Tramways

Tramways (Old Swed. tram, 'log, wooden sledge'). In the article on Railways (q.v.) the early application of rails for purposes of locomotion was referred to. From very early times stone and wood had been used to lessen friction in the traction of heavy weights at quarries and collieries. The first use recorded of iron for this purpose was in 1738, when a 'plate-way' was laid at Whitehaven. Again in 1767 some cast-iron rails were laid in Coalbrookdale, and ten years later a cast-iron 'tramway' was nailed to wooden sleepers in a colliery belonging to the Duke of Norfolk near Sheffield, after the design of John Carr. Fearing a reduction of wages or lessened employment in the future, the labourers employed got up a riot and tore up the road, the inventor having to flee for his life. This 'tramway'—a name said falsely to be derived from one Benjamin Outram belonging to a Derbyshire family—as in other earlier specimens had a flange cast on its outer edge to keep the wheels on the road. It was not until 1789 that the great improvement was made of transferring the flange from the rail to the tire of the wheel, the track then assuming its present form.

In 1801 a tramway 28 miles in length, something of the modern type, was constructed for the Tredegar and Sirhowy ironworks in South Wales, and in the same year a public act was passed for the laying of a line near London from Wandsworth to Croydon. This tramway, which was designed for extension to Reigate, was intended to furnish a more ready means of transport (by horse and mule power) of coal and merchandise from the Thames to the districts south of London. But the undertaking failed to fulfil the hopes of its promoters, and on the discontinuance of its working the greater part of the route was occupied by the Brighton Railway Company.

The rapid development of the locomotive effectually diverted attention in England from the utilisation of rails for the purposes of ordinary street traffic; but as everything that tends to economise labour has for many years past found special favour in the United States, the Americans were not slow to discern the merits which the tramway system offered for the movements of the population. The Fourth Avenue (Harlem) Tramway was chartered in New York in the year 1831, about the time that the Manchester and Liverpool Railway was opened for traffic, but for about twenty years maintained a monopoly of the street railway traffic. A rapid extension of the system then followed, as towns in different parts of the Union increased in size. Philadelphia and Boston established street tramway lines in 1857, and at present every town on the North American Continent of any pretensions to the title—nearly 500 in number—boasts of one or more lines, in many cases worked by electricity. Of a total tramway mileage of over 17,000 miles in 1898, over 16,000 have electric cars; the others being propelled by steam, cable, gas-engines, or animals.

The reintroduction of tramways into the United Kingdom in 1858-59 was not a successful venture. An enterprising but reckless American (George Francis Train) obtained permission to lay several short lines in different parts of the country. The one first laid down at Birkenhead is still in existence, the more objectionable features of its construction having been modified, but the London lines were all laid down without special parliamentary authority, and their removal was, after a short trial, decreed by the different vestries concerned as a nuisance to existing traffic. The rails were of absurd shape, their projecting flanges making it almost impossible for ordinary vehicles to cross the line except at right angles, and even then at some risk to wheels and springs.

The removal of the toll-bars within the Metropolitan area, following on an agitation commenced in 1864, greatly facilitated the development of tramway enterprise, and in 1869-70 the leading London tramway companies were incorporated. Within about ten years from that date some 500 miles of street railway had been laid in different towns of the United Kingdom, and nearly 1000 miles are now in operation, representing an invested capital of about 13½ millions sterling, and carrying annually 500 to 600 million passengers.

With the development of the tramway system in all parts of the world the question of the relative merits of different forms of tractive power has naturally attracted wide-spread attention with the view of reducing the working cost. The advantages of electricity (see Vol. IV. p. 284) in the concentration of power and increased speed and efficiency, as compared with horseflesh, are generally recognised, and in the United States its use is rapidly superseding all other power. In Great Britain the objection to overhead wires to convey the electricity to the cars was more difficult to overcome, but in 1901 many towns, including London, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, Stockton, &c., had successful electric tramways working. The conduit or underground system of wires has not as yet been found quite suitable for general use. A system which is also much in favour is that of cable lines. The plan of using a rope or cable as a means of traction is of old date, and various patents have been taken out, something on the lines of the atmospheric railway, for the laying of an underground pipe, in which a rope should travel with a grip attachment on the cars capable of picking up or letting go the travelling cable. The first practical adoption of the idea was made in San Francisco, by a Mr Hallidie, who in 1873 opened the Clay Street cable line. The road in some parts has very steep gradients, impracticable for a horse-car line, and the success of the new method of traction for steep grades was at once established, and San Francisco has now nearly 100 miles of cable roads in operation. The system was adopted in Chicago ten years later, and was about the same time applied to the working of the Brooklyn Bridge traffic at New York. The application there was successful, the line conveying as many as 35,000 people in an hour between the hours of five and six at night. The superior advantages of electricity, however, are now acknowledged in the States.

American engineers were concerned in laying the first cable line in the United Kingdom, that on Highgate Hill, which was opened in 1884, and lines on this system have since been constructed in Edinburgh, where steep gradients exist, and in Birmingham and Bristol. The Brixton route of the London Tramways Company has been converted into a cable line, and in Australia and New Zealand several new cable systems have been laid down.

The figures in cents of the relative cost and working results obtained from the three systems of traction have been compiled by the American Street Railway Association from the statistics of 22 electric lines, 45 horse-car companies, and 10 cable roads as under:

The superior speed to be attained on the electric and cable lines must of course be considered in calculating the capacity and probable returns received from the working of the various systems. The dividend earning powers are thus estimated:

Taking the horse-car as the unit, the relative results are stated to be as above. It remains to be added that tramway enterprise in any form is a very profitable kind of investment. On the European Continent heavy taxes and subsidies are paid by most of the companies to the municipalities served, and in the United Kingdom, under powers expressly reserved by parliament, it is probable that many of the undertakings will be acquired and worked by the city authorities for the benefit of the ratepayers.

See works on the construction of tramways by Dowson (1875), D. K. Clark (1878), J. Bucknall Smith (1887), and A. W. Wright (Chicago, 1888); also the Parliamentary Returns on Tramways; Sutton and Bennett's Tramway Acts (1874; new ed. 1883), and G. I. Phillips, Tramways Act, 1870; with Introduction, &c. (1890).