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97-411: "North Knoxville" originally referred to the area between Downtown Knoxville and Sharp's Ridge. A portion of this area, namely the Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill neighborhoods, incorporated as the City of North Knoxville in 1888, though this city was annexed by Knoxville in 1897. Lincoln Park and Oakwood, which developed alongside the Southern Railroad's Coster Yards, were annexed in 1917, pushing

194-516: A streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in

291-622: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on

388-520: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in

485-549: 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

582-565: 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

679-726: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It

776-529: 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

873-455: 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

970-946: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to

1067-640: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace

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1164-734: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow

1261-713: 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. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in

1358-655: 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

1455-933: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,

1552-624: 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

1649-715: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across

1746-824: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of

1843-549: 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

1940-1241: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included

2037-713: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called

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2134-422: 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

2231-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by

2328-481: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent

2425-846: 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

2522-462: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on

2619-774: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for

2716-583: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until

2813-545: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,

2910-789: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73

3007-588: 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

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3104-693: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but

3201-413: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;

3298-477: 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

3395-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using

3492-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at

3589-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since

3686-606: The area south of Sharp's Ridge, namely the Old North Knoxville, Fourth and Gill, and Oakwood-Lincoln Park neighborhoods, are now typically referred to as "old" North Knoxville, or "Downtown North." Recent economic initiatives have focused on rezoning commercial or industrial areas as "mixed-use" areas or low-density residential areas, improving sidewalks and greenways, and improving (i.e., widening or adding turn lanes) important roads. 36°00′18″N 83°55′37″W  /  36.00512°N 83.92688°W  / 36.00512; -83.92688 Streetcar A tram (also known as

3783-460: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this

3880-439: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which

3977-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being

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4074-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,

4171-416: The city's boundaries to the base of Sharp's Ridge. The residential development of North Knoxville began with the advent of streetcars in the 1880s, and the establishment of the so-called "Dummy Line," a train connecting Knoxville with Fountain City, in 1890. This train and the trolley that replaced it in 1905 ran along Broadway. Fountain City and other areas north of Sharp's Ridge were annexed in 1962, and

4268-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In

4365-473: The classic tramway built in the early 20th century with the tram system operating in mixed traffic, and the later type which is most often associated with the tram system having its own right of way. Tram systems that have their own right of way are often called light rail but this does not always hold true. Though these two systems differ in their operation, their equipment is much the same. Swansea and Mumbles Railway The Swansea and Mumbles Railway

4462-405: 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

4559-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for

4656-426: 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

4753-433: 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)

4850-402: 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

4947-430: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy

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5044-434: 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

5141-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams

5238-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled

5335-439: 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 the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905

5432-427: 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

5529-444: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in

5626-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and

5723-406: 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

5820-515: 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,

5917-419: 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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6014-408: 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

6111-475: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be

6208-421: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system

6305-471: 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

6402-430: 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

6499-477: 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

6596-419: 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

6693-450: 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

6790-415: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by

6887-404: 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

6984-518: 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

7081-428: 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

7178-542: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in

7275-558: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of

7372-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than

7469-466: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off

7566-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,

7663-466: 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

7760-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of

7857-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating

7954-532: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,

8051-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing

8148-416: 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

8245-682: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated

8342-491: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as

8439-665: 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

8536-487: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia

8633-475: 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

8730-522: 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

8827-621: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to

8924-537: 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

9021-628: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including

9118-635: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to

9215-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line

9312-434: 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

9409-878: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in

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