150 years on, the tram remains Kolkata’s favourite muse

The commuter-friendly mode of transportation still holds sway as the city’s cultural icon

Kolkata comes alive every December—the air is crisp, the winter chill isn’t uncomfortable, and the festivities the city is known for add a spark of familiarity to a homecoming. For those like me, who return to the city during this time, it’s also a mix of everyday errands and some nostalgia. So, on a particularly slow afternoon, my mother and I decided to take the tram home, given that it appeared almost magically while we waited for a cab at the Ballygunge Park Road junction. The West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) doesn’t put out a daily schedule anymore, so most commuters simply hop on if they spot a tram coming their way.

Tram number 25, which travels from Esplanade to Gariahat in South Kolkata, is one of the last two remaining routes in the city today. The tram had barely changed over the decades. The large circular fans across the ceiling still whir slowly, the windows with railings stand a standard five inches apart, the hard wooden seats still greet you, and a grumpy conductor pulling on the tram's antique bell to denote the stops continues to be a staple.

My mother confessed to having not taken the tram in over a decade. The cheapest and most hassle-free mode of transport while she was young, from the 70s to the early 90s, it was used to go everywhere—to work, to New Market, and even to Entally market to pick up pork sausages. Her story was interrupted by the elderly khaki-clad conductor who gave us the ticket stubs, each still costing  ₹5 for the 15-minute journey. 

Down memory lane

Last month marked the 150th anniversary of Kolkata's old faithful—the tram. On February 24, 1873, the first horse-drawn tram operated between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street. The tramcar was designed to provide a means of transportation for both people as well as products and services. But due to a lack of customer interest, it dropped by November that year. Following the redundancy of the horse-drawn tram in December 1880, the Calcutta Tramways Company was established and registered in London, and steam trams were introduced shortly after that.

The first electric tram, and Asia's first electric tram route, started rolling on the streets of Calcutta in 1900, operating between Esplanade and Kidderpore. Because of this route's popularity, the Esplanade to Kalighat line and, subsequently, the Kalighat Tram Depot, were built. Several routes connecting the city were constructed over the next decade or so. The most popular were Esplanade to Sealdah, Esplanade to Bagbazar, Howrah Station to Bandhaghat, Bowbazar Junction to BBD Bag, and Ahiritola Junction to Hatibagan Junction. The tram quickly became a popular mode of transportation. Following steady growth, by 1943, there were almost 68 kilometres of tram tracks looping across the city.

The early trams had two bogies with two conductors on board. In its heyday, the first bogie was first-class, while the second was second-class, with a lower fare than the first. However, the fare was standardised over the years. 

In 1980, the World Bank gave a grant of ₹46.20 crore to the Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) for a transportation improvement project. CTC then got 169 new steel-body tramcars from Burn Standard and Jessop, and about 25 tramcars were rebuilt at the Nonapukur tram depot. That 1980 grant was the last time the CTC received an investment intended to upgrade its utility as a mode of transport.

It was only until 2013 that the West Bengal government introduced the city’s first air-conditioned trams with some even equipped with Wi-Fi to appeal to the younger demographic. 

An enduring legacy

For more than a century now, trams have navigated the City of Joy’s serpentine streets as a sustainable option for green mobility, long before ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘sustainability’ became buzzwords, given that they function solely on electricity. Vernon Kingham, who was an employee of the CTC (which has now been merged into the West Bengal Transport Corporation) from 1974 to 2015, says: “Until the early 1990s, trams would cater to a cross-section of passengers. The first car at 4.40 am was a fixture for those catching an early morning train at the Howrah station. Later, a crowd of devotees would board the trams for a bath in the holy Ganges. Then came schoolchildren, escorted by doting mothers. Finally, at around nine in the morning, lawyers and babus would rough it out on crowded trams to reach Dalhousie Square, the city's commercial hub. Trams were the lifeline before autorickshaws, buses, and the metro became the priority.”

Apart from being the lifeblood of the city’s transit system at one point, the tramways were also referred to as the great leveller. “Trams are like moving sidewalks, allowing all of us who used them to look out the windows and watch the city disappear." Because it had a dedicated track, we would barely encounter any traffic," says Iftekhar Ahsan, founder of Calcutta Walks, which organises walking tours of the city. He adds: “No matter which strata of society you belonged to or which caste or community you hailed from, we were all equal inside it.”

 For those visiting Kolkata from other parts of India, the trams were their first introduction to the city. In fact, it's worth mentioning that trams have been used umpteen times over the years to symbolise the city and its rich heritage. From the Vidya Balan-starrer Kahaani to the Saif Ali Khan-starrer Bullett Raja; from the Satyajit Ray-directed Mahanagar to Praktan, starring Tollywood veterans Prosenjit Chatterjee and Rituparna Sengupta—the visual of a moving tram has been part of many iconic scenes in films, especially the ones plying on the picturesque route 36, which included views of the lush green Maidan area, along with the colonial architecture one could spot along the Esplanade-Kidderpore corridor. Unfortunately, this route had to be temporarily shut down after Cyclone Amphan wreaked havoc on the overhead wiring in May 2020.

However, the West Bengal government's recent move to refrain from restoring unused tram routes and instead accord them a heritage tag, is a blow to tram enthusiasts. Debashis Bhattacharya, president of the Calcutta Tram Users Association, believes the city is “open to embracing the future by prioritising buses and taxis over the more sustainable option—the tram—because the state government is ruled by capitalistic greed. It's sad because the whole world is embracing an EV future as it's the need of the hour, given the seriousness of climate change. With this move, we're regressing a few decades. The trams were never the problem; they are cost-effective, have a long life span, and do not add to the pollution in Kolkata,” he says.

As part of the plan, four routes earmarked as "heritage routes" include Tollygunge-Ballygunge and Gariahat-Esplanade along with 

Shyambazar-Esplanade and Kidderpore-Esplanade. According to the WBTC, it will soon lay tracks for a heritage route from Esplanade that will travel on a loop along the Maidan area. 

As part of the 150th anniversary celebrations, a tram car that was first used to provide water and clean the tracks in the 1920s will roll once more for a day to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Kolkata’s trams during a week-long celebration from February 24 to March 2, 2023, referred to as the ‘moving tram carnival’. Additionally, two wooden trams built in the previous two decades but currently sitting idle in depots will be seen running through the city's streets. 

The fleet will also include existing double-bogey and air-conditioned trams that survived World War II, witnessed historical events such as the Bengal famine, communal riots, and the fight for independence, and are now artefacts in their own right. 

Future forward

Tathagata Neogi, co-founder and chief innovation leader of Immersive Trails, a purpose-driven company based out of Kolkata, believes initiatives like the tram museum in Maidan, the alfresco Tram World Cafe—a new establishment running out of the Gariahat tram depot, the 20-seat tram restaurant in New Town, and the one-of-its-kind tram library launched in 2020, are part of the state government's plan to keep the heritage of the tramways alive. "Although the legacy of the tramways will live on through these initiatives, sadly, this generation will not have access to the city as we saw it sitting in a tram. Because of how well the routes were planned, trams provided a window to the old parts of Kolkata, the commercial hubs, the quieter residential areas in the north as well as the green spots in the city. A tram ride was all you needed to soak in the culture of Kolkata,” he says.

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