"Paper Tramways" and Unknown Tramways
Many towns planned tramways that were not built. So-called "paper tramways" are beyond the scope of this list. However, in a small number of cases, construction of a town tramway system was started (and, in a very few cases, completed) but the system did not open for public service. These are tabulated if known. Examples include Ajaccio (Corsica), France and Ulricehamn, Sweden.
Specific to the US, it is not unknown to find examples of tramways, listed in historic documents among operating systems, that did not in fact exist. It is also not uncommon to find picture postcards, dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, showing tramcars operating in towns where tramways did not exist. (Similar circumstances are likely to exist for other countries.) Certain examples are tabulated, primarily because they appear in well-known historic records and tabulations.
It is believed to be very likely that the historic record does not include "all" public town tramways that ever existed. Town tramways that escaped notice by historians (and regulatory authorities) are thought to have been 1.) located away from Europe, and 2.) worked by some form of traction other than electricity (e.g. horse, steam). Likely countries include Brazil (because of geographic size and incomplete records related to tramways), Mexico (because of its large number of horse- and mule-worked tramways) and the US (because of geographic size and lack of centralized records related to tramways). It is believed to be unlikely, but possible, that the historic record does not include all electric town tramways that ever existed.
Read more about this topic: List Of Town Tramway Systems
Famous quotes containing the words paper and/or unknown:
“Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolving forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them—whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.”
—Alexander Eliot (b. 1919)
“I should need
Colours and words that are unknown to man,
To paint the visionary dreariness”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)