page_title: Nottingham and District Tramways Company Limited
section_title: The Steam Tram
hierarchical_section_title: Nottingham and District Tramways Company Limited / Nottingham and District Tramways Company Limited 1875-1897 / The Steam Tram
caption_attribution_description: English: Steam Tram on the Nottingham network circa 1882
context_page_description: Nottingham and District Tramways Company Limited was a tramway operator from 1875 to 1897 based in Nottingham in the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: In 1880 the company made some trials with a steam tram from Messrs Hughes and Co of Loughborough. On 27 May, at six in the morning, the engine was brought to the top of Sion Hill outside the general cemetery where a number of invited guests boarded. The tram proceeded down the steep hill on Derby Road and Chapel Bar to the terminus next to the Exchange. Then the car left the Market Place and made the reverse journey back up the Derby Road hill, stopping to prove that it could start on a steep hill. The tram then proceeded to the Basford Depot and when the flat ground of Radford Road was reached the driver was instructed to increase the speed, and 20 m.p.h. was achieved. The tram reached the Basford Depot in approximately 20 minutes and the trial was judged a success. A further experiment was undertaken on 3 June, to which civic dignitaries including the Mayor, the Town Clerk and various Aldermen were invited, some of whom followed the trial from horse-drawn tram cars. The emission of steam in the Market Place was explained by the manufacturer, Mr. Hughes as he had been requested by the authorities to discharge the condensing water outside of the town, so under normal operating conditions, steam would be prevented from escaping in the town.
  In 1880 Manlove, Alliott & Co. Ltd. built a steam tram at their Bloomsgrove Works in Norton St that was tested on the Nottingham tracks. It was sold to the Dublin and Lucan Steam Tramway Company, for £950 (equivalent to £96,500 in 2019),, in 1881. It is reported to have covered its two-mile (3 km) run in ten minutes.
  This Manlove Alliott design was a self-propelled steam vehicle having a vertical boiler on each end platform with the engine mounted below the saloon floor. The upper deck had knife-board seats, back to back, with a top canopy and open sides and ends, with modesty rails. The boiler chimneys ran up and through the roof, at each end, serving coke boilers 25½ inches in diameter and 6 feet (1.8 m) high. The two-cylinder steam engine had a piston bore of 7½ inches and a stroke of 9 inches. Unladen it weighed 9 tons and was capable of carrying 50 passengers.
  The General Works and Highways Committee granted approval on 2 January 1881 for a one-week trial using steam power on the Mansfield Road route.
  On 9 January 1882 the General Works and Highways Committee reported to the Corporation an application of the Tramways Company "for permission to use steam power for a period of one year on Basford, Carrington and Forest routes using Parrott's patent combined engine and car, manufactured by Manlove, Alliott and Fryer of Nottingham, and Dickenson's combined engine and car, manufactured in Sheffield." This was agreed on quite remarkable conditions, including "that no steam or smoke be discharged and that the action of the engine shall be noiseless". However, the introduction of steam power required Board of Trade approval and the order appears to have not been carried out. The company may have run trials with these two engines but there is no evidence that either was put into passenger carrying service.
  Eleven months later on 4 December 1882 the General Works and Highways Committee reported that "the Tramways Company were authorised by the Board of Trade to use a steam tram on the Basford route for one year. The following conditions applied:
  The Board of Trade under the powers conferred upon them by the Tramways Orders Confirmation Act 1879, do by this license authorise as an experiment only, the use of steam power in addition to, or in substitution of, animal power by the Nottingham and Districts Tramways Company, Limited, (hereinafter called "the Company") on Tramways No. 2 authorised by the Nottingham and Districts Tramways Order 1877, which was confirmed by the Tramways Order Confirmation Act 1879 (hereinafter called "the tramways") extending from the Market-place in Nottingham to the terminus is Basford, for a period not exceeding one year from the date hereof, subject to the following requirements, regulations and conditions, that is to say :-
  REQUIREMENTS
  The engine to be used on
caption: Nottingham Steam Tram circa 1882
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