An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

Like any bustling com­mer­cial city, Port-of-Spain in the 19th cen­tu­ry need­ed round-the-town trans­port, but this was lim­it­ed to horse-drawn cabs, which were cost­ly and thus out of the reach of the av­er­age per­son.In 1879 an Amer­i­can busi­ness­man laid two tram lines, which were iden­ti­fied by the colour of the cars, which were open-sided and drawn by mules.

The sys­tem was de­scribed in 1887 as fol­lows: "On the La Basse, near the rail­way sta­tion, are large mule sta­bles and stand­ing room for about 80 an­i­mals. These are the prop­er­ty of the Trinidad Tramways Com­pa­ny Ltd. There are two routes, both com­menc­ing near the rail­way-sta­tion on the Queen's Wharf. One, the red tram, pro­ceeds in a north-west­er­ly di­rec­tion to the top of Tran­quil­li­ty Boule­vard, near the cor­ner of the Queen's Park, a dis­tance of one-and-a-half miles.

The oth­er, the blue tram, pass­es the prin­ci­pal stores along Fred­er­ick Street, di­verg­ing in­to Park Street, and thence in­to St Ann's Road, the ter­mi­nus be­ing quite ad­ja­cent to Gov­ern­ment House and the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens. The fare for ei­ther jour­ney is six cents, but tick­ets may be pur­chased at the rate of 60 cents per dozen."

In 1895 the Bel­mont Tramways Ltd launched a se­ries of Brill Elec­tric Tram­cars, which were qui­et and speedy. The horse-drawn trams still plied the streets.Five years lat­er, the Trinidad Elec­tric Com­pa­ny, which sup­plied pow­er to the cap­i­tal, laid a sec­ond elec­tric tram route and ac­quired the Bel­mont and horse-tram con­cerns. A main trans­fer sta­tion was erect­ed on Park Street, where pas­sen­gers could change routes with­out ad­di­tion­al fares.

The sys­tem was de­scribed thus in 1908: "Tick­ets are pur­chasable at the Trans­fer Sta­tion, Park Street, or from the car con­duc­tors, at the rate of six for one shilling. Pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling with­out tick­ets must pay 3p a jour­ney, but any pas­sen­ger may trans­fer from one route to an­oth­er with­out ex­tra charge, ex­cept it as re­gards the "Belt" (Sa­van­nah) cir­cuit, to which no trans­fer is al­lowed. It is there­fore pos­si­ble to ride from Co­corite to Bel­mont, a dis­tance of about four miles, for 1p."

All the rolling stock was or­dered from the Brill Com­pa­ny of Philadel­phia and was op­er­at­ed by uni­formed con­duc­tors. Open-sided, the cars were equipped with bench­es sim­i­lar to those in a pub­lic park and had bells to warn of itin­er­ant cat­tle and pedes­tri­ans.Even­tu­al­ly, the com­pa­ny ex­pand­ed its lines to Laven­tille, St James and even as far as Co­corite and Four Roads. Fares were cheap, vary­ing from four to six­pence.

One of the most pop­u­lar tram rides was the belt-line which lapped the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, since it af­ford­ed a re­laxed way of view­ing one of the most scenic ar­eas of Trinidad.In the 1940s, the Trinidad Elec­tric Board, which now con­trolled the tramways, be­gan clos­ing down lines and re­plac­ing them with unique elec­tric trol­ley­bus­es. The last line to be shut down was the belt-line around the Sa­van­nah, which met its demise in 1950, bring­ing an end to an era. All but one of the tram­cars was scrapped.