Ribble Motor Services. With local government reorganisation in 1974, Lancaster and Morecambe, together with a number of rural areas, were combined to form an enlarged City of Lancaster. Later the area was taken over by Stagecoach, initially becoming part of its Ribble subsidiary later to become part of Cumberland Motor Services.