The comparative cost of horses and tram locomotives - from the same work at p. 22, it is reported that, in 1906, a mare cost £26 and a gelding (
I presume some type of horse a
castrated male horse) could be had for £34.
A "Wilkinson" type tram locomotive, meanwhile, cost £800 or so in 1883 (
ibid).
Edit: Further from the same publication at p. 27, it is noted that rails were sold by the ton, so that rails 25% heavier would cost 25% more to purchase, and further that the cost of installation also increased with increasing weight of the rails, as greater manpower was required to lift it into place, and sturdier foundations were necessary to hold it in situ.
Edit 2: Some interesting information from p. 30 of the same volume on the running costs of trams. The Stockton & Darlington Steam Tramways Company Limited reported in 1885 that their trams cost 3.13d/mile to run, comprising 1.43d staff costs, .8d renewals, 0.66d fuel (a mix of coke and coal), 0.15d oil, waste and other stored and 0.09d water and gas; this was averaged over 55,286 miles from January to June of that year. These machines were reported as having 7" x. 11" cylinders.
Also on running costs, page 34 of the same volume notes that, in England at least, employing a fireman (or "stoker") on steam trams was not the norm (as it always was on railways), as the fire was expected to last untouched from one terminus to the next, although "stokers" as they were there called were commonly found on the tramways of Ireland, albeit those were rather different creatures, with longer distance runs aside, rather than upon, roads, making them more like light railways than true tramways.
Edit 3: At page 37 of that same volume, it is suggested that a Wilkinson type (vertical boiler) tram engine ran at 5.55d/mile (as a total cost, including staff cost) on the Blackburn & Over Darwen Tramway. On page 53, it is reported that Kitson built Wilkinson type engines cost 6d per car mile in 1884 compared with Wilkinson type engines built by Thomas Green & Son at 6 1/2d per car mile. Horses were reported as costing 9 1/8d per car mile in that same year.
At page 43, some detail is given of a typical Wilkinson type engine built by Beyer, Peacock & Co. (known as being a particularly reputable builder of high quality products): the locomotives were typically 0-4-0 types; cylinders were between 6" x 7" and 7 1/2" x 12" with gearing of 2:1 or 2.5:1; wheelbases were between 1.68m and 1.73m and overall length around 3.66m, with widths between 1.68m and 2m, and 2.74m high. The weights varied between 6t and 8t, and cost (in the 1880s) between £900 and £1,000.
This contrasts with the price quoted by Beyer, Peacock & Co. for a larger tram engine with a locomotive type (horizontal) boiler for an Irish tramway in 1896 of £2,990, although the winning bidder on that occasion was Thomas Green & Son with a bid of £1,790 (or £1,948 if paid in instalments, which option the tram company eagerly took). That locomotive was a 2-6-2T with 15" x 20" cylinders, 3'6" driving wheels, a 9'3" wheelbase, 743.5 sq. ft. total heating surface and an overall weight of 36.5 tons. The tractive effort was reported as 13,607lbf. (See page 56).
Some details of the cost of a trailer are given on page 54: an all enclosed twin deck trailer there pictured cost the Leeds Tramway Company £245 in 1890, and seated 66 persons, 28 downstairs, 38 upstairs. The weight is not given, but it is depicted riding on two four wheel bogies.
Edit 4: Gladwin's work (at pp. 64-5) also has some useful information on Kitson locomotive boilered tram engines, including prices. There were three standard types of Kitson tram engine, No. 1 Standard, No. 2 Standard, No. 3 Standard and No. 4 Standard, of which only the first two were successful, the third being more heavy and expensive with only a small increase in power, and the fourth being considered so impractical that it was barely built at all (and always to a modified version of the "standard").
Standard no. 1 had 7 1/4" or 7 1/2" x 12" cylinders, driving wheels of 27" - 28 1/2", a boiler with 116 sq. ft. of heating surface and weighed 7t gross. The first examples were sent to New Zealand in August 1879, although the price of one is sadly not given.
Standard no. 2 had 8" - 8 1/2" x 12" cylinders, 28 1/4" driving wheels, a boiler with 129 sq. ft. heating surface area and a gross weight of 9-9.5t. These were built from late 1882 (the first coming into service in January 1883 in Birmingham) and then cost £675. It is said that Wilkinson engines (built by Wilkinson, rather than Beyer, Peacock & Co.) then cost £750. By September 1883, the cost of the no. 2 Kitsons had increased to £700, and had risen again to £790 by July 1886 (p. 66).
Standard no. 3 had 9" x 15" cylinders, 34" driving wheels, and a boiler with a heating surface area of 150 sq. ft. The gross weight was 11t and it appears that they were introduced in about 1886 (from a table on pp. 71-2 of the abovementioned volume). There does not appear to be pricing information on these.
Standard no. 4 is not worth detailing.
In each case, the trams are of the 0-4-0 wheel configuration. The boiler pressure and firegrate area are not given individually, but some trams exported to Karachi in September 1885 and with 8" x 12" cylinders (suggesting a Standard no. 2 - the most successful of all Kitson designs) is reported as having a pressure of 160psi, a total heating surface area of 129 sq. ft., a wheelbase of 5', and a firebox measuring 2'9" x 3' 1/2" (suggesting a firebox area of 8.36 sq. ft.). It seems reasonable to assume that at least the boiler pressure was the same in types 1 and 3.
P. 79 gives some interesting information on some early (1875) designs of tram engine, these destined for Paris (whose steam tramway was not a success and which reverted to horse operation before electrification in 1896), but designed and built by English company Merryweather & Sons Ltd.. They were vertical boilered engines, although not to the Wilkinson patent, weighing 2t with dimensions of 1.6m long, 2.01m wide and 3.35m high; it had 5" x 9" cylinders with a 90psi boiler. The heating surface and firegrate areas are not given. This was the only locomotive built to these dimensions, the second locomotive, also sent to Paris, had 6" x 9" cylinders and weighed 4t. This latter type of engine became the Merryweather Type 1, and an example belonging to the Wharncliffe National Rifle Association, which used it in an annual makeshift tramway on Wimbledon Common for many years (p. 80).
Interestingly, the track reported (
ibid) on that temporary Wimbeldon Common tramway was a featherweight 14lb/yard (40lb/yard being considered light for steam tramways of the 1880s), which could clearly (if perhaps only barely) cope with the engine's 2t axle load. One might imagine that 14lb/yard tramway might have been common in horse tram times.
More details on the Merryweather engines are given from some Dutch records (pp. 93-4), as apparently some of the engines built between 1879-1881 were exported to the Netherlands. These values are given all in metric, and report that those engines had 179mm x 280mm cylinders, 740mm driving wheels (dia.), 10.3kg/cm^2 boiler pressure, total heating surface area of 11.8m^2, grate area of 0.4m^2, and a maximum speed of 35km/h. The weight is given as 9t, which suggests that these are Merryweather type 3s or type 6s shown on the table at p. 80 (the cylinder dimensions are consistent with type 3s, whereas the weight is more consistent with type 6s - I suspect that these are probably type 3s, the weight in the table on p. 80 perhaps being net of water in the tanks and boiler, as that on p. 94 is described as weight in working order).
Wilkinson & Co. Ltd., which owned the patent of the vertical "field" boilered locomotives built under licence by Beyer, Peacock & Co. described above, also built locomotives to this design, as might be supposed. The earlier type of engines (built from 1881) had cylinders of 6" x 7" and driving wheels of 2' 3", although the cylinder size even on the earlier type was later increased to 7" x 9" (pp. 87-89). These (at least the original versions of the type) weighed 5.5t.
In 1883, the first of the "heavy" Wilkinson engines appeared with "larger" boilers, 7 1/4" x 11" cylinders, and weighing 9.5t. Like the Beyer Peacock engines above, these were geared (I assume to the same ratios), with a resulting impact on tractive effort and available speed. The boiler pressures, heating surface and firegrate areas are not given, although on p. 91, there is a description of a boiler explosion on a steam powered canal barge using a field boiler supplied by Wilkinson (the cause of the explosion was a bad repair carried out by Mr. Wilkinson himself), the pressure of which was given at 150psi.
The price of Wilkinson engines built by Wilkinson & Co. is said to range from £870 to £1,000 (p. 91), and, although the date for these figures or the particular types of engines that they represent is not given, the context on p. 91 at least gives rise to the inference that those prices are intended to be at least comparable with prices of canal boats in 1891.
An interesting aside on scrap value (useful when I get around to introducing a system of secondhand sales to other players, failing which vehicles will only be able to be sold for scrap value unless new and unused) is given on p. 66, which reports that a Kitsom tram engine had a scrap value of £20 on the basis of £2/ton, the scrap merchant noting that the engine was almost all wrought iron scrap with no brass work to speak of (implying that scrap values for, say, railway locomotives might well be higher).
Another interesting aside on p. 66 is the information concerning the pay of drivers and guards in "the late 1890s", which recorded drivers being paid £1 10s for 64 hours' (a week's) work and guards (presumably the same as conductors) £1 for the same period. This was reportedly higher than in the period before 1894, when the working week was up to 91 hours for "even less pay" of an unspecified amount. That gives a driver's pay as £0.0234 per hour and a guard's as £0.0156 per hour after 1894, or less than £0.0165 and £0.0109 respectively before 1894. It also shows that a driver's pay was 1.5 times as much as a guard's/conductor's pay, which is useful for setting the relative fixed costs of tram engines and tram cars.
Another interesting aside is found on p. 91 concerning the cost of canal barges; a steel barge in 1891 is said to cost £500 from Messrs Smith and Company, with engines for them costing a further £336 from Wilkinson & Co (the maker of the tram engines).
A number of general themes emerge from Gladwin's work, two of which are worthy of note: firstly, the Board of Trade limited the speed of trams to 10mph (16km/h). Secondly, steam tramways appear to have been either failures or barely profitable, suggesting that profit margins for running these contraptions in the game should be low.
Edit 5: Sadly, the chapter on the trailers of tram cars in Gladwin vol. 1 is somewhat lacking, and has little pricing information (although see above on some pricing information on trailers). However, at p. 133, it is recorded that these (double deck) trailers most commonly seated 58 persons (no clue is given as to standing capacity) and were normally enclosed on top, for passengers would be troubled by the emissions of smoke from the engines otherwise. For the most part, the seats were unpadded wood, although some companies cushioned the seats.
Some dimensions are given on p. 141 of a Birmingham car, although those were to 3'6" gauge and might thus be smaller than a typical standard gauge tram car. Nevertheless, the total length was 29' 1 1/2", overall width 5'9", height 14', empty weight 3 tons 18cwt. This carriage, which was built in 1894, is illustrated on p. 140, and shows a double ended design with traverse ("garden seat") seating on the top deck. The lower deck would almost certainly have had longitudinal seating.
Edit 6: Again, surprisingly little information on pricing in the permanent way chapter of Gladwin's work. However, there is a useful table at p. 167 showing, in effect, a catalogue of types (and, significantly, weights) of tram rail available from Dick, Kerr & Co. in 1895 together with the tram companies to which those rails were supplied. Of the British concerns listed therein, here is a brief list:
Gateshead-on-Tyne, Woolwich & South-East London, Wigan and Ipsiwtch: 56-58lb/yard
Brighton: 60-63lb/yard
Norwood & Corydon and Hartlepool: 74-77lb/yard
South Staffordshire, Cardiff Southampton, Accrington, Port Glasgow, Birmingham Midland: 75-78lb/yard
Manchester, Bury & Rochdale: 88-92lb/yard
Newcastle-upon-Tyne: 90-94lb/yard
London, Camberwell & East Dulwich and Portsmouth: 65-68lb/yard
It might be inferred that, in the 1870s and 1880s, lighter rail might well have been used. It is further worthy of note that a Brazilian concern used rail as light as 35lb/yard and "Bridgetown" (I assume in Barbados) used rail 40-42lb/yard in weight. Meanwhile, the Dublin United used 90-94lb/yard, but, it is noteworthy, as stated above, that Irish trams were often more like light railways than true urban trams.
In general, it is said that that the wear (and therefore the maintenance) of tramways was considerably greater than that of ordinary railways, and likewise that the cost of laying them in the first place was higher, but no quantification is given.
Finally from volume 1, a somewhat random piece of information on p. 170: a pair of LNER Class Y10s (a sort of tramway engine) were supplied in 1930 to the Wisbeach & Upwell Tramway (a tramway more similar to the typical Irish concern, being more in the way of a light railway) at a (I presume combined) cost of £4,720, but only lasted on that concern for a year before being relegated to shunting duties at the quay, where they survived until 1952.
Edit 7: One matter that I forgot to mention in the previous posts is that the Board of Trade prohibited the hauling of tram cars in a train, so that the maximum that was permitted was a single tram locomotive and one trailing car.
Volume 3 of "A History of the British Steam Tram" by David Gladwin (published by Adam Gordon, ISBN: 978-1-87422-60-0) contains useful information relating to particular tramway concerns. Chapter 2, concerning the (standard gauge) Dewsbury, Batley and Birstal Tramway Company Ltd., which was one of the more successful steam tramways, has some particularly useful information.
That line, when initially laid in 1873 (as a horse tramway), used track 41lb/yard in weight (p. 19), but when an extension was built in 1881/2, 55lb/yard track was used (p. 20), although at p. 25, it is noted that the renewal of the existing rail in about 1880 used 72lb/yard stock.
The cost of the extension, laid with 55lb/yard rail, is summarised in a table atop p. 20. That extension, some 1.13 miles (1.808km) cost £2,370-14-0 for the way alone, or £4,240-14-0 for the way together with the cost of repaving the road, of which £1,010-10-0 was the cost of the rail itself (excluding sleepers, fixings, etc.). This gives a total cost of £2,345.52 per kilometre.
As to the engines run on that line, the Merryweather type with locomotive boilers were preferred. The first locomotive for the line is recorded (p. 23) as having arrived in 1879 as a standard Merryweather class 2, with 6 1/2" x 10" cylinders, 2' 2" wheels (in an 0-4-0 arrangement), a weight of 5t, a total heating surface area of 169 sq. ft., a grate area of 3.7 sq. ft. and a boiler pressure of 140psi. It cost £725 when new (p. 30). Secondhand engines of the Merryweather type 4 design were purchased from the ill-fated North London concern in 1898 (the locomotives having been new in 1885), these were described as being "relatively large" with 7 1/2" x 12" cylinders, 2' 4" diameter wheels and "somewhat larger boilers", whose dimensions are not given in any detail (p. 30). The cost of these locomotives, either new or secondhand, is not given. The earlier locomotives, meanwhile, were scrapped (presumably together with the later locomotives) in 1905 when the line was electrified, and these fetched £26 in scrap value (p. 33).
On the subject of the trailers, the first, obtained when the concern was a horse tramway, were described as "standard" products from the maker Starbuck, and seated a total of 32, 16 on each deck (p. 32). No indication anywhere is given of tram trailers' standing capacities, but frequent references are made to them often being overcrowded, and there are many photographs of them in this state, so standing must have occurred frequently. In 1874, whilst still a horse tramway (the line opened in 1873 and, as stated above, purchased its first steam locomotive in 1879), it purchased (secondhand) two larger cars from the Leeds Tramway Company, also built by Starbuck, seating being a total of 40. These were rebuilt to enclose the tops, and, as rebuilt, weighed something of the order of 2.5t (the weight of the old horse carriages is not given). In 1886, larger tram cars were obtained, again from Starbuck, these seating a total of 66. Further cars ordered in 1898 were of a similar pattern with only minor differences.
The running costs of the Dewsbury concern receive a detailed treatment. At p. 24, it is reported that, in the year 1882, 7 1/2lb of coke per mile was used (on this rather flat tramway with no difficult gradients, although elsewhere on the same page, the figures of 7lb/mile and 6.911 lb/mile are given), costing a total of 3.81d/mile (presumably, as with other per mile figures, including staff costs that in Simutrans should be a fixed monthly/hourly cost). The Wilkinson type engines of other tramways, by contrast, were recorded as consuming as much as 21lb of coke per mile at a total cost of 4.5d/mile. In 1880, the cost of coke was said to be 23s-6d/ton, which, at 6.911lb/mile, cost 0.872d/mile. It is noteworthy, therefore, that barely more than one fifth of the running costs of trams were fuel costs. Page 25 gives a more detailed breakdown of tram running costs in the form of a table, from which it can be deduced that 7s-6d (90d) per day out of a total running cost of 13s-5 1/4d (161.25d) per day comprise wages, or a total of 56% (90 / 161.25 = 0.558139535) are staff wages. If, however, we subtract the mechanic's wages of 1s-6d (18d) on the basis that the mechanic's wages form part of the variable cost, as the mechanic is more needed the more that the vehicle is used, this gives a total of 45% (72 / 161.25 = 0.446511628) fixed cost, and, of the remaining variable running cost (72d), 87% (62.75d) is the cost of the fuel. These figures relate only to the engines, not the tram cars. However, this report is of the running costs of the engines when new, and might underestimate the cost of repairs somewhat.
The profit margins in 1883 of various tram companies are shown in the minutes of the Dewsbury's annual general meeting of that year, reproduced at p. 27. The expenses of the Bristol tramway company were 85% of receipts, Derby 80%, Edinburgh, 79%, Hull 74%, Leeds 88%, Sheffield 93%, Wolverhampton 80%, Nottingham 80%, Stafford 84%, Southampton 83%, Wigan 85% and the Dewsbury itself only 63%.
Edit 8: Some information of more limited usefulness from some other chapters. On p. 40, it is reported that the (standard gauge) Drypool & Marfleet Steam Tramway Co. paid between £500 and £600 apiece for some Thomas Green tramway engines in May 1889 (a caption on a picture on p. 41 gives a figure of £604 per engine). These were compound engines of two cylinders in an 0-4-0 arrangement with a 5ft wheelbase. Boiler details and cylinder dimensions are not given, but the overall length was given as 11ft 6in, a width of 6ft and a total height of 10ft 4in (not including chimney) (p. 39). The locomotive compounding was said to give some economy, with a locomotive cost of 2.5d/mile, and what is described as a "total traffic cost" of 3.6d/mile and 5.42d/mile. The lower cost is ascribed to the earlier period of that company's life (in 1892-3) and the higher cost to a later period (1898-9), which, it is reported, was due to an increase over that period in the maintenance of engines and cars (combined, it is to be inferred) increasing from 0.5d to 2.0d per car mile in that period (p. 42).
Speeds on that line were limited to a maximum of 8mph (p. 39).
The tram cars, meanwhile, cost either £240 apiece (there were 8 of them) and were built by G. F. Milnes of Birkenhead (p. 40). These had 8 windows and seated 74 (they are pictured on p. 41 as being double deck enclosed bogie carriages; the caption to that picuture rather contrarily gives a different cost for the trailers, suggesting that they cost £340 each and that there were only 6 of them).
The Drypool & Marfleet seems to have used 75lb/yard rail (p. 38). The total construction cost for the whole length of the tramway was in the region of £8,000 (p. 40) for a tramway 1 mile 27 chains long (2.1522km), giving a cost of construction of £3,717.13/km. This compared favourably with the City of Oxford's horse tramways at £10,946 per mile (£6,802.98/km) and the Southampton tramways at £13,380 per mile (£8,315.72/km) (
ibid). (Some other comparative costs per mile are given on p. 99, but these appear to be for tramways of a narrower gauge and therefore not strictly comparable).
Edit 9: In 1891, the Gurnsey Tramway (about
3 miles in length) electrified its route at a cost of £3,850, giving a cost of electrification of £2,392.79 per kilometre (p. 112). The line initially used Merryweather Type 2 engines (7" x 11" cylinders)
at a cost of £700 each in 1877 (although the tramway did not run until 1879).
The line was closed in 1931 (p. 113) after, according to
Wikipedia, a study was carried out discovering that tram transport then cost 9d/mile compared to 'bus transport at 5 1/2d/mile.
Edit 10: At p. 149, it is reported that a Kitson engine delivered to the Huddersfield tramway in 1889, with cylinders of 9 1/2" x 12", consumed 80% of the coke that was consumed by a Wilkinson engine of 1885 with 7 1/4" x 11" cylinders. The Kitson engine is reported to have been more powerful, but it is not clear by how much.
Horse haulage on a branch of the Huddersfield Tramway (to Moldgreen, a somewhat steep section) was said to have cost £810-6-8 per annum compared to £482-4-3 for steam - the steam traction therefore costing around 60% of the horse haulage.
P. 150 gives the annual accounts for the Huddersfield Corporation Tramways in 1892 (one of the earliest to be "municipalised" or nationalised in modern parlence, largely for want of private operators in that area). Of particular interest is the entry for permanent way maintenance of £6,654. Gladwin gives the length of the tramway as 17 miles and 5 furlongs (28.4km), giving a per km maintenance of the permanent way of £234.30 per annum (or, for Simutrans purposes, £0.04 per km nominal 16 hour working day or £0.002507446 per Simutrans hour). This was, however, a heavyweight 98lb/yard track (p. 148) - it is not clear whether the maintenance would have been higher or lower if a more typical, say, 77lb/yard track had been used.
It is notable as a general theme of the works that single lines with passing places were the most common mode of operation of tramways, and service frequency was quite low - down to 40 minutes on the Huddersfield concern (although as much as 5 minutes on a much shorter line in Kingston-Upon-Hull). This is relevant to the applicability of the above figure for the permanent way cost as well as for operational purposes (it seems common practice in Simutrans instead to have a one way system in adjoining streets).
Edit 11: Much useful information comes from Gladwin's histories of the Leeds and Leicester systems. The Leeds system, which started in 1871 as a horse tramway, initially used track of 48lb/yard (p. 170). These were eventually replaced with 85lb/yard rail in 1881 (after an intermediate and somewhat experimental type was used unsuccessfully; p. 172). The "basic" cost of laying this rail (that is, with all required materials but without labour) is said to be £2,348-8-per mile for double track, or £1,459.54 per kilometre.
Leicester, meanwhile, an almost exclusively horse operation apart from a few experiments, laid in 1877 rail of 47lb/yard, costing a total of £3,000 per mile of single track (including labour; p. 209). That equates to £1864.51 per kilometre. The labour cost is not clearly separated from the materials cost here (there is a description of "providing and laying... granite" as a single item), so a clear comparison with the above cost is not possible.
Returning to a theme in one of the earlier posts, that of rolling resistance, the rolling resistance of a tramway appears to have been tested in Leeds (p. 171), and those tests came out with a rolling resistance of 26lb/ton - somewhat less than the 37lb/ton estimated by The Engineer in the 1870s. However, the rolling resistance was noted as being variable: "often much more, sometimes less". Dirt in the groove was said to be the main cause of this being considerably higher than on railways, and experiments in Paris showed that removing the flanges from some of the wheels greatly reduced this figure (
ibid). Meanwhile, an excerpt on p. 127 suggests that, on tight corners, the rolling resistance can double from that on straight tram track.
As to the tramcars on those lines, the Leeds system had cars built by Starbuck originally that are said (p. 170) to be of two designs dating back to 1860, the first being a double decker seating 40 people and weighing 2.6t and the second being a single decker weighing 2.2t and carrying 18 people. Later (sadly, no date is given) light weight cars of 1.9t seating 36 were delivered. I assume that these cars were all those used in horse haulage days. No costs are given for these early cars, but, on p. 204, a table is given showing the cost, introduction date and seating capacity (but not weight) of later cars. In 1883, Starbuck supplied 44 seat double decker cars costing £210. Similar cars were supplied in 1884, this time costing £235. In 1885, a larger design of cars, carrying 54 passengers, were delivered at a cost of £260 each. In 1887, cars with a capacity of 60 were obtained for £225 each (this time from the Ashbury company, which might explain the lower price), and larger cars again in 1888, seating 66, again from Ashbury, for £242. Similar cars were ordered down to 1890, their price fluctuating during that period between £237 and £245 each.
The running costs of the tram cars on the Leeds system (sadly not broken down so as to be able to discern costs per unit of time rather than per unit of distance) are discernible from a table on pp. 186-7. In 1887, for instance, 63 cars operated, the cost of repairing which was £2,427 (or £38.52 per car). The cars had run in that year a total of 798,820 miles, giving a cost per car mile of £0.000048226, or £0.000029973 per car kilometre. By comparison, in 1890, there were 68 cars in service, running a total of 857,642 miles and costing a total of £3,627 to maintain, giving a total of £53.34 per car or £0.000062192 per car mile (being £0.000038652 per car kilometre).
P. 212 gives an interesting table in which the fixed cost of horses is calculated on the Leicester system. The average cost per horse per week was said to vary between 11s-10.33d and 11s-5.73d in 1899-1890 (that is, in decimal currency, £0.59 - £0.57). It is said at p. 173 that "one engine was equal to 14 horses, allowing for changes, food &c.", which gives rise to an interesting point: we should probably multiply by 14 the weekly cost of horses to make them equivalent to the steam engines, giving us £8.12 on average. The question then arises as to whether this needs to be done for the difference between, say, steam and diesel/electric locomotives, too, and whether this needs to be factored into the purchase price, or whether it should be accommodated entirely in the fixed cost (the latter would have the advantage that the purchase prices would not need to be distorted from inflation adjusted derivations of the actual cost).
The renewal cost of horses on the Leeds system is given in the 1894-5 accounts on pp. 194-5, where the amount is given as £4 per annum, equating to £0.08/week. It should be noted, however, that this figure is not directly comparable to the above, as this is
renewal rather than maintenance (horses, being mortal - and especially so when called upon daily to pull tramway cars - needing to be replaced periodically). The Leicester figures do not include renewal, so some combination of the two is of benefit. On the above figures of the cost of horses, the working life of a tram horse seems to have been a little over 7 years in these times. This is relevant when I introduce the system of overhauls: horses would need to be "overhauled" (i.e., renewed) the equivalent of once every seven years at a cost equivalent to their initial purchase price.
The comparative running cost of horse and steam trams are again compared at p. 173 in relation to the Leeds system, with similar results as previously: the horse traction is said to have expenses of 9d/mile as compared to 5 1/2d for steam. On p. 148, a similar comparison is made, where it is said that a saving of 3 1/2d/mile was made by steam over horse transport (3.5 being the difference between 5.5 and 9), and, of note, it is said that this was based on a direct comparison at the same time, as there was a time when some lines in Leeds, owned by the same company, were horse operated, and others steam operated.
As to motive power, the Leeds system used mainly Kitson engines after some early experimentation with engines of the Wilkinson design. Some interesting statistics are given of these engines in an extensive table on pp. 199 - 202, comprising, not just details of the Leeds engines, but details of all of Kitson's tram engine output, including weights and boiler details. Kitson made tram engines between 1876 and 1891 and in that time produced nearly 250 of them. Cross-referencing with earlier in this post, the "Standard no. 1", built in 1879 for the first time, appears to have had a wheelbase of 4ft, a grate area of 5.17 sq. ft. and a boiler pressure of 155psi* (all other details already being supplied), the "Standard no. 2", first built in 1884, had a wheelbase of 4ft6", a fire grate area of 6 sq. ft. and a boiler pressure of 160psi (other information having been provided above). "Standard no. 3" does not seem to have been particularly standard at all, but an engine conforming to the basic description above was built for the Birmingham system in 1885, and had a boiler pressure of 160psi with a fire grate area of 8.8 sq. ft.. The wheelbase appears to have been 5ft.
* The pressure seemed to vary: I have taken 155psi as the pressure of the engine supplied to the Leeds system, although anything between 150 and 160 appears to have been built.
Returning to the subject of wages: in the Leeds system, in 1900, tram drivers were receiving 6 3/4d per hour and guards 5 1/4d per hour (after they had been working for 6 months; lower wages applied before that time).
