Origins
The first trams in Edinburgh were horse-drawn and operated by the Edinburgh Street Tramways Company. This replaced an earlier horse drawn coach system. The inaugural service (Haymarket to Bernard Street) ran on 6 November 1871. The tracks were laid by Sir James Gowans with John Macrae as engineer. These lines complemented and partly replaced the pre-existing horse-drawn carriage from Edinburgh to Leith, the only essential difference being the addition of guide rails. In January 1888 the Edinburgh Northern Tramways started the first cable-hauled trams. This had its depot and drive-mechanism on Henderson Row, a building partially preserved in the Scottish Life Assurance offices there. Part of the winding gear is preserved on the pavement to the east side of the office. The cable system only operated in certain central areas. In 1894 the Edinburgh Street Tramway lines in Edinburgh (but not Leith or Portobello) were taken over by the Edinburgh and District Tramways Company. On 1 July 1919 Edinburgh Corporation took over the operation of the city's tramways.
Leith Corporation took over the still horse-drawn Leith tramlines in 1904 and introduced electric traction in 1905 (the first electric system in Scotland). Edinburgh Corporation took over the Leith system in 1920 (see below).
Read more about this topic: Edinburgh Corporation Tramways
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)