Swansea and Mumbles Railway Tramcars

The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was the first railway to offer scheduled passenger services. These commenced in 1807, earlier tramways had carried passengers on occasion but always unofficially. The railway switched from horse to steam power in 1877 and in 1928 the line was electrified to 650v DC overhead and a fleet of double decker trams were produced to run services between Rutland Street in Swansea and Mumbles Pier. The railway had previously operated a battery electric car in 1904 though that hadn't been a success.

Information
Number built:	13
Built:	1928-29
Builder:	Brush Traction

Eleven trams were built by Brush for the line with two more being added later on. The trams were the largest built for use in Britain and could seat up to one hundred and six. They could operate in pairs at busy times. An unusual feature of the trams was that they only had doors on one side this was due to the physical nature of the line with the sea one side and a road the other throughout the length of the line [1].

The railway was run down and closed in the late 1950s despite local opposition after it passed into the ownership of the South Wales Transport Company [2], the last train operating in January 1960.

Tramcar at the start of electric services [1]

Two tramcars in multiple (KD Collection)

[1] "Oldest railway in England is electrically equipped", Electric Railway Journal (Vol. 72 No. 25, December 1928) p. 1082
[2] Colin J. Marsden, Light Rail (Key Publishing, 2018) p. 104