Swansea Improvements and Tramway Company - Horse Trams

Horse Trams

Horse trams to Morriston and St Helens began in 1878 and in 1882 to Cwmbwrla using 10 American built cars. The company had powers to run their trams along the SMR but were forced by a court ruling to run horse trams only behind the SMR's own steam trains to stop their trial of three Hughes Locomotive Company steam engines being used to pull their passenger cars. The three engines were moved to run the Cwmbwrla route but they proved unreliable, possibly due to the steep gradients and so led to Swansea being the first town in Wales to introduce electric traction in 1900 after being bought-out by the British Electric Traction Company Limited (BET).