Join us for a ride on one of Hong Kong's new trams. Here's how The China Mail reported the first trial of the trams on July 2nd, 1904:
"To the clanging of the alarm-bell, and the whirling round of wheels, the first tram to run on the Hongkong tramway line left the shed last Saturday. [...] The cars used were the combination and the ordinary open car. In their new coats of paint, the colour of which is mainly yellow, relieved here and there with darker hues, the cars looked very well, [...] The motor men and ticket collectors are nattily dressed in white with narrow black facings, and attend daily at the sheds for instruction and trials."
I don't have any photos of the nattily dressed staff, but here's what those first trams looked like:
Third class tram, by UKNA
First class tram, by UKNA
I'm not sure how long these all-first-class and all-third-class designs continued in use. Later reports describe a different design, where each tram had a mix of first- and third-class seating (maybe this is the "combination car" described in the newspaper report above?). However we do know that throughout the 1900s, all the trams were <Read more ...>
