Hong Kong's Peak Tram begins operation on…
May 1888 CE
In 1881 Alexander Findlay Smith had first put the project of a Peak Railway into shape and presented a petition for a concession to the governor of Hong Kong.
The necessary legislation had been passed two years later.
Findlay Smith had not approached the project rashly.
Travellng extensively in Europe and America, he had made himself conversant with nearly every existing method of railway employed for mountain ascent—San Francisco, Scarborough, Rigi, Monterey, Lucerne, the Rhine, Mount Vesuvius—and returned to Hong Kong thoroughly convinced of the feasibility of his idea.
The actual construction was begun in September 1885 and in May 1888 the line is officially opened.
Smith's business partner, N. J. Ede, owns and lived in the house next to the Upper Terminus, originally named Dunheved, which they have converted into the original Peak Hotel.
It has taken three years to build the Peak Tram.
Most of the heavy equipment and rails needed for the construction had been hauled uphill by the workers with no mechanical support.
As a revolutionary new form of transport for Asia at the time, the tramway is considered a marvel of engineering upon its completion.
A wooden structure was built for the terminal.
According to photographs, the Garden Road terminus was originally an unadorned building, a large clock face will be added to the edifice probably between the 1910s and 1920s.
The Peak Tram is opened for public service on May 28, 1888, by the governor Sir George William des Voeux.
As built, the line uses a static steam engine to power the haulage cable.
It is at first used only for residents of Victoria Peak.
Despite that, it carries eight hundred passengers on its first day of operation, and will carry about one hundred and fifty thousand in its first year, transported in the line's original wooden-bodied cars.
The tram's existence accelerates the residential development of Victoria Peak and the Mid Levels.
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East Asia
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