Horse drawn tramways (4) : The economic effect of the tramway (and success?)

Part 4 of this version of my MA dissertation. Part 3 can be seen here.

The coal trade in Stratford-upon-Avon expanded greatly in the early nineteenth century. The number of coal merchants rose from just 1 in 1792 to 18 by 1851 (going by Trade Directory figures). The population of the town itself only saw a modest increase in that same time period domestic consumption cannot account alone for the great increase in the trade.

By the 1840s 50000 tons of coal was entering Stratford every year, most of which then going on to other destinations. 10000 tons was carried by the canal and 15000 tons by the tramway. By sheer tonnage alone the tramway was a key actor in the expansion of the coal trade.

Tramway bridge at Stratford

The effect of the tramway can also be seen from the town at the other end of the line, Moreton-in-the-Marsh in Gloucestershire. Before the arrival of the tramway the town and its market was said to be of little importance but this changed when coal could be bought into the town from Stratford and agricultural produce could go the other way up to Stratford and via transport links to other destinations. The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway later built their line to Moreton where it joined the tramway. It was hoped this would increase the profitability of the Stratford tramway however the opposite effect occurred with through traffic decreasing. As with the tramway itself which was said to have diverted traffic from the Oxford Canal, providing an alternative route to take coal into the South Midlands, due to its perceived superior technology the steam railway to Moreton had the same negative effect on tramway traffic.

Stratford had been, and continued to be, a trading town and the tramway helped to develop that further after the similar stimuli caused by river and canal trade. The coal trade had existed before the tramway, the tramway does not seem to have created any new markets or traffic flows but instead improved what already existed. However in the longer term tourism was the area of the town’s economy that became the most important and here the tramway was not much of a factor. Some passengers were carried on the tramway after its opening with the first licences issued from 1834 though there are also some indications of this taking place illegally beforehand. However there were only two return passenger trips along the line every day (though other passengers paid to travel on freight waggons), perhaps this was due to the slow speed of the tramway and the limited scope of the network. The town would have to wait until the arrival of the steam railways to fully enable the arrival of tourists en masse.

Was the Stratford and Moreton Railway a success? It ran as a horse-drawn tramway for over thirty years and parts of the line continued in operation as a steam railway for decades after that. The initial grand ambition of the tramway was not fully realised though that ambition was sufficiently vague as to be easily discounted later on. Despite early problems with the quality of construction the tramway became a steady performer with a large share of Stratford’s coal trade. However the tramway was quickly overtaken by the new steam railways, the losses the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway made on their investment early on and the problems with conversion could indicate the tramway was a technically inferior and obsolete system. However most of these losses were due to the (perhaps overly) generous terms the OWWR paid in leases to the tramway’s owners and the system itself was basically sound, if needing more investment. It could be that a link to Birmingham would have been a more viable connection to the tramway at least in hindsight but the tramway’s builders wanted a good deal and no doubt got it from the OWWR.

Selected bibliography

R.B. Pugh (editor), Victoria County History. Gloucestershire Volume 7 (1965)
Stratford Birthplace Trust Record Office (SBTRO) ER10/3/658 Complaint of carrying passengers without a licence.

Horse drawn tramways (3) : The problems with the Stratford & Moreton Tramway

Part 3 of this version of my MA dissertation.

Part 2 described the planning and construction of the Stratford & Moreton Tramway. A rather poor job appears to have been made of the initial construction though the tramway was operational by the late 1820s. However by the time the Stratford and Moreton Railway was becoming operational horse-drawn railways were already becoming obsolete. New steam-operated railways were now spreading rapidly across the country, often buying up and replacing existing horse-drawn routes.

Surviving tramway wagon at Stratford-upon-Avon

The Stratford tramway itself was targeted by the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OWWR) scheme in the 1840s as at Moreton their line cut through the tramway’s yard. The OWWR formally made an offer to buy the Stratford tramway in March 1845 with the takeover completed in the early 1850s. The takeover was not hostile or unwelcome, indeed Stratford’s inhabitants are said to have been “indignant” at times at the slow pace of the takeover amid concerns of the town being left behind by the railway building taking place elsewhere. Traders including the draper Mr Medelcott were keen for the town to increase its links “in all directions”. The only question appearing to be if the OWWR offer was the best one available or if an alternative railway route to Birmingham would have been better for the town.

An enquiry was held including evidence from farmers and merchants as to which railway scheme would be the best for Stratford’s trade. Although a Birmingham route had favour with some including the farmer Michael Alledery who thought the route would be a “great advantage to his trade” which was selling cattle in Birmingham, the OWWR offer was considered the best deal overall with the railway leasing the tramway for £2500 a year until finally buying the line out completely. Brunel carried out a new survey of the line for the railway company to see if it was suitable for conversion to a steam railway, as with the previous surveys his findings were not that favourable. He found the engineering of the line poor and not suitable for conversion due to clearances and drainage. The new owners of the Stratford tramway therefore continued horse-drawn operations throughout the period being considered by this study.

A two and a half mile long branch line to Shipston-on-Stour was added to the tramway in 1836. The branch was quickly profitable though did not add much to the tramway bottom line as a whole. In 1840 the branch line bought in £240 of revenue compared to costs of £92, this compares to an income of the tramway as a whole of £2907 and expenditures of £2992 that year. The Shipston branch was performing relatively better than the line as a whole but unfortunately the surplus was not sufficient to offset the losses. Although receipts began to outweigh costs they were not enough to cover the rent the railway company had to pay as well.

So why was the tramway not making enough money? It certainly carried a great deal of freight along it’s route. Coal was the major cargo, 15000 tons of coal is recorded as travelling along the tramway in 1845 alone, this compares with an estimate of 50000 tons in total being bought by the various routes into Stratford in that year. Other cargoes included Cotswold stone and agricultural produce. The importance of the latter borne out by the inclusion of farmers in the inquiry into which railway buy-out scheme was the best one for the tramway, not that their advice was necessarily followed.

As was common with tramways waggons were privately owned and owners paid to use the tramway. Loads were charged at a rate of per ton per mile depending on the type of freight, coal and stone for example was 2p per ton per mile. Waggons were weighed using machines on the line for example at Moreton though this machine was not considered to be very accurate. Loads from Stratford to Moreton and Shipston and vice versa were the most common with not much traffic to the intermediate points on the route. Indeed the building of the Shipston branch was said to have negatively affected the already low usage of the wharf at Newbold and the owners requested (and received) a reduction in their rent to the tramway company. Few private sidings were built, one reason for this may have been access.

Transport links need connections to other viable transport systems to make the most of their capacity and utility. Mention is made by the committee of the importance of improving road links to the tramway in places like Alderminster, this could indicate that access to the tramway was difficult except at the two towns on either end of the route. This could have had an adverse effect on the economic viability of a tramway, poor link roads reduced the effectiveness of the Brecon Forest Tramroad for example. Lack of access could sometimes be down to resistance by landowners, one reason given for the Shipston branch not making as much money as it was thought it could have done was due to the owners of the land the branch line passed through who wanted the line fenced off and access to the intermediate points of the line restricted. Despite these problems the line did carry a lot of freight, mostly coal, and the tramway did make money but not in sufficient amounts to cover the cost of running the line and paying the rent to the builders.

Next : The economic effect of the tramway (and success?)

All text and images (c) Kris Davies

Selected bibliography

Stratford Birthplace Trust Record Office (SBTRO) DR 638 Letter book of John William Kershaw clerk of SMRC
The National Archives (TNA) RAIL 673/6 SMRC Journal
Berrow’s Worcester Journal, Thursday January 27 1848
Stanley Jenkins, 'The Shipston-on-Stour Branch', British Railway Journal, 32, 112-21 (p. 112)

Horse drawn tramways (2) : Building the Stratford & Moreton Tramway

Continuing the adaptation of my MA dissertation...

As described in part 1 Stratford-upon-Avon was keen to improve its transportation links for communications and commerce in the nineteenth century. This was not only to improve the flow of goods into and out of the town but also to ward against the town being bypassed by new transport links elsewhere. Town elders were fearful of Stratford being left behind if they did not keep up with rival towns like Evesham. A grand vision for Stratford was for it to be a major regional transport hub. The Stratford and Moreton Railway was a tramway intended to be a key part of this vision. The main promoter of the project William James had grand ambitions and wanted the tramway to be just the first part of a railway line to London.

In the end the actual tramway that was built was a much more modest affair, the line was laid from Stratford to Moreton-in-the-Marsh in Gloucestershire with a later branch line added to Shipston. The line visited a number of small towns along the route including Atherstone, Alderminster and Ilmington. Newbold was already involved with the coal trade with nearly 3000 tons of coal a year taken through it to destinations along the route via turnpike road. As detailed below the building of the line harmed Newbold’s coal trade with most coal travelling through the town along the tramway to either ends of the line and bypassing the facilities in the town.

Stratford & Moreton Tramway route plan

Despite being scaled back the plans for the tramway were still ambitious. An acre of warehousing in Stratford was proposed to serve trade along the tramway as well as quays along the river. These ambitions were never played out although sidings were laid alongside the river and canal basins at Stratford. Tonnage estimates for the tramway in the original prospectus were kept vague though were assured to potential investors to be ample.

As was common with new transport projects of the time investors funded the building and initial operation of the tramway with investors needing to supply £15 at the start of the project and more shares issued later on in return for shares in the company. Building the tramway was not an inexpensive business, around £15000 was spent on earthworks alone in 1826 and another £5000 on gravelling and rails. Progress was slow because of rising costs and the need for further fund raising, in 1825 a “Looker-on” wrote to the newspapers to complain that the “whole subscription expended - not a mile of the Rail completed” although this may have been an exaggeration as the tramway did become operational in 1826 on the sixteen mile route between Stratford and Moreton-in-the Marsh.

Despite the investment in the tramway a poor job of building the line appears to have been made. As early as 1831 a survey of the line found it in a “pretty dilapidated state” with poor stability of waggons along it and a poor record of maintenance, an agreed schedule of maintenance not being kept to. These problems continued for a while, a 1832 survey also found the tramway waterlogged in places and fences and rails neglected. It took until 1840 for surveys to be satisfied with the state of the line. The tramway was slow to make much money from tonnage, the poor state of the line no doubt not helping matters. In 1833 most income coming into the company was still from loans and rents, and expenditures were still high. Even as late as 1846 the company was still discussing ways of improving aspects of the line such as fencing.

Next : The problem with the Stratford & Moreton Tramway

Image and text (c) Kris Davies

Selected bibliography

The National Archives (TNA) RAIL 673/2 General committee minutes
TNA RAIL 673/1 Shareholders' meetings minutes
Stratford Birthplace Trust Record Office (SBTRO) ER 8/1/162 Statement to shareholders
SBTRO ER 8/1/186 Notice of repairs (attached survey of Mr Trubshaw)
Bertram Baxter, Stone Blocks and Iron Rails (Tramroads) (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1966)
Charles Hadfield and John Norris, Waterways to Stratford (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1968)

Horse drawn bus

London Transport Museum is excellent and is well worth a visit, here is a horse drawn bus with a model of the one of the crew.

Horse drawn tramways (1) : Introduction

My dissertation was on the economic impact of a horse drawn tramway in Stratford-upon-Avon, now i present parts of it here, slightly rewritten and augmented...

Tramways have a long history in Britain though often they have been neglected in studies of railway systems. Often historians such as Bogart for example in a study of transport networks in the Industrial Revolution have not considered rail systems before 1830 (when steam traction began to be used widely) at all, another study by Bagwell and Lyth on transport in Britain also fails to include much at all on horse-drawn railways. However horse-drawn rail in Britain dates from the early seventeenth century at least with systems still operating as late as the Second World War.

Wilmcote

The heyday of these systems was in the eighteenth century and at their greatest extent the distance of horse-drawn rail in Britain exceeded 1500 miles. Tramways were often closely linked to canals with the two systems supplementing each other. Many lines were feeder systems for a canal navigation, for example bringing coal down from mines to the waterway. Often tramways were a way to extend the reach of a canal without going to the extra expense of building a new canal arm up to a mine or quarry, one example being a line connecting the Stratford canal to the Temple Grafton Quarries in Wilmcote (a line contemporary to and very close to the Stratford tramway). This cost-saving became increasingly important as greater demand for coal saw new pits opened further and further away from available waterways and hence the costs of extending water navigation became too prohibitive. During the eighteenth century coal and other mined or quarried materials like limestone were the main loads carried by tramways. The final period of tramway operation beginning in the nineteenth century did see a diversification of loads to an extent and even the carriage of passengers!

Horse-drawn tramways were operated in a similar manner to the canals they so often supplemented. The tramway was generally open to all carriers who owned their own waggons and could also own their own sidings on some routes. The owners of the tramway used a system of toll gates and weight bridges to charge carriers for the loads being carried, tolls often on the basis of a ton of freight per mile. Weighing waggons was also important to reduce the strain on the rails from overweight vehicles, the poor quality of rails and maintenance being a problem which often plagued tramways.

Horse drawn waggon

Although the technology used did improve during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (the original tramways used wooden rails for example later replaced by iron) tramways had a number of disadvantages, mostly due to the method of propulsion used: the horse. The tramways were slow, the speed of trains limited to how fast the horse could pull them and this was typically no more than walking pace as was the case also with most inland water transport. Some systems which used pulleys or gravity could be quicker but this was heavily dependent on favourable geography. The limitations of the horse and it’s ability to pull loads largely dictated the design features of a tramway route such as having to make cuttings as even quite minor gradients were best avoided. This could have major cost implications on building the line. An example tramway the Brecon Forest Tramroad was badly affected by this, steep gradients greatly increasing building costs though in the case of the Stratford and Moreton Railway geography was not too much of an issue with a fairly even landscape to be traversed. Uneven terrain could be an advantage for tramways over canals however, expensive as cuttings and bridges may be they could be cheaper than the equivalent lock systems or lengthy diversions which might be required by a waterway. Horses on tramways were more restricted on the amount of freight they could haul, a horse could pull about three times the amount of cargo in a canal barge than it could in tramway waggons. Shortages of horses could also be problematical, the demand for horses during the Napoleonic Wars for example greatly increased the costs in procuring horse power (though this also affected the canals and roads). Despite their disadvantages tramways could compete well with waterways and were a cheaper and quicker to build alternative on routes where the available traffic could not justify the cost of a canal.

(c) All text and images Kris Davies

Selected bibliography

Philip Bagwell and Peter Lyth, Transport in Britain 1750-2000 (London: Hambledon & London, 2002)
Bertram Baxter, Stone Blocks and Iron Rails (Tramroads) (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1966)
Mark Jones, Discovering Britain's First Railways - a Guide to Horse-Drawn Tramroads and Waggonways (Stroud: History Press, 2012)
Stephen Hughes, The Brecon Forest Tramroads (Aberystwyth Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments in Wales, 1990)