204 History of Inland Transport 



1776 " plates " or " rails " (the two expressions seem to 

 have been used somewhat indiscriminately) were cast with 

 an inner flange, from two to three inches high, so that 

 waggons with ordinary wheels could be taken upon them 

 and be kept on the plate, or rail, by means of this flange. 



John Curr, manager of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries, 

 near Sheffield, who claimed to have invented these flanged 

 f ' plates," describes them in his " Coal Viewer and Engine 

 Builder's Practical Companion " (1797), as being six feet 

 long, three inches broad, half an inch thick, from 47 Ibs. to 

 50 Ibs. in weight, and provided with nail holes for fastening 

 them direct on to oak sleepers. Lines so constructed became 

 known as " plate-ways," " tram- ways," or, alternatively, 

 " dram-ways." 



The derivation of the words tram and tramway has given 

 rise to a certain amount of discussion from time to time, and 

 the fallacy that they come from the name of Benjamin Outram, 

 of the Ripley iron- works, Derbyshire, who, in the last quarter 

 of the eighteenth century, advocated the flanged-plate system 

 of rail-way, has been especially favoured. It was, however, 

 merely a coincidence that ' ' tram ' ' formed part of his 

 name, and this popular theory here in question is quite 

 unfounded. 



The real origin of " tram " is indicated, rather, by the 

 following list of possible derivations, which I take from 

 Skeat's " Etymological Dictionary " : 



Swedish : Tromm, trumm, a log, or the stock of a tree ; 

 also a summer sledge. 



Middle Swedish : Tram, trum, a piece of a large tree cut 

 up into logs. 



Norwegian : Tram, a door-step (of wood). Traam, a frame. 



Low German : Traam, a balk or beam ; especially one of 

 the handles of a wheel-barrow. 



Old High German : Dram, tram, a beam. 



Thus in its original signification the word tram, or its 

 equivalent, was applied either to a log of wood or to certain 

 specified objects made of wood. 



The word itself was in use in this country as far back as 

 the middle of the sixteenth century, since on August 4, 1555, 

 a certain Ambrose Middleton, of Skirwith, Cumberland (as 

 recorded in the Surtees Society " Publications," vol. xxxviii., 



