The finding of buried tram tracks next to Flora Fountain n Friday brought back memories of a bygone era

Two sets of well-preserved tram tracks, and a junction point made by Edgar Allen of Sheffield, were uncovered by workers digging up the road near Flora Fountain in preparation for concretising it. As their green excavator machine removed layers of old tarmac, they struck metal. They stopped work for a while, confused. But a few passers-by spotted the tracks that were now visible, took pictures and uploaded them on social media, triggering discussions and sepia-tinted memories.

The tracks the workers had discovered were from an almost-forgotten era of the city that was then Bombay, when tram cars trundled along its roads. The bus-like vehicles that ran on rails first came to the city in the 1870s, much before motorised vehicles appeared, drawn by horses. They were electrified in 1907, becoming the first electric public transport of Mumbai. They served many decades before finally being fading into history in 1964.

The section of rail unearthed at Fountain is on what was one of the first routes, started in 1874. BEST records state that the first sod for the Bombay Tramway was turned on January 1, 1874.

Where it began

The trams were a response to the growing city’s need for faster public transport, according to BEST archives. The 19th century saw key changes to the island city. First seven scattered islands had been connected, the spaces between them filled in, by 1830. By 1853, rail transport and improved roads enhanced port traffic and the volume of business. Bombay University came up. The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 increased the demand for cotton and led to an enormous increase in cotton-trade, and more mills in the city. The population grew enormously, from 162,570 in 1826 to 644,405 in 1872, and it continued to grow. For transport, besides the two-wheeled bullock-drawn reklas, there were horse-drawn four-wheeled shigrams that could accommodate five passengers, four inside and one outside, and buggies and palanquins for hire as well.

The burgeoning city needed more transport options.

In 1865, an American Company, Messrs Stearns Hobart & Co, proposed running horse-drawn tram cars in the city. The Bombay government granted it a licence, but the project never materialised due to economic reasons. Six years later, in 1871, the Bombay Omnibus Service proposed a horse-bus service between Malabar Hill and Fort, but it was expensive and used by few.

There had been several applicants wanting to ply in Mumbai and a Select Committee of Justices of Peace sat down to decide on street tramways, their thoroughfare, gauge and general terms and conditions. A deed of agreement was signed on March 1, 1873, granting William French Stearns of Stearns Hobart, and George Alvah Kittredge, of Messrs GA Kittredge, the right to construct, maintain and operate tramways on the streets of Bombay. They were to pay and annual per-mile rent of Rs 3,000 for double tracks and Rs 2,000 for a single track.

Stearns and Kittredge floated a company in New York called the Bombay Tramway Company Limited, and registered it in Bombay in March 1873. The Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) was given the right to purchase the company after the first twenty years or after every seven years thereafter. In 1874, after the contract was formally signed, the Bombay Tramways Act was enacted.

The construction work was entrusted to Messrs Glover and Co. under the supervision of a New York-based transport expert, Mr Witman. The rails were of steel, in the “rail box” pattern, each 30 feet long and weighing about 25.5 kg. Tracks and junction points were made of cast iron with manganese steel tongue rails for extra protection, furnished by Edgar Allen & Co Sheffield. The ties had been originally made of Indian teakwood, and were 7’ 6” long. The cost of Bombay’s tramway tracks was about Rs 24,000 per mile, and the estimated life of the original rails at that time was 21 to 24 years; they were replaced at intervals.

The first trams

On May 9, 1874, the service started, with some trams drawn by one horse and others on broader roads by two. The next day, the line was closed to correct irregularities noticed on the first day of running. But In the first week itself, by May 15, 3,135 passengers travelled on 294 trips. The trams plied two routes: Colaba to Pydhoni via Crawford Market, and Bori Bunder to Pydhoni, via Kalbadevi, with a fleet of 20 cars and 200 horses.

In 1899, the company applied to run its tram-cars on electricity. The BMC decided to exercise its right to take over the company, and in 1905, the Bombay Electric Supply & Tramways Company Limited (B.E.S. & T Co. Ltd.) came into existence.

The order for the first electric tram-car had been placed with the Brush Electrical Company of London, and it arrived in Bombay in January 1906. The service was formally inaugurated on May 7, 1907 by Vallabhdas Thakersey, the Chairman of the Municipality. At 5.30 that afternoon, the first electric tram-car, especially decorated for the occasion, started from outside the Municipal Office, went as far as the Crawford Market, and returned to the point from where it had left. As crowds increased, the company introduced a double-decker tramcar on Mumbai’s roads in September 1920.

An era ends

Talk in favour of the motor bus began in 1913. In 1926, the BES&T planned a motor bus route as an experiment, on three routes: Afghan Church to Crawford Market, Dadar Tram Terminus to King’s Circle via Parsi Colony, and Opera House to Lalbaug via Lamington Road and Arthur Road. The approval of the Commissioner of Police and the Municipality having been obtained, the service on the first of these routes began on July 15, 1926 with a modest fleet of 24 vehicles.

By Independence, that tramway had become an outdated mode of transport. In 1952, a survey of tram traffic was conducted. Acting on the results, the BES&T lessened the number of trams on low-traffic routes. In 1953, it started closing down uneconomic tram routes and replacing them with busses, the first to go was Route No 12, Null Bazar to Jacob’s Circle; more and more routes were closed down in the years that followed until only one remained: Bori Bunder to Dadar. The last tram on this route left Bori Bunder at 10 pm on March 31, 1964.

The first accident

The British statesman and Member of Parliament William Huskisson, who was run over by George Stephenson’s locomotive engine during the inaugural journey of the world’s first twin-track inter-city passenger railway, the Liverpool-Manchester Railway, was the world’s first widely-reported railway casualty.

Bombay’s trams had a grim start too. After the inaugural run, four tram-cars plied various routes until 11 each night. People jostled one another to board them. The service drew nothing but praise, for its speed, its comfort, and its low fares. But, unfortunately, there was a bad accident on the very next day. A passenger named Malvankar fell off a running tram, and one of his legs went under a wheel. Malvankar did not die, but his leg had to be amputated.

The city remembers

Business consultant Ash Nallawalla, who grew up in Bombay and saw its golden years before moving to Melbourne, Australia, recalls, “The tracks were visible for many years before they were eventually paved over. Yes, I liked the double-decker trams and had used them many times as a child. They were a smoother ride than the buses. They could be driven from either end and the driver had a portable crank — two of them, if I recall correctly — that he would take to the direction he was going to take. I can still hear the ding-ding sound of the electric bell that it used for a horn. Yes, the speed was slow — I guess about 20 kmph — because cars and other traffic impeded them. And that is why they were removed. For a while we had a limited trolley bus service, with the same kind of overhead power cables but the vehicles were buses with tyres. The trams were not overcrowded any more than buses, but the population was less. Being a primary school boy, I went on them with elders, so it was in the evenings when they were fairly empty. Cars could freely drive over tram tracks, as we do in Melbourne today, because they are grooves at ground level, not raised like train tracks. Traffic was more disciplined.”

“Trams had a different charm and they defined the pace of the city: slow and steady,” says city historian Deepak Rao, who has travelled on most of the routes.

Preserving history

The tram tracks are now in the process of being carefully removed to be restored at the BEST Museum at Anik near Sion. Responding to the buzz on social media on the discovery of tracks, Shiv Sena youth president Aditya Thackeray said, “This is an important piece of the city’s history and it will definitely be saved.”

BEST Chairman Arvind Dudhwadkar said he had already sent a team of BEST officials to the site to examine and inspect the tracks. “We will restore them at the museum at Anik this week,” he said.

(The author is a freelance writer and has also written a book on railways: Halt Station India)