WOODEN RAIL-WAYS 351 



two centuries. They seem to have been first employed in the New- 

 castle district to convey coal from the pits to the shipping stages 

 on the Tyne. Wooden rails, laid on continuous parallel lines, were 

 pegged down to wooden sleepers, which were set two feet apart, the 

 intervals being filled in with stones or ashes. On these tracks, high 

 hopper-shaped waggons, set on solid wooden wheels, were either 

 propelled by their own weight or drawn by horses. Log ways, 

 thus constructed, were called in eighteenth century Acts of Parlia- 

 ment " dram roads." They were in fact true tram-ways, 1 though 

 the word " tram " has been transferred from the material out of 

 which the rails were originally constructed to the vehicle which 

 passes over them. Successive improvements were made in their 

 construction. Thus iron plates or iron flanges were fixed by 

 " plate-layers " to the rails to lessen the friction at the curves or 

 to keep the waggons on the track. About 1767 the rails began to 

 be made entirely of iron, which were generally cast with an iron 

 flange on the inner side. Similarly the wheels were made of cast 

 iron, though for some years the rear wheels continued to be made of 

 wood in order to strengthen the grip of the brake. In 1788 a still 

 more important change was made. The projections of the flanged 

 rail were found to be dangerous obstructions wherever lines crossed 

 highways. To meet this difficulty, flanged wheels were introduced, 

 and the rails were made smooth. 



By the latter half of the eighteenth century, there were few 

 collieries in the north which were not provided with their own rail- 

 ways, often carried, in order to secure easy gradients, through hills and 

 over valleys by means of cuttings, bridges, or embankments. They 

 were private roads, to which the public had no access. Rail-ways 

 laid by Canal Companies under the powers of Acts of Parliament 

 were in a different position. Constructed by canal proprietors to 

 feed their traffic from potteries, furnaces, collieries, and quarries, 



1 Whether " tram- way " is derived from the material out of which the road 

 is contracted, or from the carriage which passes over it is doubtful. A will 

 dated 1555 mentions the repair " of the higheway or tram " in Barnard 

 Castle. This use of the word, like the " dram-road " of eighteenth century 

 Acts of Parliament, suggests the log- way. On the other hand^the road may 

 have taken its name from the application of the word " tram " in the North 

 of England to a small carriage on four wheels, possibly gaining this meaning 

 through the Lowland Scottish use of the word for the " shaft " of a cart. 

 In either case, "tram" is Scandinavian in origin; Norwegian, tram = a 

 door-step of wood; traam = a, wooden frame, and Swedish tromm = a, log, 

 or a summer sledge. See Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English 

 Language. 



