125 years ago today, on 30th June 1900, the first electric tramcars in Wales took to the streets of Swansea. They were introduced by the Swansea Improvements & Tramways Company, which had been established in 1874.
The company had previously operated horse tramways in the town before briefly experimenting with steam traction on one of its lines – to Cwmbwria – in 1882. A fatal accident put paid to this initiative, however, and two years later the line reverted to horse traction. By this stage, the previously amicable relations between the company and Swansea Corporation had soured, which resulted in both parties submitting rival bids to Parliament in 1897, each seeking powers to convert the horse tram lines to electric traction.
The Corporation’s bid would have involved the compulsory purchase of the company’s tramway and the building of a new electric tramway, together with the introduction of electric lighting and a system of refuse handling. This was dismissed as being too speculative for a municipal undertaking, while the company’s more modest bid succeeded.
The already fractious relationship between the two parties was further soured by the arrival on the scene of the British Electric Traction Company. This powerful and ambitious conglomerate with extensive tramway holdings promptly purchased a controlling interest in the Swansea company.
Converting the existing horse trams lines to electric traction was a relatively straightforward exercise, with the last horse trams operating on 29th June 1900 and Wales’ first electric tramcar services starting on the following day. Extending the system was a much more formidable challenge, however, with company and Corporation each striving to gain the upper hand in the years that followed.
An application by the company to extend the tramway was successfully defeated by the Corporation, which also succeeded in its own rival extension bid in 1902. However, it then squandered its advantage by trying to insist on using an alternative method of current collection, involving the use of surface contact studs on the new lines, instead of the overhead wires that the company had erected on the original network.
As it lacked the powers to operate the extensions itself, the Corporation was forced into a humiliating climb-down when the company called its bluff, and was eventually forced to license the company to operate the entire network with overhead wires after all. But the disagreement between the two delayed the opening of the extensions until 1905.
Still smarting from its setbacks, the Corporation then made one final attempt to take over the company and operate the tramway itself, but this was rebuffed by the Board of Trade, and it was not until 1911 that a lasting agreement was finally reached between the parties. This resulted in a final set of extensions being built by the Corporation in 1913 and, again, licensed to the company to operate.
By this stage, the system had reached its final extent of 13.36 miles, 7.17 of which were owned by the Corporation, 5.57 by the company and 0.62 by neighbouring Glamorgan County Council.
Having seen off the threat of compulsory purchase by Swansea Corporation, the Swansea Improvements & Tramways Company was then free to invest in and develop the tramcar fleet and tramway infrastructure. The presence of low bridges on all but one of the four original routes meant that the initial fleet of tramcars was made up of single deck tramcars.Four open-topped double deckers were soon added to service the remaining route.
In later years, the company rose to the low bridge challenge by commissioning special low-height double-deck tramcars that were similar to those built for Cardiff Corporation, who faced similar problems. It also acquired several second-hand tramcars from other operators, rebuilt and modernised many of its older tramcars (using the same numbers for their replacements) and also supplemented the fleet by purchasing new tramcars when required.
Image 3: One of Swansea Improvement and Tramway Company’s oldest tramcars photographed in the depot with one of the later additions to the fleet. Car 35 (centre) had been built for Leeds in 1899 and was then sold to Swansea, entering service as a single decker before it was rebuilt with stairs and top deck, the balcony top cover being added in 1907/8. This car was later replaced by an enclosed low-bridge double decker with the same number – the last to be built for Swansea – similar to Car 31, to the left, which was built in 1929 (photo: H Nicol, National Tramway Museum collection).
This innovative and resourceful strategy resulted in a varied and reasonably up-to- date fleet of tramcars that provided a profitable service for many years. The company also invested in major track renewals where required.
Many other company-owned tramways suffered from an ongoing threat of compulsory purchase by their local authority, with no incentive to develop and modernise their tramway in the way Swansea’s did. In the case of Bristol Tramways and Carriage Co., for example, this resulted in its original 1895 fleet of open-topped tramcars being retained, largely unchanged, until closure of the system in 1945.
In Swansea’s case, the company had operated its own bus services from the outset, and, by the mid-1930s, these were carrying twice as many passengers as its tramcars. This ultimately sealed the fate of the tramway, which finally closed on 28th June 1937.
This was not the end of electric tramcars in Swansea, however, as it was also home to the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, which ran round the edge of Swansea Bay to Mumbles. With its distinctive tramcars – the largest in Britain – this continued operating until 5th January 1960, giving Swansea the distinction of being the provider of the first and last electric tramcar services in Wales.
With thanks to Museum volunteer Jim Dignan for producing this article.
Image references:
Image 1: Tramway and Railway World 1900; also reproduced in Tramway Review, Vol.15 No.114, 1983).
Images 2 – 4: National Tramway Museum collection.