How did it all work then? I thought the first trams worked by clamping onto a moving cable in a slot beneath the road.
And I also thought that electric trams had overhead power and a pantograph pick-up.
There is definitely no pantograph in that image - and no overhead power line.
Are you saying that these were on an electrified rail system? If so was it low voltage - or if high voltage how were people & horses etc protected from accidental shock?
Cable trams were quite a rarity - from memory, apart from Brixton Hill, cable trams ran in Matlock and on Highgate Hill, Edinburgh was about the only network of cable routes in the UK. Most tramways started on the basis of the horse as motive power.
most electric trams used an overhead wire, with a 'trolley pole' or (generally later) a pantograph - or an intermediate 'bow collector'.
Britain's first electric trams (Blackpool, 1885) used a conduit system, similar to that adopted (1903 onward) by the London County Council.
The live rails were about a foot below road level, in a conduit (similar to that used by a cable tram) - the tram getting at them with a plough that was in electrical connection with the tram. More
here.
Road users would not have been in any danger unless they prodded around down the conduit slot with something metal, although the slot was wide enough for some bicycles to get stuck in them. Blackpool's system suffered through sea-water in the conduit, and they converted the whole thing to overhead wire somewhere around the turn of the century.
The LCC's original trams (as in the 1904-ish picture) were built for conduit operation only - later extensions to the system, and where the LCC ran through on to other operators' territory (e.g. Croydon Corporation, which extended as far north as Norbury) were on overhead wires so most LCC trams built after about 1910 could run on either - there was a switch to tell the tram where to get its current from.
In London, trams on many routes changed between conduit and overhead at 'change pits' - see post 717.
The advantage that conduit had (in terms of less visual clutter) was at a significantly higher construction and maintenance cost.
