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68-521: The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was the venue for the world's first passenger horsecar railway service, located in Swansea , Wales, United Kingdom. Originally built under an act of Parliament of 1804 to move limestone from the quarries of Mumbles to Swansea and to the markets beyond, it carried the world's first fare-paying railway passengers under an agreement effective from 25 March 1807. It later moved from horse power to steam locomotion, and

136-487: A step rail was employed. The horsecars had flanged wheels and ran on the upper level of the step. Ordinary wagons and carriages ran on the broad lower step inside. This necessitated a wider gauge. This broad Toronto gauge is still used today by the Toronto streetcar system and three lines of the Toronto subway . The Metropolitan Street Railway operated a horsecar line in then-suburban North Toronto from 1885 until

204-549: A horse-drawn passenger service between Swansea and a terminus at The Dunns in Oystermouth. Steam power first replaced the horses in 1877 when trials were undertaken with one of Henry Hughes 's patent tramway locomotives, aptly named Pioneer . These were successful and two further locomotives of the same type were obtained, although a dispute between the Swansea Improvements & Tramways Company (which owned

272-544: A line using similarly flanged plates in 1788. A leading advocate of plate rails was Benjamin Outram , whose first line was from quarries at Crich to Bullbridge Wharf on the Cromford Canal . The early plates were prone to break, so different cross sections were employed, such as one with a second flange underneath. Some lines later introduced chairs to support the plates on the blocks, and wrought iron plates, increasing

340-564: A second-hand Avonside 0-6-0ST was obtained and named Swansea . All were tank locomotives of 0-4-0 or 0-6-0 wheel arrangement. Ownership was vested variously in the Swansea & Mumbles Railway Company or the Mumbles Railway & Pier Company (and sometimes transferred between the two for accounting purposes) and as early as the 1890s there is evidence that the railway was having to hire in locomotives to supplement its own fleet. By

408-515: A stable of 1,360 horses over the lifetime of the service. The first tram services in the world were started by the Swansea and Mumbles Railway in Wales , using specially designed carriages on an existing tramline built for horse-drawn freight dandies . Fare-paying passengers were carried on a line between Oystermouth , Mumbles and Swansea Docks from 1807. The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad (1809) carried passengers although its main purpose

476-529: A success, but one of the cars was retained after the electrical equipment had been stripped out and used to convey parties of visiting dignitaries, including King Edward VII when he and his consort, Queen Alexandra , visited Swansea for the ceremonial cutting of the first sod of the King's Dock in July 1904. The car was used again for the visit of King Edward's successor, King George V , in 1920, when he officiated at

544-624: A team, to haul the cars. Rarely, other animals were tried, including humans in emergency circumstances. By the mid-1880s, there were 415 street railway companies in the US operating over 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of track and carrying 188 million passengers per year using horsecars. By 1890 New Yorkers took 297 horsecar rides per capita per year. The average street car horse had a life expectancy of about two years. The first horse-drawn rail cars in Continental Europe were operated from 1828 by

612-483: A toll basis, with any rolling stock owner able to operate their wagons on the tracks. Sometimes, the plateway company was forbidden to operate its own wagons, so as to prevent a monopoly situation arising. Some plateways, such as the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, were single-track, with passing loops at frequent intervals. The single-track sections were arranged so that wagon drivers could see from one loop to

680-455: A trip up the branch as far as Ynys Gate. A somewhat motley collection of steam locomotives was used to maintain services between 1877 and 1929, beginning with the Hughes tramway locomotives mentioned above (which were actually owned by the S.I. & T. and therefore not able to be used on the railway after 1878). Dickson had purchased two saddle tank locomotives of more conventional outline from

748-678: A wheel to travel along the wire. In late 1887 and early 1888, using his trolley system, Sprague installed the first successful large electric street railway system in Richmond, Virginia . Long a transportation obstacle, the hills of Richmond included grades of over 10%, and were an excellent proving ground for acceptance of the new technology in other cities. Within a year, the economy of electric power had replaced more costly horsecars in many cities. By 1889, 110 electric railways incorporating Sprague's equipment had been begun or planned on several continents. Many large metropolitan lines lasted well into

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816-482: Is an early kind of railway , tramway or wagonway , where the rails are made from cast iron . They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. Plateways consisted of L-shaped rails, where the flange on the rail guides the wheels, in contrast to edgeways , where flanges on the wheels guide them along the track. Plateways were originally horsedrawn but, later on, cable haulage and small locomotives were sometimes used. The plates of

884-655: The Falcon Engine & Car Works (successor to Hughes's Locomotive and Tramway Engine Works ), and two more from Manning Wardle & Co of Leeds in the early 1880s. A further locomotive (originally numbered 5, later 3) came from the Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds in 1885. When the new Swansea & Mumbles Railway Company took over operations in 1890 it ordered two 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotives from Black, Hawthorn & Co of Gateshead. These were delivered in 1891 and numbered 1 and 2; they worked on

952-845: The Hay Railway , the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway , the Surrey Iron Railway , the Derby Canal Railway , the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway , the Portreath Tramroad in Cornwall, and lines at Coalbrookdale , Shropshire . The plates of a plateway generally rested on stone blocks or sleepers , which served to spread the load over the ground, and to maintain the gauge (the distance between

1020-624: The London & North Western Railway (the London Midland & Scottish Railway after January 1923) at Mumbles Road station and with the Great Western Railway at the Swansea terminus). In the early nineteenth century a tramway was a line for mineral wagons (trams), the term railway being used when edge rails replaced plates. The term tramway did not become almost exclusively associated with urban transport systems until after

1088-566: The Surrey Iron Railway and the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway as plateways, though between these (in 1803) he designed the Ruabon Brook Tramway as using edge-rail. An alternative design, with the flange on the outside designed to be additionally used with flanged wheels, was unsuccessfully trialled on the Monmouthshire Canal Company's line shortly before its reconstruction as a modern railway. That idea

1156-540: The Yucatan , which sported over 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) of such lines). Surviving examples may be found in both Brazil and the Yucatán, and some examples in the latter still use horsecars. Problems with horsecars included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which

1224-460: The omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s , using the newly improved iron or steel rail or ' tramway '. They were local versions of the stagecoach lines and picked up and dropped off passengers on a regular route, without the need to be pre-hired. Horsecars on tramlines were an improvement over the omnibus, because the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on iron or steel rails (usually grooved from 1852 on ) allowed

1292-539: The České Budějovice - Linz railway . Europe saw a proliferation of horsecar use for new tram services from the mid-1860s, with many towns building new networks. Tropical plantations (for products such as henequen and bananas ) made extensive use of animal-powered trams for both passengers and freight, often employing the Decauville narrow-gauge portable track system. In some cases these systems were very extensive and evolved into interurban tram networks (as in

1360-549: The "haling or drawing" of waggons by "men, horses, or otherwise " and owed nothing to the Tramways Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 78). The passenger rolling stock used in steam days bore little resemblance to conventional railway carriages, employing open-top, " toast-rack " and "knifeboard" seating, and being built by companies more commonly associated with the construction of urban tramcars, such as G.F. Milnes & Co. , Starbuck & Falcon, etc. After electrification

1428-422: The 1920s, locomotives were regularly being hired from a local dealer, Charles Williams of Morriston, and frequently appear in photographs of the railway taken at that time. The line celebrated its centenary in 1904, producing a special commemorative brochure for the occasion. Two years previously, a notable experiment had been carried out, namely the introduction of battery-powered 'accumulator' cars. These were not

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1496-539: The 20th century; the last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. A few original horsecar lines have survived or have been revived as tourist attractions, and in recent years several replica horsecar lines have been built. Below is a list of locations around the world with operational horsecars that are open to the public. Plateway A plateway

1564-846: The British Parliament approved the laying of a railway line between Swansea and Oystermouth in South Wales , for the transport of quarried materials to and from the Swansea Canal and the harbour at the mouth of the River Tawe , and later that year the first tracks were laid. At this stage, the railway was known as the Oystermouth Railway and controlled by the Committee of the Company of Proprietors of

1632-534: The Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad Company, which included many prominent citizens of Swansea, including the copper and coal magnate John Morris (later Sir John Morris, Bart. ). In later years it became known as the Swansea and Mumbles Railway (although the original company was not wound up until 1959), or just the Mumbles Railway, but to local people it was simply the Mumbles Train . There

1700-667: The Tram Shed alongside the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea's Maritime Quarter. A Mumbles Railway Society was formed in 1975 to formally archive material and to maintain the hope that one day the line would re-open. The railway had a multitude of stopping places over the years, but at the time of electrification in 1929 the officially recognised stations from Swansea to Mumbles (as published in Bradshaw ) were: (Between Ashleigh Road and Blackpill stations

1768-447: The animals to haul a greater load for a given effort than the omnibus, and gave a smoother ride. The horse-drawn streetcar combined the low cost, flexibility, and safety of animal power with the efficiency, smoothness, and all-weather capability of a rail track. Animal power at the time was seen as safer than steam power in that early locomotives frequently suffered from boiler explosions . Rails were seen as all-weather because streets of

1836-478: The axles, the wheels could usually be adjusted slightly with washers. Level crossings could be made truly level, the carts being re-engaged with the flanges once across the roadway. Even older than plateways were wagonways , which used wooden rails. Despite its ancient appearance, the Haytor Granite Tramway , the track with ledges cut in stone blocks to produce a similar effect as tram plates,

1904-564: The city. On 9 May 1874 the first horse-drawn carriage made its début in the city, plying the Colaba – Pydhone via Crawford Market , and Bori Bunder to Pydhonie via Kalbadevi routes. The initial fare was three annas (15 paise pre-decimalisation), and no tickets were issued. As the service became increasingly popular, the fare was reduced to two annas (10 pre-decimalisation paise). Later that year, tickets were issued to curb increasing ticket-less travel. Stearns and Kitteredge reportedly had

1972-405: The colliery closed in 1915. The extension of 1841/2 remained abandoned until 1920 when a narrow-gauge tramway was laid on its formation to carry coal from Ynys slant to Ynys Gate. This was used only until 1921 when the slant closed. There was then no further traffic on the branch, although the track remained in situ and was still usable as late as 1936 when it is recorded that a diesel locomotive made

2040-426: The construction of a replica horse-drawn car to celebrate the line's 150th anniversary. In 1958, The South Wales Transport Company (the principal operator of motor bus services in the Swansea town area and predecessor of the modern-day First Cymru company) purchased the railway from the old owning companies (the Swansea & Mumbles Railway Limited and the Mumbles Railway & Pier Company), having previously been

2108-548: The construction of a special road to the Pier for the buses that were to replace the trains. Then, at 11.52 on Tuesday 5 January 1960, the last train (a ceremonial special, carrying local dignitaries) left Swansea for Mumbles driven by Frank Dunkin, who had worked on the railway since 1907. Within a very short time of the train returning to the Rutland Street depot, work began on dismantling the track and cars. One car (no. 2)

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2176-402: The dispute was such that the Swansea & Mumbles company demanded that the S.I. & T. horse cars should follow their own steam-hauled services on the line. In 1889, a new company, the Mumbles Railway & Pier Company, was incorporated to extend the railway beyond Oystermouth to a new pier close to Mumbles Head. The first section, to Southend, was opened in 1893 and the remainder, including

2244-633: The early twentieth century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on the Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. Toronto 's horse-drawn streetcar operations ended in 1891. In other countries animal-powered tram services often continued well into

2312-433: The enabling Act of Parliament and any trader could use the line on provision of a suitable waggon and after paying the appropriate toll to the owning Company. The railway was laid in the form of a plateway , with the rails being approximately 4 ft ( 1,219 mm ) apart. After cessation of the passenger service the line became derelict and the original company of proprietors virtually moribund. The Clyne valley branch

2380-736: The first electric tramcar in India ran from Esplanade to Kidderpore on 27 March and on 14 June from Esplanade to Kalighat . The Bombay Tramway Company was set up in 1873. After a contract was signed between the Bombay Tramway Company, the municipality and the Stearns and Kitteredge company, the Bombay Presidency enacted the Bombay Tramways Act, 1874 licensing the company to run a horsecar tram service in

2448-545: The largest ever built for service in Britain and each could seat 106 passengers. Furthermore, they were frequently operated in pairs, giving a total seating capacity of 212 per train. Two further cars were added later, bringing the fleet strength up to thirteen. A four-wheeled petrol-mechanical locomotive was acquired from Hardy Railmotors of Slough , then in Buckinghamshire, to handle the residual goods traffic on

2516-493: The length to 6 feet (1.8 m) and, later, 9 feet (2.7 m), spanning several sleeper blocks In 1789, on a line between Nanpantan and Loughborough , Leicestershire , William Jessop used edge rails cast in 3-foot (0.9 m) lengths, with "fish-bellying" to give greater strength along the length of the rail. However, after he became a partner in Benjamin Outram and Company (Butterley Iron Works) he designed

2584-485: The lessee in succession to the Swansea Improvements & Tramways Company since the 1930s, and the following year went to Parliament with an abandonment bill. Despite vociferous local opposition, the bill became law as the South Wales Transport Act 1959 ( 7 & 8 Eliz. 2 . c. l). The railway was closed in two stages. The section from Southend to the pier was closed on 11 October 1959 to facilitate

2652-666: The line until after the First World War. Two larger 0-6-0 side tank locomotives were obtained from the Hunslet Engine Company in 1898; numbered 4 and 5, they bore the brunt of the passenger service until well into the 1920s. The nominally independent Mumbles Railway & Pier Co. ordered a 0-4-0 saddle tank from the Brush Electrical Engineering Co of Loughborough (successor to the Falcon Engine & Car Works ) in 1906 and this carried plates reading "MR & P No. 3" to denote its ownership. Finally,

2720-558: The line was electrified in 1890; this horsecar line also used Toronto gauge. The first horse-drawn trams in India ran a 2.4-mile (3.9 km) distance between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street on 24 February 1873. The service was discontinued on 20 November of that year. The Calcutta Tramway Company was formed and registered in London on 22 December 1880. Metre-gauge horse-drawn tram tracks were laid from Sealdah to Armenian Ghat via Bowbazar Street, Dalhousie Square and Strand Road. The route

2788-472: The line, when one of the original proprietors, Benjamin French, offered to pay the company the sum of twenty pounds in lieu of tolls for the right to do so for twelve months from the following quarter day, 25 March 1807. This is usually cited as the date when the first regular service carrying passengers between Swansea and Oystermouth began, thus giving the railway the claim of being the first passenger railway in

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2856-459: The locomotives) and the line's then owner, John Dickson (who had come into possession following the death of George Byng Morris) meant that horses continued to operate certain services until 1896. At this time there was a junction between the Mumbles Railway and the Swansea town tramway system at the Slip, allowing S.I. & T. cars to run through from Swansea town centre to Oystermouth. The nature of

2924-438: The next three decades many local tramway companies were founded, using horse-drawn carriages, until replaced by cable , steam or electric traction. Many companies adopted a design of a partly enclosed double-decker carriage hauled by two horses. The last horse-drawn tram was retired from London in 1915. Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century. The last horse used for shunting on British Railways

2992-588: The next, and wait for oncoming traffic if necessary. However, others, such as the Surrey Iron Railway , the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway , the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company tramroads, and the Severn and Wye Railway , were wholly or partly double-track. Because they had un-flanged wheels, wagons that ran on plateways could also run on ordinary roads. Plateways tended to get obstructed by loose stones and grit, leading to wear. Edgeways avoid

3060-585: The opening of the Queen's Dock. The line was electrified in 1928 at 650 V DC using overhead transmission – giving it the distinction of having used three forms of regular locomotive power over the years (i.e. horse, steam and electricity). Trials began on 6 July 1928 and full electric services were introduced on 2 March 1929, using a fleet of eleven double-deck cars built by the Brush Electrical Engineering Co of Loughborough, in Leicestershire. These were

3128-430: The original name of the company of proprietors was the Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad Company , the word tramroad being used in its pre-railway context. The original right of way was unique and it was only after the construction of the turnpike road in the 1820s that the line assumed its roadside character. The introduction of steam locomotion in the 1870s was facilitated by a clause in the original act which authorised

3196-541: The passenger service (by that time in the hands of one Simon Llewelyn) ceased in 1826 or 1827, ironically just as events elsewhere in the United Kingdom (particularly in the north east of England) were paving the way for the development of railways as a truly national and international transport system for both goods and passengers. In its early days the line operated in the same manner as the contemporary canals and turnpike roads . Tolls and charges were laid down in

3264-470: The passing of the Tramways Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 78). On 16 February 2009, the City & County of Swansea started the process of looking at the feasibility of trams for the Swansea bay area again. The ERC (Environment, Regeneration and Culture) Overview Board, which is a policy making committee chaired by Councillor Rob Speht, discussed the options for feasibility work and scheduled tasks to assess

3332-582: The pier, in 1898. The Clyne valley branch continued to be used for coal traffic from Rhydydefaid pit until its closure in 1885 after which the entire branch fell into disuse. In 1896 the promoters of the Gower Light Railway proposed incorporating it into their scheme but nothing came of it. The original branch to Ynys Gate (as authorised in 1804) was relaid in connection with the Clyne Valley slant (opened 1903) and used for coal traffic until

3400-548: The plateway were made of cast iron , often fabricated by the ironworks that were their users. On most lines, that system was replaced by rolled wrought iron (and later steel ) "edge rails" which, along with realignment to increase the radius of curves, converted them into modern railways, better suited to locomotive operation. Plateways were particularly favoured in South Wales and the Forest of Dean , in some cases replacing existing edge rails. Other notable plateways included

3468-437: The rails or plates). The plates were usually made from cast iron and had differing cross sections , depending on the manufacturer. They were often very short, typically about 3 feet (0.9 m) long, able to stretch only from one block to the next. The L-section plateway was introduced for underground use in about 1787, by John Curr of Sheffield Park Colliery. Joseph Butler , of Wingerworth near Chesterfield , constructed

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3536-457: The railway was crossed by the LM&;SR Central Wales line from Swansea Victoria to Shrewsbury, at a point close to the LM&SR Mumbles Road station. There was a Mumbles Road name board under the bridge on the Mumbles Railway line, but if this was an official stopping place for Mumbles Railway cars it was not recognised as such by Bradshaw.) The railway is frequently referred to as a tramway, but

3604-454: The railway, but this proved to be underpowered and was replaced after a few years by a diesel-mechanical locomotive from John Fowler & Co , of Leeds. The Hardy locomotive was retained for a few years and used for shunting the cars in the depot, which was on the site of the former carriage sheds, adjacent to the Rutland Street terminus, and for inspection of the overhead line equipment, but it had been dismantled by 1954, when parts were used in

3672-428: The resemblance to an urban tramway became more marked with the introduction of the huge Brush-built electric cars and because of the style of operation (the signalling was used only to regulate entry to the passing loops and not to control the actual running of cars). The track was always laid with conventional railway-type rail and not grooved tram-rail and the railway also handled conventional goods wagons (exchanged with

3740-401: The stone obstruction problem. Stone blocks had an advantage over timber sleepers because they left the middle of the track unhindered for the hooves of horses , but timber sleepers had an advantage over stone blocks because they prevented the track from spreading. The gauges of some tramroads increased by a couple of inches after decades of horses passing up the middle but, being loose on

3808-498: The streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles (19 km) a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. Horsecars were largely replaced by electric-powered streetcars following the invention by Frank J. Sprague of an overhead trolley system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires . His spring-loaded trolley pole used

3876-401: The technical, financial and social feasibility of bringing trams back to Swansea. In 2016 the group were working through a formal constitution and going through the steps to register as a Charitable body. Horsecar The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public rail transport , which developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from

3944-461: The time might be poorly paved, or not paved at all, allowing wagon wheels to sink in mud during rain or snow. In 1861, Toronto Street Railway horsecars replaced horse-drawn omnibuses as a public transit mode in Toronto . Electric streetcars later replaced the horsecars between 1892 and 1894. The Toronto Street Railway created Toronto's unique broad gauge of 4 ft  10 + 7 ⁄ 8  in ( 1,495 mm ). The streets were unpaved, and

4012-466: The wide sweep of Swansea Bay to a terminus at Castle Hill (near the present-day Clements Quarry) in the tiny isolated fishing village of Oystermouth (known as Mumbles ). There was also a branch from Blackpill which ran up the Clyne valley for nearly a mile to Ynys Gate which was intended to promote the development of the valley's coal reserves. In February 1807, approval was given to carry passengers along

4080-415: The world. Passenger services operated from The Mount , the world's first recorded railway station . The venture was evidently a success because the following year French joined with two others in offering the increased sum of twenty five pounds to continue the arrangement for a further year, but the construction of a turnpike road parallel to the railway in the mid-1820s robbed it of much of its traffic and

4148-719: Was finally converted to electric power, using the largest tram cars ever built for service in Britain, before closing in January 1960, in favour of motor buses. At the time of the railway's closure, it was claimed to have been the world's longest serving railway, although this distinction has to be qualified because other railways which were used solely for goods traffic (e.g. the Middleton Railway in Leeds, Yorkshire, dating from 1758) had been operating for longer. In 1804

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4216-632: Was freight. In spite of its early start, it took many years for horse-drawn streetcars to become widely acceptable across Britain; the American George Francis Train first introduced them to Birkenhead Corporation Tramways ' predecessor in Birkenhead in 1860 but was jailed for "breaking and injuring" the highway when he next tried to lay the first tram tracks on the roads of London . An 1870 Act of Parliament overcame these legal obstacles by defining responsibilities and for

4284-438: Was inaugurated by Viceroy Ripon on 1 November 1880. In 1882, steam locomotives were deployed experimentally to haul tram cars. By the end of the 19th century the company owned 166 tram cars, 1000 horses, seven steam locomotives and 19 miles of tram tracks. In 1900, electrification of the tramway and reconstruction of its tracks to 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) ( standard gauge ) began. In 1902,

4352-475: Was no road link between Swansea and Oystermouth at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the original purpose of the railway was to transport coal , iron ore and limestone . Construction seems to have been completed in 1806 and operations began without formal ceremony, using horse-drawn vehicles . As constructed, the line ran from the Brewery Bank adjacent to the Swansea Canal in Swansea, around

4420-522: Was relaid in 1841/2 and extended for a further mile (as a private line) to the Rhydydefaid colliery where George Byng Morris, the son of one of the original proprietors, had started to exploit the coal and iron reserves of the valley. From about 1855, George Byng Morris took the line in hand, relaid it with edge rails (i.e. as a conventional railway) to the standard gauge of 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) and reintroduced

4488-922: Was retired on 21 February 1967 in Newmarket, Suffolk . In the United States the very first streetcar appeared in New Orleans in 1832, operated by the Pontchartrain Railroad Company, followed by those in 1832 on the New York and Harlem Railroad in New York City . The latter cars were designed by John Stephenson of New Rochelle, New York , and constructed at his company in New York City. The earliest streetcars used horses and sometimes mules, usually two as

4556-537: Was saved for preservation by members of Leeds University in Yorkshire and stored for a while at the Middleton Railway in that city, but it was heavily vandalised and eventually destroyed by fire. The front end of car no. 7 was also saved for preservation at Swansea Museum; following many years of neglect it was initially restored in the early 1970s by members of the Railway Club of Wales and is now on display in

4624-460: Was taken up in 1861 by the Toronto streetcar system . Horsecars ran on the upper, outer part as edgerail, with the wheel flanges on the inside. The edge rail formed an outside flange for a broad foot which allowed wagons to pass through the unmade streets. That combination necessitated a unique, broader gauge of 4 ft  10 + 7 ⁄ 8  in ( 1,495 mm ) known as the Toronto gauge . The early plateways were usually operated on

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