Photo © Paul Haywood collection. Please do not re-post without permission.

Cheltenham & District Light Railway Company 1 was a Stephenson (USA) 22/26 seat open top car, with a Peckham Cantilever 4-wheel truck, built in 1901.
The tramway was promoted, owned and built by Thomas Nevins (T. Nevins & Sons) whose Irish-American ancestry probably influenced the choice of car builder. Nevins first proposed a tramway in 1895 which was rejected. After countless meetings with the reluctant town council, permission was finally granted in 1899 but construction did not begin until February 1901. The first route, to Cleeve Hill, opened in August of that year and included a 1-in-10 gradient at its outer end. As a result of a fatal runaway when testing over this section, the Board of Trade insisted that no passengers could ride on the upper deck when traversing the hill. This restriction eventually led to two of their 1902 Gloucester/Peckham cars (9 & 10) having their staircases and top deck seats removed, effectively making them 28-seat single-deckers (as partially seen). Through passengers, therefore had to transfer onto this shuttle service to continue their journey up the hill. By 1905 this 3ft 6in system had reached its maximum length of 10.2 miles and in 1914 they became part of the Balfour Beatty Group. In 1929, the group announced their intention to replace the trams with trolleybuses. However, following a council visit to witness Walsall's trolleybus operation, they rejected the proposal. No doubt to placate Balfour Beatty, the council then formally agreed not to take over the system after the expiry of the tramway lease in 1931. Consequently, the by-now renamed Cheltenham & District Traction Company replaced their trams with buses in December 1930.
Although this card (posted in 1905) is captioned "Cleeve Hill", it is actually at the bottom of the hill at the passenger transfer point in Southam.

Photo from Commercial postcard, Paul Haywood collection., taken circa 1905, Southam, Cheltenham

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