The Simplex Prescot Tramway

Aside from football, one of my other main passions is public transport. I came upon this story some time ago, but have only recently been able to flesh out some more of the detail. Unfortunately, I have yet to discover an illustration of the experimental tramway in Prescot...

By the late 1890’s towns and cities across the land were contemplating the electrification of their horse-drawn tramway systems. Great debates raged about the relative benefits of overhead or underground electric supply to the new tramcars. There was much public opinion against the intrusiveness of overhead wires and the installation of tramway poles.

Early in 1897, the Simplex Electric Tramway Conduit Syndicate Limited laid out an experimental tramline within the grounds of the British Insulated Wire Company Limited, at Prescot, for the purpose of showcasing their new traction system. Thus, Prescot became one of the first places in Lancashire to feature an electric tramway. Blackpool had installed a conduit system in 1895. By contrast Liverpool did not introduce electric trams until 1898 and St Helens in 1899.

Although the tramway was only a quarter of a mile in length, it included gradients and turns to simulate the severest tests to which a tram system in any town could be practically subjected.

On 9^th March 1897, a large number of representatives of municipalities throughout the kingdom and of gentlemen interested in electrical engineering, travelled from Liverpool to Prescot by special train to attend a demonstration of the new tramway system.

Mr John Edward Waller, Consulting Engineer to the Simplex Electric Tramway Conduit Syndicate, and the inventor of the system, explained its features, before the guests boarded the small, single-deck tramcar. The ease with which the car was started stopped and reversed was noted appreciatively, as was its ability to mount the gradients and make the sharp turns of 45 foot radius.

The Simplex system did not employ overhead wires. Instead, it utilised an entirely underground arrangement. Running under one of the tramlines in the roadway was a hollow conduit, along the whole length of which passed a flexible wire cable or conductor, supported at intervals by insulated brackets. The tram line itself was slotted, and an attachment from the car passed through the slot, to connect with the wire below. The effect of the electrical current caused the car attachment or "collector" to slide along the wire conductor, and power the electric tramcar.

It was claimed that care had been taken to ensure that the conductor could not be accessible from the street, so that accidental contact, such as a child placing an iron hoop between the divided rails, would be impossible, and that, so far from the possibility of accidental contact, it would be difficult for anyone to touch the conductor without a specially made appliance. The special advantages claimed were immunity from danger, cheapness in construction, simplicity in working and renewal, an almost perfect form of insulation, the ease with which any part of the electric fittings could be laid, removed, or renewed, the absence of obstruction in the tube underneath the slot, and the absence of complications at points and crossings.

It was further claimed that the system afforded all the advantages of cheapness of haulage, rapidity of service, absence of horses and their attendant nuisance, and also the lighting of the cars themselves by electricity. The saving to be effected by the adoption of the Simplex system in the cost of working as compared with horse traction was claimed to be at least 2d or 3d per car mile.

After a complete inspection of the system, the party returned by train to Liverpool, where, at the North-Western Hotel, they were entertained to luncheon, and heard a number of speeches toasting the advantages of the conduit system.

Despite the impressive sales pitch, conduit current collection systems proved to be much more expensive, complicated, and trouble-prone than overhead wires and very few undertakings adopted the conduit system, preferring to electrify their tram networks with overhead electric wires.

In the UK, Blackpool had adopted a similar system, but it was soon abandoned as sand and saltwater entered the conduit, causing breakdowns. One of the original Blackpool conduit tramcars still survives, and is preserved at the National Tramway Museum in Crich, Derbyshire. 

Only London persisted with the system, and then only within the central areas of the city.