[In sense 1, used in Sc. c. 1500, and prob. earlier; app. the same word as LG. traam. ‘balk, beam, e. g. of a wheelbarrow or dung-sledge, tram, handle of a barrow or sledge, also a rung or step of a ladder, bar of a chair’ (Brem. Wbch., 1771), EFris. trame, trâm beam of wood, rung or step of a ladder, bar of a chair, tram of a wheelbarrow; in MLG. trame, treme, MDu. trame balk or beam, rung of a ladder, etc.; WFlem. traam, trame.
The specific sense first found in Scotch is ‘the tram of a barrow.’ The further sense-development presents many difficulties, chiefly from the scarcity of early examples, and the fact that the various senses are from separate localities, so that they cannot be taken as showing any general development. But branch II, in which tram is a miners’ term for the vehicle for carrying coal or ore (in its development from a hand-barrow, or at least a sledge, to a small 4-wheeled iron wagon) may, on the principle of pars pro toto, have arisen out of that of ‘barrow-tram’ in I. Branch III is more difficult, and is the crux of the word. But if it was short for something like ‘tram-track,’ it might have arisen out of II; and if it was applied primarily to the wooden beams or ‘rails’ laid as wheel tracks, it might conceivably go back to the LG. sense of ‘balk’ or ‘beam’: evidence is wanting. From II or III used attributively came tram-road (in use in 1800), and the later tram-way (in use in 1825); also tram-carriage and the modern tram-car, known in 1868 and 1873, respectively, and before 1880 shortened in popular English use to tram, branch IV, which thus by a circuitous course ‘harks back’ to a sense akin to branch II.]
I. A shaft of a barrow or cart.
1. Each of the two shafts of a cart or wagon, a hand-barrow, or a wheelbarrow, the ends of which in a barrow form the handles. Sc.
These shafts are prolongations of the strong side-timbers of the frame or body of the structure: in a hand-barrow these are prolonged both ways, to form shafts or trams both before and behind, by which the two bearers carry the barrow; in a wheelbarrow they are prolonged in one direction to form the shafts, or trams, and in the other to form sockets for the axle of the wheel; in a cart they are prolonged in front to form the strong shafts or trams within which the horse walks, while their ends usually form short projections behind.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lii. 19. I wald scho war, bayth syd and bak, Weill batteret with ane barrow-tram.
1545. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., VIII. 360. Ane pair of sled trammys to be lymmaris to ane of the saiddis falconis [guns].
a. 1500. Barrow trammis.
1657. Barrow-trams [see BARROW sb.3 4].
1766. State of Proc., D. Macdonald, v. A. Dk. of Gordon, Pursuer’s Proof 8. Light timber, such as stings and cart trams.
1786. Burns, Inventory, 31. Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token, Ae leg an’ baith the trams are broken.
1790. Shirrefs, Poems, 360. Nor is the naig the worse to draw A wee while in the trams.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., IV. viii. I … sat down on the tram of the wagon.
1833. Alison, Hist. Europe (1849), II. vi. § 79. 75. Nearly an hour was … lost, by an accident to one of the trams of the royal carriage.
b. transf. In pl. The two upright posts of a gallows; also humorously, in sing., a man’s leg; particularly, a wooden leg.
a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (1851), II. 4. Be order, the hangman brak his suord betuixt the crossis of Abirdein, and betuixt the gallowis-tramis standing thair.
1808–18. Jamieson, Tram, in a ludicrous sense, the leg or limb; as lang trams, long limbs. Ibid. (1882), Applied also to a person with long ungainly legs, Clydes.
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge (1863), 48. He began to thunder at the low door with his pillar-like trams. Ibid., 206. It must have stumped along for fifty years on a leg of flesh and a tram of wood.
II. A framework, barrow, or the like, on which loads are dragged, carried, or supported.
2. Coal-mining. A quadrilateral frame or skeleton truck on which the corves were formerly carried; at first prob. carried like a hand-barrow, then dragged like a sledge, afterwards provided with low wheels on which to run; now in some colliery districts applied to the small iron truck which supplies the place of the earlier ‘tram’ and corve; in others to the part of the ‘tub’ (on wheels) to which the ‘box’ is bolted.
1516–7. Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 293. Item, ad puteum [pit] de Hett,… restis et j cruke de ferro … ij pykes, ij trammys, et ij shulys.
1585. Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees), II. 112. j long wayne without wheels, ij yron ax-nailes, and ij yokes 6s. j cowpe, ij trams, and two ax-trees 2s. 8d.
1708. J. C., Compl. Collier (1845), 39. The Wages for the Barrow-Men is … about twenty pence a Day for each Tram (that is to say) for putting so many loaden Corves, as are carried on one Sledge or Tram in one Day to the Pit Shaft.
1789. Brand, Hist. Newcastle, II. 681. Trams are a kind of sledges on which the coals are brought from the places where they are hewn to the shaft. A tram has four wheels, but a sledge properly so called is drawn by a horse without wheels.
1797. Curr, Coal Viewer, 9. Placing the corf upon a small frame or tram … and hooking or chaining one tram to another.
1817. Farey, Derbyshire, III. 439. The Trams … have stout lower side pieces of wood which project at each end, and are hooped with iron which just meet together and receive the shock when the Trams overtake each other.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 982. An improvement … is to place the basket or corve on a small four-wheeled carriage, called a tram, or to attach wheels to the corve itself.
1841. J. Holland, Hist. Fossil Fuel, etc., 227. The coals … were conveyed … on trams, a narrow framework of wood mounted on four low wheels.
1851. Greenwell, Coal-trade Terms Northumb. & Durh., 54. Since the substitution of tubs, the trams have been attached to them.
1867. W. W. Smyth, Coal & Coal-mining, 149. The northern method was to fill the coals … into a large basket (corve) of wicker … and to drag it on a small carriage, or tram,… to the crane-place on the main road.
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, 257. In South Wales trams constructed wholly of wrought iron or steel are much used…. They have a carrying capacity of 25 cwt.
1888. Nicholson, Coal Trade Gloss., Tram, the term still applies to the part of a tub to which the box is bolted.
1894. Northumbld. Gloss., s.v., Trams and tubs are now made in one.
b. transf. The one or two lads in charge of a tram; also, the work performed by these.
1856. Whellan, Hist. Durham, 94. When a boy ‘puts’ or drags a load by himself he is designated a tram.
1894. Northumbld. Gloss., s.v., Sometimes tram was applied to the two lads in charge of it [the colliery tram]—called a ‘tram of lads.’ ‘Half a tram,’ the work of one putter where two are engaged on a tram.
3. A quadrilateral frame or bench (like the body of a hand-barrow) supported on four legs or blocks, on which casks or the like stand, or at which an artisan works.
1818. W. Marshall, Review, II. 485 (E.D.D.). The cheese-tubs are placed on a small tram or bench.
1884. S. Worc. (Upton on Severn) Gloss., Tram or Tramming, a framework, or a loose arrangement, of stout parallel rails on short legs, or blocks, for supporting casks.
1894. S. E. Worc. Gloss., Tram, a strong square frame with four legs on which a wheelwright makes wheels; also a stand for casks.
III. A track of wood, stone, or iron; a tram-road or tramway.
4. A continuous line or track of timber beams or ‘rails,’ or later of stone blocks or slabs, a parallel pair of which lines formed a tramway, originally in or from a mine. Hence, each of the wheel-tracks or ‘rails’ of a tram-road of an early type, or of a later tramway or railway.
[a. 1734. North, Life Ld. Keeper North (1742), 136. The Manner of the Carriage [of coals in Northumberland in 1676] is by laying Rails of Timber, from the Colliery, down to the River, exactly streight and parallel; and bulky Carts are made with four Rowlets fitting these Rails; whereby the Carriage is so easy that one Horse will draw four or five Chaldron of Coals, and is an immense Benefit to the Coal Merchants.]
1826. J. Adamson, Sk. Inform. Rail-roads, 6. The upper flat part [of a rail on a railway], along which the wheel rolls, we may, from its analogy to the old wooden rails, call the tram of the rail.
1834. N. W. Cundy, Inland Transit, 1. The Manchester and Liverpool railroad, in my opinion, is constructed too narrow both in the trams and the space between them.
1838. Simms, Public Works Gt. Brit., III. 3. He [Mr. Macneill] is laying stone blocks or trams for the wheels to roll upon.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Tram … One of the rails of a tramroad or railroad. [See also quot. 1825 in 5, and TRAM-LINE, -ROAD, -WAY.]
5. A road laid with such wooden planks or rails, or with parallel rows of stone slabs or of iron plates or ‘rails,’ for the easier passage of loaded wagons, etc., in a coal-mine or above ground; a tram-road of an early type. (See also Note below.)
[1825. Mackenzie, Hist. Northumbld., I. 146. Square wooden rails laid in two right parallel lines, and firmly pegged down on wooden sleepers. The tops of the rail are plained smooth and round, and sometimes covered with plates of wrought iron. About the year 1786 cast-iron railways were introduced as an improvement upon the tram or wooden rail-way.]
1850. Ansted, Geol., etc. § 1117. The loaded waggons, or corves, are conveyed along the tram by lads called putters.
1865. Pall Mall G., 27 June, 10. Have they not trams in the suburbs of half our Lancashire towns, and is there not a tram on a grand scale for the use of those long ugly Omnibus Americains which ply between Paris and Versailles?
IV. Short for tram-car or the like.
6. A passenger car on a street tramway; a tram-car.
1879. Webster, Suppl., Tram, a car on a horse-railroad. Eng.
1883. G. H. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., April, 702/1. It was so easy to pop into the … tram. Ibid. (1884), Sept., 524/1. Taking the tram to Scheveningen.
1887. Punch, 12 March, 130/2. She is left without a penny to pay for tram or bus.
1902. R. Bagot, Donna Diana, xiii. The discordant clanging of the gongs of electric trams fall hideously on the ear.
7. An overhead or suspended carrier travelling on a cable.
1905. Daily Chron., 23 Sept., 8/1. (Supply of meat at Aldershot) Hoisting gear bears the carcases quickly away for dressing, and when that is done, an overhead carrying line, conveniently referred to as the ‘tram,’ conveys them to the cooling room.
V. 8. attrib. and Comb., as tram-bell, -boy, -carriage, -conductor, -driver, -load, -railway, -shed, -ticket, -wagon, -wheel, -whistle, -yard; -travelling adj.; tram-man, a man employed on a tramway, esp. a tram-conductor or driver; tram-rail, (a) a plate-rail: see PLATE sb. 8; (b) each of the rails of a tramway. See also TRAM-CAR, -LINE, etc.
1905. Daily Chron., 14 Sept., 3/1. The incessant clanging of the *tram-bell [in Holland].
1904. J. Wells, J. H. Wilson, xi. 97. He … established societies for the *tram-boys [in collieries].
1868. Daily News, 22 July. Asking the moderate fee of twopence for its entire journey, the *tram carriage is like a rough omnibus without cushions turned inside out.
1892. Zangwill, Bow Mystery, 4. The *tram conductors’ bells were … ringing.
1904. Daily News, 24 May, 12. The crowded *tram-loads along this flowered highway of the West.
1892. Zangwill, Bow Mystery, 4. At an early meeting of discontented *tram-men.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 982. The rails are called *tram-rails, or plate-rails.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 5 Sept., 6/2. The tram rails had been watered in order to lessen friction, and accidents to cyclists are of constant occurrence in the same neighbourhood.
1894. Daily News, 5 May, 8/5. Of much advantage to the *tram-travelling public of South London.
1855. J. R. Leifchild, Cornwall Mines, 150. That the ore may readily fall down to the level below them, whence it is carried in *tram-waggons to the shaft.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 649. Fig. 644 represents a view of a rolley or *tram-wheel, calculated to move upon a plate railway.
1883. E. F. Knight, Cruise Falcon (1887), 40. Above the shrill scream of the *tram-whistle rises their shriller Babel.
1909. London City Mission Mag., Dec., 241/2. A stableman from an adjacent *tramyard.
(Note. The following quot. for tram is difficult to place. It has the appearance of belonging to sense 5; but its early date is at variance with this. No part of the road in or near the Bridgegate at Barnard Castle is now known as ‘the tram,’ nor is there any tradition of the former existence of a tramway of any kind there. On the opposite or Yorkshire side of the Tees, the road running southward from the end of the bridge is protected from the river by a heavy stone wall locally known as ‘the tram wall’; but this does not seem to answer to the words of the will.
1555. Will of Ambrose Middleton, in Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees), II. 37, note. To the amendinge of the highewaye or tram, from the weste ende of Bridgegait, in Barnard Castle, 20s.)
Hence Tramful, as much or as many as a tram or tram-car will hold; Tramification (nonce-wd.), the construction of a tramway; Tramless a., (a) without shafts, as a cart (dial.); (b) having no trams or tramway facilities.
1905. Daily News, 20 Sept., 6. The coal came up in little *tramfuls.
1834. New Monthly Mag., XL. 372. The whole object of that *tramification is the conveyance of goods—of heavy loads.
1850. A. Maclagan, Cronie O’ Mine, Poems (1851), 174. A *tramless cart or a couterless plough.
1904. Daily Chron., 29 March, 3/6. Tramless Brixton … the Cars are to be Stopped for Two Months.
