Tram - Etymology and Terminology

Etymology and Terminology

The terms tram and tramway were originally (ca. 1500) Scottish words for the type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran, probably derived from Middle Flemish tram "beam, handle of a barrow, bar, rung", a North Sea Germanic word of unknown origin meaning the beam or shaft of a barrow or sledge, also the barrow itself. Tram-car is attested from 1873.

Although tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English; North Americans prefer trolley, trolleycar or streetcar. The term streetcar is first recorded in 1840. When electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or later, trolleys, believed to derive from the troller, a four-wheeled device that was dragged along dual overhead wires by a cable that connected the troller to the top of the car and collected electrical power from the overhead wires, sometimes simply strung, sometimes on a catenary. The trolley pole, which supplanted the troller early on, is fitted to the top of the car and is spring-loaded in order to keep the trolley wheel or alternately, a grooved lubricated "skate", at the top of the pole, firmly in contact with the overhead wire. The terms trolley pole and trolley wheel both derive from the troller. Trams using trolley-pole current collection are normally powered through a single pole, grounded through the wheels and rails. The motor circuit is designed to allow electrical current to flow through the underframe. Although this use of "trolley" for tram was not adopted in Europe, the term was associated with "trolleybus": a rubber-tyred vehicle without tracks, which draws its power from overhead wires.

Modern trolley cars often use a metal shoe with a carbon insert instead of a trolley wheel, or have a pantograph. In North America, trams are sometimes called trolleys, even though strictly this may be incorrect: for example, cable cars, or conduit cars that draw power from an underground supply.

Tourist buses made to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the U.S. (tourist trolley). Open, low-speed segmented vehicles on rubber tires, generally used to ferry tourists short distances, can be called trams, for example on the Universal Studios backlot tour.

Electric buses, which use twin trolley poles (one for live current, one for return) but have wheels with tyres rolling on a hard surface rather than tracks, are called trolleybuses, trackless trolleys (particularly in the Northeastern U.S.), or sometimes (in the UK, as well as in Seattle and Vancouver) simply trolleys.