The Coming and Going of Penang’s Trams
By Koay Su Lyn
October 2018 LEST WE FORGET
Once the pride of the state’s public transport, the story of the Penang tramway is worth a revisit.From Steam to HorseThe first tramway introduced in Penang was the steam tram operated by one Mr.Gardiner with concessions from the government. Commencing operations in the 1880s, barely nine months after Singapore,1 the Penang tramway was one of its kind. Being a light railway, a Kerr-Stuart steam locomotive was used to draw the double-decker passenger trailers and a few wagons for freight purposes.Its...
Koay Su Lyn
reads and writes of the past to make sense of the present. She is a research analyst in the History and Heritage Programme of Penang Institute.
