Trams in London

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is a general one on trams in London. For a specific article on the organisation responsible for running the current generation of trams in London, see London Trams.

There have been two separate generations of trams in London, one running from 1860 to 1952 and the second starting in 2000. Between 1952 and 2000 no trams ran in London.

[edit] History

The first generation of trams in London started in 1860 when a horse tramway began operating (Barrett, 1971, p. 150*) along Victoria Street in Westminster. This was operated by an American, George Francis Train. Horse trams operated all over London and were replaced by electric vehicles from 1901, the last being withdrawn during World War I.

Prior to 1933, several different companies or municipalities operated London’s tramways. The largest was London County Council (LCC) – with tramlines equipped with an unusual form of electricity supply via an underground conduit located between the running rails. Other operators mainly used the more conventional overhead electric wires. London’s trams had to be equipped with both systems of electricity supply, with some routes being equipped with change points. The London United and Metropolitan Electric companies purchased a large fleet of modern double-deck Feltham trams in the early 1930s (manufactured by the Union Construction Company at Feltham). Following the closure of London’s tram system, the Feltham trams mostly were sold to Leeds where they continued in service until the abandonment of that city’s tramways in 1959. In 1933, all London’s tramways were taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board.

During their heyday, tram services covered much of inner London and reached out to the suburbs, assisted by facilities like the Kingsway tramway subway, which enabled the longest tram route entirely within the County of London to operate: a weekend service between Highgate and Downham via Brockley, 16 miles.

From the late 1920s, trams were considered to be out-dated, and the phasing out and replacement by diesel buses or trolleybuses began in earnest around 1935. Replacement continued apace until hostilities stopped the conversion programme in June 1940. Tram replacement, this time by diesel bus, started again in October 1950 and London's last trams ran in the early hours of the morning of 6 July 1952. Some London tramcars have been preserved on static display at London's Transport Museum (in Covent Garden) and in working order at the National Tramway Museum in Derbyshire.

The second generation of trams started with the opening of Croydon Tramlink in 2000. This operates modern low-floor articulated tramcars, based on a design for Cologne (Köln) in Germany, on three routes in South London.