BRISTOL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND SHIPPING. 
57 
required in great manufacturing works can be applied and stopped. The convenience 
of this system is now generally recognised, and its economy is particularly noticeable 
when the comparison is made with the average small steam plant. 
In preliminary investigation, before the electrical undertaking was started, the 
Corporation spent £2,450, and in the first three years of the concern, while it was getting 
into work, £11,454 10s. 5d. was paid from the civic rates towards the expenses. These 
sums make together £13,904 10s. 5d., and represent the whole contribution by the city 
to the electrical enterprise. This sum has not been directly repaid, but out of the profits 
interest on the borrowed capital has been paid, and very large sums put aside in reduction 
of liability in the provision of reserve and depreciation funds and trading capital, and 
in revenue contributions to capital outlay. Against the capital raised by stock and 
mortgages amounting to £837,091, out of profits and accretions of interest £227,914 had 
been provided on March 25th, 1912. The Electrical Committee some years ago called 
in an expert in accountancy, and acted on his advice, so as to secure adequate depreciation 
funds. 
TRAMWAYS, TAXIS, AND MOTOR ’BUSES. 
Bristol has about thirty-three miles of tramway, giving access to most districts of 
the city by electric cars deriving their energy from overhead trolley wires. These are 
fed from underground cables communicating with the powerful generating machinery 
at the central power-house near St. Philip’s Bridge. A large triangular area on St. Augus 
tine’s Bridge, right in the heart of Bristol, has unofficially received the name “ Tramway 
Centre,” because from this spot there radiate a number of the principal routes. The 
service over several of these, at a distance, takes more than one direction, so that the 
actual routes are more numerous than the central tramway tracks would appear to indicate. 
There are other points at which traffic starts and ends, and the cars reach a limit of between 
four and five miles from the centre of Bristol. The system of penny sections is adopted, 
and the longer distance fares are multiples of these. The penny fares give great simplicity 
to the working, although it is complained that they tend to concentrate traffic on the 
sectional points, to the disadvantage of shopkeepers in intermediate streets. The service 
is a frequent one ; it has been maintained with great regularity. Special cars are at 
certain hours run for workmen at reduced fares. In 1911 the cars carried 49,561,001 
passengers. The electric car service is owned and worked by the Bristol Tramway and 
Carriage Company, Ltd. The Company’s statutory term ends in 1915, when the future 
relations of the municipality to the undertaking will have to be decided. The Company 
was one of the foremost in the United Kingdom to commence the electrification of lines 
hitherto worked by horses, and visits of deputations from other parts of the country 
to inspect the Bristol sections worked on the newer plan did much to popularise electric 
traction elsewhere. The Company has added to its undertaking carriage businesses 
formerly carried on by numerous proprietors. The taxi-cab service is principally in its 
hands, although not entirely, and it carries on taxi services in adjacent towns. Motor 
char-a-bancs are used for several routes through which the tramways do not run, and 
also for summer excursion traffic to the beautiful and interesting spots around Bristol. 
The Company has about 2,000 employees. The Provincial Motor Company has a share 
in the city’s taxi-cab service, and there are a number of private carriage proprietors still 
continuing in business. The Bristol Tramway and Carriage Company, Ltd., has lately 
developed a system of motor traction for goods.