Tram engine


A tram engine is a steam locomotive specially built, or modified, to run on a street, or roadside, tramway track.

Legal requirements

In the steam locomotive era, tram engines had to comply with certain legal requirements, although these varied from country to country:
  • The engine must be governed to a maximum speed of
  • No steam or smoke may be emitted
  • It must be free from the noise produced by blast or clatter
  • The machinery must be concealed from view at all points above from rail level
  • Most of the locomotives must have a cab at each end
To avoid smoke, the fuel used was coke, rather than coal. To prevent visible emission of steam, two opposite systems were used:
  • condensing the exhaust steam and returning the condensate to the water tank
  • Reheating the exhaust steam to make it invisible

    Builders

United Kingdom

;Great Eastern Railway
The Great Eastern Railway built ten Class G15 0-4-0T trams from 1883 to 1897 and twelve Class C53 0-6-0T trams from 1903 to 1921.
;Beyer, Peacock & Company
Beyer, Peacock & Company built some steam tram engines, including three for the Glyn Valley Tramway in Wales.
;Henry Hughes
Hughes's Locomotive & Tramway Engine Works, Loughborough started building tram engines in 1876. His engines were of the saddle-tank type and exhaust steam was condensed in a tank under the footplate by jets of cold water from the saddle-tank.
;Kitson & Company
Kitson & Company started to build tram engines in 1878. It used a roof-mounted, air-cooled, condenser of thin copper tubes in which the exhaust steam was condensed, similar to the radiator on a modern road vehicle. The air-cooled system eventually became standard for steam tram engines.
;William Wilkinson
William Wilkinson of Holme House Foundry, Wigan patented the exhaust steam reheating system about 1881. While it may seem unusual to re-heat steam after, rather than before, use because it would involve a waste of fuel, the purpose of superheating the exhaust was to ensure 'no water can be emitted from the chimney to the annoyance of passengers'. Furthermore, the expansion into a hot chamber in the boiler minimised the noise of the exhaust. Despite the inefficiency inherent in this, the Wilkinson system was popular for a time, and engines of the Wilkinson type continued to be built up to about 1886. Similar reheaters were also used for road steam wagons, such as the Sentinel.
;Others
Other British builders of steam tram engines included:
;Krauss
The German firm Krauss built steam tram engines, including one for the Wolverton and Stony Stratford Tramway in England.

Belgium

From the 1880s onward, every steam locomotive builder in Belgium supplied the National Company of Light Railways with tram engines, with nearly 1,000 examples being built. Ateliers de Tubize, FUF Haine-Saint-Pierre and Société de Saint-Léonard also supplied several tram engines to foreign companies such as Spain, the Netherlands, France, or Italy.
The last steam trams were delivered in the early 1920s.

France

, Décauville, Pinguely, and Blanc-Misseron built engines for French and foreign tramways, the latter was created by Ateliers de Tubize in order to avoid taxation of imported locomotives. These companies also built industrial engines and some shunters; large steam locomotives were mostly built by other companies.

The Netherlands

and Backer & Rueb built engines for both Dutch and foreign tramways.

United States

Baldwin

The Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, built steam tram engines, including most of those used in New South Wales, Australia.
A small number of steam tram engines were manufactured in Sydney, Australia to Baldwin designs by Henry Vale, T. Wearne and the Randwick Tramway Workshops.

Decline

In cities, steam tram engines faded out around 1900, being replaced by electric trams or buses. Rural steam trams held longer until replaced by electric, diesel trams units or buses. In France, The Netherlands and Belgium, the last steam-powered tram lines closed in the 1960s.

Preservation

The character Toby the Tram Engine, from The Railway Series children's books by the Rev. W. Awdry, and the spin-off TV series Thomas & Friends, was based on the LNER Class J70 tram engines that were to be found on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway.
Flora from Series 12 of Thomas & Friends is also based on a steam tram.

Other types of propulsion

Diesel tram engines

Four of the British Rail Class 04 diesel locomotives were fitted with side-plates and cowcatchers for working on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway.

Electric tram engines

There are a few examples of electric tram locomotives designed to pull traditional railway carriages through streets.

Stored energy types

Tram engines have been built to run on stored energy in various forms, including: