Tramway

“ No one, unless disposed to self-martyrdom, will think of entering a vehicle except under direst necessity; but there are delightful little street cars, running on an iron tramway, which take you the entire round of the city, past all the hotels, the stores and principal thoroughfares, and bring you back to the starting-place for five cents. Walking is here a most delightful exercise; the side-walks everywhere are laid with light springy planks on which it is a pleasure to tread. We stroll on in a kind of go-as-you-please, walking-made-easy fashion, as though we never wanted to stop. ”

“ By a modern tramway is understood a railway, with the rails so laid on the surface of an ordinary road that they will not interfere with the traffic of ordinary vehicles, and on which omnibuses may travel at ordinary speed with the advantage that, by the improved surface, one horse is enabled to do more than the work of four on levels, and of two on ordinary inclines. ”

“ The derivation of the words tram and tramway has given rise to a certain amount of discussion from time to time, and the fallacy that they come from the name of Benjamin Outram, of the Ripley iron-works, Derbyshire, who, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, advocated the flanged-plate system of rail-way, has been especially favoured. ”

“ On studying a tramway map, one is struck by the fact that, starting from the central area of London, all the tram-lines meander towards the Council’s boundaries, where they will eventually no doubt join and interchange through traffic with the vast light railway or rural tramway systems of various companies in the direction of north and south, north-east, south-east, north-west, and south-west ”

“ A tramway which starts from the centre of the city will take the traveler to the base of the hill, through roads lined by palms of great age and beauty, finally leaving him near the point from whence the steam road begins the upward journey. ”

“ Motor-omnibuses, besides working on the regular routes, can be run on the tramway time-table system on tramway sections where there is little traffic; while for developing scantily-populated districts and accustoming people to travel, automobile public conveyances are perfect agencies, the very fact that they can choose their own route accentuating this great advantage ”

“ As the portion of the streets or public roads along which the tramway has to be laid will, in all probability, have to be occupied and traversed by all kinds of vehicles besides the tram-cars, it is absolutely necessary that the permanent way for the tramway should be of such description as to require the least possible amount of adjustment of fastenings or opening out of the roadway for repairs. ”

“ For greater conveniences I have made this little tramway for the coin to perform upon. These wires which you see are not for it to travel on, but merely to get more equal distribution of the force. There is nothing out of the way about [167] it, nor with this ball, except that it is crystal. Examine both as much as you please.”
The two articles are accordingly offered for inspection. The performer takes back the tramway in the left hand, holding it by one end in such manner that it is gripped in the fork of the thumb, leaving the thumb itself comparatively free. ”

“ Passing places.A single line of tramway must have passing places for the cars, consisting of pieces of double line of length sufficient to hold two cars at least, with connecting curves and the necessary points and crossings. Where steam or other mechanical power is to be used the passing loops should be at least 200 feet in length. There is inevitable delay and interference with the street traffic at passing places, and where cars are to be run at frequent intervals it is better to lay down a double line if the street is wide enough. ”

“ Along the Boulevard Andrassy at Buda-Pesth there is a shallow electric tramway built upon similar principles, a few feet under the main thoroughfare, which is by no means a failure, financially or otherwise. ”

“ The cable tramway is a comparatively recent institution; so that when the houses on the summit were being built all the materials had to be carried by coolies up a steep, zigzagging road from below. Even now most of the supplies for the dwellers on the heights are brought up in the same primitive and laborious fashion. In the morning the trams are crowded with European merchants, bankers, solicitors and their clerks, descending to their offices in the city. ”

“ Experiments made by the direction of the French Government on the tramway between Sèvres and Versailles, showed that a horse on a level tramway draws three-and-a-half times the weight, at the same speed and with the same expenditure of power, that he can do on an ordinary road. ”

“ Whether you move by train, by tramway or by automobile, you see the city set on a hill between Cannes and Nice. But express trains do not stop. The tramway passes some distance from the old town, and prospect of the walk and climb is not alluring to the tramway tourist, whose goal is places important enough to have a map in Baedeker, or a double-starred church or view. If motorists are not in a hurry to get to a good lunch, their chauffeurs are. You signal to stop, and express a desire to go up into Cagnes. ”

“ Improved cooking-stoves, rosewood pianos, gas and hot water, esthetic furniture and complete sets of the British Essayists. A tramway through every street; every block of exactly equal length; blocks and houses economically lettered and numbered. There’s absolutely no loss of time and no need of looking for, or indeed at, anything. The mind always on one’s object; it’s very delightful.
p. 516V
FROM LOUIS LEVERETT IN BOSTON TO HARVARD TREMONT IN PARIS November 1880. ”

“ No carriage used on a tramway must extend more than 11 inches beyond the outer edge of the wheels, and there must be a space of at least 15 inches between the sides of the widest carriages or engines to be used, when passing one another. A width of not less than 3 feet 2 inches between double lines and at passing places is thus necessary, and a double line of tramway, leaving 9 feet 6 inches space on each side, requires a street at least 32 feet 6 inches wide between the footways. ”

“ In the first place there were certain articles, such as Tramways in 1904, Progress of Tramway Construction in the Past Year, Tramway Inventions of the Last Twelvemonth, and The Tram: Its Future in 1905, which flowed annually from his pen. From time to time there would arise the occasion for the topical article on trams—Trams as Army Transports and How our Trams fared during the Recent Snow, to give two obvious examples. And always there was a market for such staple articles as Trams in Fiction....
III You will understand, then, that by the end of 1906 Annesley Bupp had a reputation ”

“ If the bye-laws of this particular tramway allowed the tram to stop and pick up pedestrians anywhere all along the line, we were quite safe; we should just sit down on the roadside and rest. We shouldn’t walk another step.
The men were shovelling away at fallen leaves, so I accosted them in my friendliest Dutch and said: “Stop de tram overal?” As this was greeted with the customary “blief?” I tried to be more explicit. “Stop de tram op een wenk of een uitroepteeken? Of stopt hij alleen op de halten?” ”

“ The foot of the ribs on one side was then passed over the tramway sufficiently to allow the other side to clear the opposite truss; after which the whole was hoisted to the full height, and rested on rollers of hard wood placed between the sills attached to the framework and the tramway, by means of which it was moved to its permanent position. ”

“ This is a far more important point in tramway economics than it appears to be at first sight. The superiority of the electric tramway over the horse tramway depends less upon higher speed than upon the fact that less time is wasted in stopping to pick up and set down passengers. ”

“ The issue in 1903 by the Engineering Standards Committee of a set of standard girder tramway rail sections was therefore generally welcomed. The sections comprise rails of five different weights. Modified sections for use on curves were also published, together with a standard form of specification. Fig. 4 shows the section of the 100 ℔. B.S. rail (No. 3) .
Tramway rails are generally ordered in 45 ft. lengths. Rails 60 ft. long are sometimes used, but they are difficult to handle, especially in narrow streets. The rail joints still prove the weakest part of the track. ”

“ The public soon got used to walking a short distance to a stopping place, although they did not, perhaps, appreciate how much the collection of traffic at a reduced number of points tended to improve the general tramway service. ”

“ When a road is given over to a tramway company without any increase in its metalled surface, it becomes at once distinctly less valuable for ordinary traffic. By allowing tram-lines to be laid without any corresponding widening of the roads, as has been done hitherto on our suburban roads, we are positively going back, actually making our roads less open to traffic than they were. No doubt it will be said that to demand this increase of the metalled road surface is to lay on the tramways a burden greater than they can bear. ”

“ The great thing is to apply it and to prevent our roads being narrowed by the tramway companies, who, as we see by the recent applications in Surrey, are intent upon laying their lines in the rural roads within the thirty miles radius of London. The schemes are excellent in themselves, and under proper conditions deserve all encouragement, as tending to disperse the metropolitan population, but care must be taken that roads with tramway lines along them are made wider, and not in effect narrower than before. ”

“ As a rule, these tramways are laid down on streets or roads previously constructed for the ordinary road traffic, where all the preliminary work of earth filling, bridges, drainage, etc., has already been accomplished, and there only remains the selection and laying down of the rails or permanent way over which the tram-cars will have to run. The description and weight of permanent way to be adopted will depend largely upon the weight of the cars to be used and the system of motive-power decided upon for the haulage—whether horses, steam, cable, or electricity. ”

“ They can do no more. And it does seem to me that a tramway monopolizes for the benefit of a class (a large class, I grant you) more than its fair share of the common rights of way. Ordinary traffic is very much impeded by it, and the rails do certainly cause damage and annoyance to persons who never use the public vehicles. Trams may be expedient, friend, but they certainly are not just." I thought this would have wound up the little man for at least another quarter of an hour, but who can read the human mind? ”

“ Railway Development.—The railway as a common carrier, having its right by virtue of a government charter, dates from 1801, when a tramway was built between Croydon and Wandsworth, two suburbs of London. ”

“ In India a peculiar kind of tramway truck has been in use for some time, with two or three flanged wheels which run on a single rail, and a large balance-wheel on one side of the truck to prevent it toppling over. Produce of all kinds can easily be drawn upon it by a couple of coolies, and its efficiency on country roads has been highly spoken of. ”

“ The more fashionable people are driving, however, and that portion of the one hundred and fourteen feet of the Prospekt's width which is devoted to the roadway is, if possible, even more varied and entertaining in its kaleidoscopic features than the sidewalks. It is admirably kept at all seasons. With the exception of the cobblestone roadbed for the tramway in the centre, it is laid with hexagonal wooden blocks, well spiked together and tarred, resting upon tarred beams and planks, and forming a pavement which is both elastic and fairly resistant to the volcanic action of the frost. ”

“ In a few years the great pastoral estates will have their own railway platforms, within easy distance of the 'shed,' when possibly a tramway thence to the dumping-room will be a recognised and necessary 'improvement.' When that day comes, shearers and washers will arrive by train from the coast-range, or the 'Never Never' country ”

“ It is constantly urged that it is better for cities and great towns to create tramway lines of their own, and work them within their own boundaries, and that the task of dealing with the rural interspaces should be left to the small towns and areas, and not to private enterprise. ”

“ The third is a tramway, narrow gauge, built along shelves which have been excavated{262} in the side of the mountains by English engineers and English capital. The train goes slowly, and there is almost always a track-walker with a spade upon his shoulder in sight. It would not do to run up or down the grades in the night, or at a speed greater than ten miles an hour; hence it requires two hours and a half to make the journey, than which there is no more interesting in the world. ”

“ In this system the cars run on ordinary wheels and take power from overhead trolley wires, But so far no such arrangement has been put into practice in Great Britain, and outlying districts are generally dealt with by petrol or steam motor vehicles, running as feeders to the tramway sand railways. The future commercial development of tramways lies more in the economics in working than in growth of track mileage. Owing, to the enormous volume of traffic a very slight alteration in one, of the items of expense or revenue produces a large result in the aggregate. ”