The London Tramways

Arthur H. Beavan, writing in Imperial London, published in 1901, found he had to travel a considerable distance outside the centre of London to take advantage of the new electrical tramway system:

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One has to go across Westminster Bridge, or Blackfriars, or to Finsbury Pavement, Moorgate Street, and as far west as Hammersmith or Shepherd's Bush, to get in touch with the great system of tram-lines.

The bringing of these lines to the centres of London has always been, and probably always will be, rigorously and successfully opposed by those who dislike this kind of travelling, on the plea that it lowers the character of the thoroughfare, and injures the vehicles that cross its rails.

But this does not account for the backwardness of the Metropolis in extending its tramways outside the charmed circle of fashionable London.

However, now that electricity is proved to be cheaper than horse-traction (in New York electricity is 5 1/2d per mile as against horse-power at 9d. per mile, and in Glasgow 6 1/2d against 8 1/2d per mile), enterprise has been awakened, and the western suburbs have started an electric tramway system which claims to be ahead of any installation in the world, twenty miles of which are now opened.

The lines start from two points, both within the boundary of the County of London.

One of these is the Broadway, Hammersmith; the other the terminus of the London Central Electric Railway at Shepherd's Bush.

The line, which commences at the former point, terminates, meantime, at Hounslow; and the other at Acton; but a branch line connects them near the eastern termini, and thus, for both, the full advantage of the connection with the Central Railway is secured.

Then, from Shepherd's Bush, a line runs by Acton, Ealing, and Hanwell, to Uxbridge, through Southall, Hayes, and Hillingdon, so that a passenger from any of these stations on the Electric Railway from the Bank to Shepherd's Bush, is able at the latter point to take an electric tram-car to the western suburbs, a distance of quite twenty miles from the Mansion House.

The lines are worked on the overhead electric system, claimed by the Company to have many advantages.

The cars internally are much after the style of a Pullman car.

They are cushioned and carpeted, and lighted with electricity, and each passenger has within reach a button by which he can indicate to the driver that he wishes to alight.

Each car provides seats for seventy passengers (thirty inside and forty outside).

The fares charged average all over the system one halfpenny per mile, and there is to be a service for artisans, mechanics, and day-labourers, at half the ordinary fares, and thus the charge to a workman figures out at a penny per four miles.

Next: Locomotive London in 1900: Omnibuses and Cabs