| Cheltenham and District Light Railway | |
|---|---|
 Map of the Cheltenham and District Light Railway | |
| Operation | |
| Locale | Cheltenham |
| Open | 22 August 1901 |
| Close | 31 December 1930 |
| Status | Closed |
| Infrastructure | |
| Track gauge | 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) |
| Propulsion system(s) | Electric |
| Statistics | |
| Route length | 10.44 miles (16.80 km) |
The Cheltenham and District Light Railway operated an electric tramway service in Cheltenham between 1901 and 1930. [1]
Construction began in February 1901 promoted by Nevins and Son. The work of construction involved around 120 men and a steam 'devil' used to break up the road surface. [2] Track was laid from Lansdown Castle to the south west of Cheltenham along Gloucester Road to the Calcutta Inn, St George's Rd, St. George's Place, St. James’ Square to the Great Western Railway station, Clarence Street, North Street, Albion Street, Winchcombe Street, Prestbury Road then through Prestbury and Southam to the top of Cleeve Hill, a route of 5.5 miles (8.9 km). Electricity was drawn from the Corporation Electricity Company Manchester Street sub-station.
During construction two employees, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Wells, were killed on a test run when the brakes failed on Cleeve Hill. [3] The initial line on the tramway was inspected by Colonel von Donop R.E on 15 August 1901. [4] Services started on the initial route from Lansdown to Cleeve Hill on 22 August 1901. [5]
The extension works to Charlton Kings and Leckhampton started on 28 September 1904 [6] and were completed in April 1905 when they were inspected by Major J.W. Pringle of the Board of Trade. [7] The construction had involved 1,600 tons of granite setts from Scotland, up to 1,000 tons of rails from Leeds, electrification poles from Wednesbury, 15,500 yards of copper wire and 50 tons of fish-plates, tiebars and bolts. This produced 4.5 route miles of tramway of mixed single and double tracks. Eight new cars were obtained from British Thomson-Houston Co of Rugby. The extension cost around £60,000,equivalent to £6,854,500in 2021) [8] of which £5,000 was the eight new tramcars.
The last surviving Cheltenham tram (No 21) is conserved by The Cheltenham Trust but not on public display. It was built by English Electric in Preston in 1921 but withdrawn from service in 1931 when the tram system was abandoned.
Routes were operated from Cheltenham Spa railway station to Cleeve Hill, Prestbury, Charlton Kings and Leckhampton. [9]
The depot was located 300m north of Cheltenham Spa railway station at SO 9327 2239 .
As part of a programme of replacing the tramway services with buses, the final trams ran on 31 December 1930.
Cheltenham is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the most complete Regency town in Britain.
The West Midlands Metro is a light-rail/tram system in the county of West Midlands, England. The network has 33 stops with a total of 14 miles (23 km) of track; it currently consists of a single route, Line 1, which operates between the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton via the towns of Bilston, West Bromwich and Wednesbury, on a mixture of former railway lines and urban on-street running. The system is owned by the public body Transport for West Midlands, and operated by Midland Metro Limited, a company wholly owned by the West Midlands Combined Authority.
Cheltenham Spa railway station serves the spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England. Situated on the Bristol-Birmingham main line, it is managed by Great Western Railway, despite most services being operated by CrossCountry which does not manage any stations. It is located about one mile from the town centre. The official name of the town is simply Cheltenham but, when the station was renamed in 1925, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway chose to add Spa to the station name. It is a key regional interchange and is the busiest station in Gloucestershire, as well as one of the busiest railway stations in South West England.
Cheltenham is a constituency in Gloucestershire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1832. As with all constituencies, it elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years. Since 2015, its MP has been Alex Chalk, who was appointed Secretary of State for Justice in 2023.
Tewkesbury is a constituency in Gloucestershire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 1997 recreation by Laurence Robertson, a Conservative.
Charlton Kings is a contiguous village adjoining Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England. The area constitutes a civil parish of 10,396 residents (2011).
Leckhampton is a village and a district in south Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The area is in the civil parish of Leckhampton with Warden Hill and is part of the district of Cheltenham. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 4,409.
Doncaster Corporation Tramways was an electric tramway network serving the town of Doncaster, England. It was authorised in 1899, and the first route to Bentley opened in 1902. This remained separated from the rest of the system until North Bridge was built to carry traffic over the Great Northern Railway main line to Edinburgh. Soon afterwards, deep mining of coal began in the area, and several extensions to the system were made between 1913 and 1916 to serve new communities which developed around the pit heads. The Racecourse route was unusual, in that it had balloon loops at both ends to enable almost continuous running on race days, a feature that was not common in England, and only found favour in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway was a railway company intended to link Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon, in England. It was authorised in 1836 but it found it very hard to raise money for the construction, and it opened only a part of its line, between Swindon and Cirencester, in 1841. It sold its business to the Great Western Railway, which quickly built the line through to Gloucester in 1845 and Cheltenham in 1847; part of that route was shared with other companies.
The Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway (B&CDR) was a railway company through the Cotswolds in England that built a line between points near Banbury and Cheltenham. Its principal objective, as well as a general rural rail service, was the conveyance of iron ore from the East Midlands to South Wales.
The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad, also known as the Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, connected Gloucester and Cheltenham with horse-drawn trams. Its primary economic purpose was the transport of coal from Gloucester's docks to the rapidly developing spa town of Cheltenham and the transport of building stone from quarries on nearby Leckhampton Hill.
Northampton Corporation Tramways operated the tramway service in Northampton between 1901 and 1934.
The Northampton Street Tramways Company operated a horse powered tramway service in Northampton between 1881 and 1901.
Chester Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Chester between 1903 and 1930.
The Worcester Electric Traction Company operated a tramway service in Worcester between 1904 and 1928.
The Potteries Electric Traction Company operated a tramway service in The Potteries between 1899 and 1928.
The Dudley, Stourbridge and District Electric Tramways Company operated an electric tramway service between Dudley and Stourbridge and also other lines in the neighbourhood between 1899 and 1930.
The Melbourne tram network began in 1884 with the construction of the Fairfield Horse Tramway. However, the purpose of the line was to increase land prices in the area, and it soon closed during the depression in 1890. The first genuine attempt to construct a tramway network was the construction of the Richmond cable tram line by the Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Company in 1885. Over the next few years, 16 more cable tram lines were constructed, as well as numerous other horse tramways. The depression of the early 1890s slowed further expansion of the cable network. The first electric tram line was the Box Hill and Doncaster tramway which opened in 1889. This was a pioneering line in what was then the countryside and thus didn't receive much patronage. It closed in 1896. The next attempt at an electric tramway was Victorian Railways' St Kilda to Brighton line, which opened in 1906. Later that year, the North Melbourne Electric Tramway & Lighting Company opened lines to Essendon and Maribyrnong. Many local councils formed their own tramway trusts and built tramways within their own constituency. The most successful of these was the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust.