CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

List of town tramway systems in India

Details of trams in India

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ7833121 ↗
Source-derived summary

Trams in India were established in the late 19th century. Horse-drawn trams were introduced in Kolkata in 1873; in Mumbai and Chennai, trams began operations in 1874; in Nashik in 1889; electric trams began in Chennai in 1895, and trams were also introduced in Kanpur and Delhi. They were discontinued in all Indian cities between 1933 and 1964, except for trams in Kolkata.

Kolkata (Calcutta)

Trams in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), West Bengal are operated by the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC). It is the only operating tram network in India and the oldest operating electric tram in Asia, running since 1902. There are 257 trams in total, of which 125 used to run daily on the Kolkata streets, but only 25 trams run daily nowadays. The single-deck articulated cars can carry 200 passengers (60 seated).

The first horse-drawn trams in India ran a 2.4-mile (3.9 km) distance between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street on 24 February 1873. The service was discontinued on 20 November of that year. The Calcutta Tramway Company was formed and registered in London on 22 December 1880.

Editorial summary

“List of town tramway systems in India” enters the record as details of trams in India. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what List, town and tramway can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1873, 1874, 1889, 1895—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around List, town and tramway.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“List of town tramway systems in India” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, List, town and tramway provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7833121. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1873, 1874, 1889 and 1895.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “List of town tramway systems in India”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow List of town tramway systems in India primary sources, List of town tramway systems in India archive and List research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “List of town tramway systems in India”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “List of town tramway systems in India” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.