The advent of personal motor vehicles and the improvements in motorized buses caused the rapid disappearance of the tram from most western and Asian countries by the end of the 1950s (for example the first major UK city to completely abandon its trams was Manchester by January 1949).
During the closure cycle of London's tram system, almost 100 of the most modern trams known as the Feltham class and dating from 1931 were withdrawn and sold to Leeds where they continued in service until the abandonment of that city's trams in 1959.
An extensive tram network covered large parts of London for several decades during the first half of the twentieth century. By the 1950s, however, trams were seen as old fashioned and were gradually phased out to create more room for buses and cars.
But the trams had become a political football (in Leeds it was Labour that did for them, in Liverpool it was the Conservatives). They were unwanted clutter from the past at a time when operating costs of public transport networks were rising and meeting housing targets was the big priority for investment.
The Melbourne tram network is the longest tram system by route length. The New Orleans streetcar system was one of the first in the world and it is the oldest system still in operation.
Often they are known locally by the regional transportation authority's name for the system: such as MAX in Portland, Oregon. A lot of cities in America, Western Europe and Japan have closed down their tram systems mid-century.
The world's very first tram system was actually a horse train called the Oystermouth Railway, a commercial service which began operation in 1804, in order to transport limestone between the south Wales areas of Mumbles and Swansea.
In Britain, the Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line, re-gauged to 2 feet 9 inches (840 mm) in 1884, remains in service to this day, and is the oldest operating electric tramway in the world.
The Environmental Reasons For Trams And Trains In EuropeRail systems are so popular in Europe because they can get loads of passengers to their respective destinations en masse — with much less of an impact on the environment.
The KeolisAmey Metrolink tram system is the largest of its kind in the UK. It serves 99 stops across eight different lines along almost 103km of track, with a fleet of 120 modern trams catering for more than 34 million journeys a year.