Tramwayor Tram Rails. A railway for tram-carts or waggons, originally made of wooden rails. Iron rails were first laid down in 1738, but apparently were called “dram-roads” (Greek, dram-ein, to run). We are told there were waggons called drams (or trams). Benjamin Outram, in 1800, used stone rails at Little Eaton, Derbyshire; but the similarity between tram and Outram is a mere coincidence. Perhaps he was the cause of the word dram being changed to tram, but even this is doubtful. (See Rees' Cyclopaedia.) “Trams are a kind of sledge on which coals are brought from the place
where they are hewn to the shaft. A tram has four wheels, but a sledge
is without wheels.” — Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Tramway from Infoplease:
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