Category Archives: History

About trams, about history or about history of trams.

Trams on Praça da Liberdade in Porto

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Porto – Praça da Liberdade in 1933.

Praça da Liberdade, until 1910 Praça Dom Pedro IV, is the heart of the city of Porto. When the first mule trams arrived here in 1875, the Northern side was still occupied by the old city-hall. Most mule trams did not have their terminus on Praça, but continued to another destination. There were only single tracks on the South and East side of the square with a passing loop in front of the Palácio das Cardosas and a short stub track in front of the Igreja dos Congregados de Sto.António. With the electrification also double track was installed, but still only at the South and East side.

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The Porto Mule (horse) Trams

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A mule tram on Praça da Batalha in front of the Igreja de Santo Ildefonso, about 1900.

Porto, like many other cities, developed a horse tram system in the last decades of the 19th century, although instead of horses mainly mules were used to haul the vehicles. This page tells the history of these first trams of Porto. There is a separate page about the oldest tram vehicles.

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The Oldest Porto Tramcars

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Porto mule tram, location unknown but believed to be in Matosinhos.

The history of the oldest Porto tramcars is very complicated, but partly also obscure. They were hauled by both mules and steam locomotives. Later part of them were transformed into electric trams while the others continued as trailers of the electric trams. The majority was disposed of during the second decade of the twentieth century, but a few even made it into the first half of the 1960’s.

This page is about the vehicles, there are separate pages about the history of the mule and steam tram networks.

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The Porto Steam Trams

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Steam tram with locomotive Henschel no.5 at Cadouços ca.1902. Photo Aurélio da Paz dos Reis.

In Porto, like in most cities before electric trams were introduced, horse trams provided the urban public transport, although in Porto more often mules were used. Steam trams were used in many cities too, most on busy suburban routes. Porto was one of the cities in Europe using steam locomotives for trams. This page is about the steam trams of Porto that operated in the city for 36 years. This page is about the history of the steam tramline and the locomotives used, there is a separate page about the tram vehicles that were hauled not only by the locomotives, but also by mules and electric trams.

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Merryweather & Sons, steam tram locomotive builders

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The sole surviving Merryweather steam tram locomotive, works no.110 of 1881, RSTM no.2, in the Nederlands Spoorweg Museum in Utrecht in December 2008. (Wikipedia)

Actually the title of this page is wrong. The major activity of the Merryweather company was always making fire fight equipment. As such it was founded in 1692, although originally with a different name. Over the next 144 years the name changed several times with new owners and associates joining or leaving the firm. Fire fight equipment and its history is very interesting, but this page is about the second product that made Merryweather famous: steam tram locomotives.

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Ponte Luís I

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The Ponte Luís I seen from the side of Vila Nova de Gaia, about 1995.

The Ponte Luís I, often called the Ponte Dom Luís, connects the central parts of Porto and VN de Gaia. It had and has a major role in the public transport of Porto and is one of the most important landmarks of the city. This bridge with two decks was built in the 1880’s as successor of the from 1843 dating Ponte Pênsil.

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The Lisboa cable trams

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Cable tram no.4 of the Estrela line. The photo was taken in 1913 on the last day the line was in operation.

Lisboa is built on hills. Mule or horse trams could only go up the steep gradients with the use of extra animals. As the animals were the largest cost of the whole tram operations, it was a too costly affair to have many or long steep inclines within the network. In 1873 in San Francisco a system was introduced employing a cable running continuously in a conduit below the track, which could be picked up or released by a gripper with metal jaws suspended from the car and passing through a slot in the road. Many such systems were built in America and other countries. Also in Lisboa three cable tramlines were constructed, all with a gauge of 900 mm.

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The funiculars of Lisboa

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Elevador da Bica, 1994

The Lisboa funiculars, in Portugal called ascensor or elevador, are part of the urban public transport system. All three were first operated by the NCAML, the same company that also operated the Estrela and Graça cable tramlines. The funiculars are now operated by the CCFL. As the funiculars are in public streets, the cable is in a conduit slot. The original installations were delivered by Maschinenfabrik Esslingen.

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Changing the rule of the road from left to right

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Question:

I know that Portugal shifted from driving left to right in 1928. I could imagine, that the trams had only left doors when shifting. How did Portugal cope with this? Did the trams continue in the left side for some time, or was it properly planned as in Sweden, where public transportation introduced double sided door vehicles starting 10 years before cut over i 1967.

Porto tram no.277 built in 1926; 9 May 2009

Answer:

In 1928 all trams in Portugal were fully symmetrical: double-end with entrances / exits at both sides. So for the trams there wasn’t anything to change. The first unidirectional trams in Porto were put in service in 1946, the first in Lisboa in 1951. Sintra, Coimbra and Braga never had single-end trams with entrances at one side only.

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Larmanjat

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A Larmanjat tram at Portas do Rego, 1873

The Larmanjat was a monorail system invented by the french engineer Jean Larmanjat (1826-1895). The system was made of a central vignola type iron rail and at both sides longitudinal wooden sleepers about 60 cm from the central rail. This system was adopted by “The Lisbon Steam Tramways Company ltd“. Locally the system was called “Companhia de Tramway a Vapor“, but commonly known as the Larmanjat. The lines used the existing roads from Lisboa to Sintra and Torres Vedras.

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Coimbra trams

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Tram no.12
Tram no.12 in Rua Dr. Augusto Rocha, October 1968.

Coimbra was one of the five places in Portugal that had an electric tram system. The city is situated about 200 km north of Lisboa and 120 km south of Porto and dates from the Roman period. The oldest part of the city “Alta” or “Almedina” occupies an irregularly-shaped hill overlooking the Rio Mondego. Already in the Middle Ages the “Baixa” (lower town) was built along the river. Here the principal shops and other commercial activities are located. The Alta and the Baixa are separated by the main shopping street. This street has two names, Rua Ferreira Borges for the southern part and Rua Visconde da Luz for the slightly wider northern part, but they are in line with each other and in practice make one street.

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Old black & white photos and how they show the colours

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Sintra yellow tram
Sintra yellow tram no.7 with simulated orthochromatic BW (left) and panchromatic BW (right) versions of the original colour photo.

Because we are used to panchromatic black & white these days, not everyone realises that old photos are often of a different kind of black & white. E.g. a tram on an old photo looking dark, could have been yellow.

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Braga trams

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Braga tram no.4 with trailer no.4
Braga tram no.4 with trailer no.4 in 1962 on the Avenida Central.

Braga was one of the five places in Portugal that had an electric tram system. This very old city, with its roots in the pre-historic period, is situated about 55 km north-east from Porto. Apart from the many monuments in the city itself, one of the most important destinations for visitors is the Santuário do Bom Jesus do Monte, a pilgrimage church situated on a hill about 5 km east of the city. The railway from Porto to Braga had opened on 21 May 1875 with the station at the west of the city. Soon a mule tramline was opened to connect the city with the Santuário do Bom Jesus. The mule trams were replaced by electric trams in 1914.

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Sintra trams

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Sintra tram no.1 at Colares, 7 May 2013.

In 1904 an 11.7 km long metre gauge electric tramline was opened from Sintra (station) to Praia das Maças (Applebeach). An 1.0 km long urban line connected the station in Sintra-Estefânia with Sintra-Vila. Some freight transport existed, mainly between Banzão and the railway station. In the small Banzão depot is still a weigh bridge and the only track of the depot gives also access to the warehouse of a winery. At the railway station was a siding to make transfer of goods easy.

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