Tramways are lightly laid railways, sometimes worked without locomotives. The term is in common use in the
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,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
, and elsewhere. In New Zealand, they are commonly known as
bush tramways. They generally do not carry passengers, although staff may make use of them, either officially or unofficially.
Tramways can take many forms, sometimes just tracks laid on the ground to move materials around a factory, mine or quarry.
Tramways are lightly laid railways, sometimes worked without locomotives. The term is in common use in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
, and elsewhere. In New Zealand, they are commonly known as
bush tramways. They generally do not carry passengers, although staff may make use of them, either officially or unofficially.
Tramways can take many forms, sometimes just tracks laid on the ground to move materials around a factory, mine or quarry. At the other extreme they could be complex and lengthy systems, such as the Lee Moor Tramway in
DevonDevon is a large county in England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, although that is an unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county itself and often indicating a traditional or historical context. The county shares borders with Cornwall to the west and Dorset and Somerset to...
. Many are narrow gauge.
Motive power can be manual, animal (especially horses), stationary engine, or small locomotives.
Historical background
The term was originally applied to wagons running on primitive tracks in early
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and
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. The name seems to date from around 1517 and to be derived from an English dialect word for the shaft of a wheelbarrow - in turn from Low German
traam, literally, beam.
The tracks themselves were sometimes known as
gangways, dating from before the 12th century, being usually simply planks laid upon the ground literally "going road" . In south
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and
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the term dramway is also used, with vehicles being called drams.
The alternative term is "
WagonwayWagonways consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam powered railways. The terms "plateway", "tramway" and in someplaces, "dramway" are also found.- Early developments :...
" (and Wainway or Waggonway) under which heading there is further information.
Usually the wheels would be guided along grooves. In time, to combat wear, the timber would be reinforced with an iron strip covering. This developed to use
"L"-shapedIn geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a body in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc. More plainly, when cutting an object into slices one gets many parallel cross-sections....
steel plates, the track then being known as a
platewayA plateway is an early kind of railway or tramway or wagonway, with a cast iron rail. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later....
.
The origin of the word railway is uncertain, but
Benjamin OutramBenjamin Outram was an English civil engineer, surveyor and industrialist.- Personal life :Born at Alfreton in Derbyshire, he began his career assisting his father Joseph Outram, who described himself as an "agriculturalist", but was also a land agent, an enclosure commissioner arbitrating in the...
was referring to his lines as railways in the early 19th century. The fact that many of these lines were built for horse-drawn vehicles, and were dimensioned accordingly, is thought to be behind the modern .
An alternative appeared, the so-called "edge-rail" where the wagons were guided by having the wheels flanged instead of running in grooves. Since these rails were raised above the ground they were less likely to be blocked by debris, but they obstructed other traffic. They were, however, the forerunners of the modern railway.
These early lines were built to transport minerals from quarries and mines to canal wharves. From about 1830, more extensive trunk railways appeared, becoming faster, heavier and more sophisticated and, for safety reasons, the requirements placed on them by Parliament became more and more stringent. See
rail tracksRail tracks are the surface structures that support and guide trains or other rail-guided transportation vehicles.Most familiarly they consist of* two steel rails on which the vehicle wheels run,...
.
These restrictions were excessive for the small mineral lines and it became possible in the
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for them to be categorised as
Light railwayLight railway refers to a railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail". This usually means the railway uses lighter weight track, and is more steeply graded and tightly curved to avoid civil engineering costs...
s subject to certain provisos laid down by the
Light Railways Act 1896The Light Railways Act 1896 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It defined a class of railways with the intention of enabling development of such railways without legislation specific to each line. A light railway is not a tramway but a separate class...
.
Meanwhile, in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
the term tramway became the term for passenger vehicles (a
tramA tram, tramcar, trolley, trolleycar, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle, of lighter weight and construction than a conventional train, designed for the transport of passengers within, close to, or between villages, towns and/or cities, on tracks running primarily on streets...
) that ran on tracks in the public highway, sharing with other road users. Initially horse-drawn, they developed to use electric power from an
overhead lineOverhead lines or overhead wires are used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses or trains at a distance from the energy supply point...
. A development of the tramway in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
dispensed with tracks, but retained electric power from overhead wires was the trolley bus.
In 2000 the
CarGoTramThe CarGoTram is a freight tram in Dresden. It supplies Volkswagen's "Transparent Factory" with parts for their automobile production.- History :The idea of building a "transparent factory" for Volkswagen automobile production in Dresden arose in 1997...
began operating as a cargo tram for the
VolkswagenThe Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft , also known as Volkswagen Group or as VW, is an automobile manufacturer and mobility organisation based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany and is the pioneer brand within the Volkswagen Group, which contains the car brands Audi AG, Bentley Motors Ltd.,...
factory in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
.
See also
- Barlow rail
Barlow rail was a rolled rail section used on early railways. It has wide flaring feet and was designed to be laid direct on the ballast, without requiring sleepers...
- Iron rails
- Plateway
A plateway is an early kind of railway or tramway or wagonway, with a cast iron rail. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later....
- Rail profile
The rail profile is the cross sectional shape of a railway rail, perpendicular to the length of the rail.In all but very early cast rails a rail is hot rolled steel profile of a specific shape or cross section designed for use as the fundamental component of railway track.Unlike some other uses of...
- Tramway track
Tramway track is used on tramways or light rail operations. Grooved rails are often used in order to make street running feasible...