Adelaide's horse-drawn trams Australia's first – and the last to survive; network run by private firms from the 1870s
Boarding a horse-drawn tram in Wakefield Street, Adelaide, in 1909.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Adelaide was the first Australian city to have horse-drawn trams and the last to discard them. South Australia’s first horse tram was used in 1855 on the Goolwa-Port Elliot rail line but the wider impetus came in the 1870s when Edwin Smith and William Buik, of Kensington and Norwood Corporation and both later mayors of Adelaide, inspected tramways in Europe.
Back in Adelaide, they promoted the concept leading to a prospectus being issued for the Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Co.. Despite Adelaide council objections over licensing and control, the South Australian government was lobbied by private commercial interests to pass an act in 1876 for a horse tram network.
Services began in June 1878 from Adelaide to Kensington Park, with trams from John Stephenson Co. of New York.
Until 1907, private companies ran all horse tram service with the government authorising the building of lines. On its opening day, Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Co. had six trams, expanding to 90 and 650 horses by 1907 with its own tram building factory at Kensington.
From 1881, the government allowed more companies to use more lines. Eleven companies were operating within six years but three failed before constructing tracks.
The Adelaide-North Adelaide line opened in 1878, one from Port Adelaide to Albert Park in 1879, Adelaide to Mitcham and Hindmarsh in 1881, Walkerville 1882, Burnside, Prospect, Nailsworth and Enfield in 1883 and Maylands 1892.
All lines were 4 ft 81⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge except for Port Adelaide to Albert Park, built to handle broad-gauge steam engines, with embankments to avoid swampy ground.
There were 74 miles (119km) of tramlines with 1062 horses and 162 cars by 1901 and isolated lines from Port Adelaide to Albert Park and Glenelg to Brighton, as well as a network joining many suburbs to Adelaide’s centre by 1907.
Most companies had double-decker trams but some single levels were built by John Stephenson Co., Duncan & Fisher of Adelaide, and from 1897 by the A&ST at Kensington. The trams had an average speed of five miles per hour (8 km/h), with usually two horses pulling a tram from a pool of four to 10.
Streets widened for the tram lines included Brougham Place, North Adelaide, by 10 feet (three metres) and Prospect Road to 60 feet (18 metres). Most streets with trams were left unsealed because the horses’ urine needed to be absorbed and hooves needed a soft surface for good traction.
