The estimated capital expenditure is the same as at Glasgow, two millions sterling. A speciality of the Manchester Tramways undertaking is its splendid car depôt, the site covering three acres, two and a half of which is roofed over. The façade to Boyle Street is 700 feet long, and reminds one of some large and picturesque public school, a tramway-car depôt being the last thing one would take it to be. It is claimed to be the largest car-shed area in Europe, and the covered-in portion is the most extensive in the world. In this and three other similar sheds and a few smaller ones elsewhere all the cars are stabled. Formerly they were concentrated in one place. [Illustration: FIG. 19. FAÇADE OF QUEEN’S ROAD CAR-SHED, MANCHESTER CORPORATION TRAMWAYS _By permission of the_ _Manchester Corporation Tramways._] The cars are of the British Thomson-Houston Company type, double-motored, and are fine examples of elegance and solidity combined, and fitted with all the latest improvements for the comfort of travellers. THE BIRMINGHAM TRAMWAYS Birmingham, as regards tramways, stands in a peculiar position. Its city area is restricted; it has only short lengths of tram lines, and these require to be linked up with outlying districts. The lines were leased to the City of Birmingham Tramways Company, but whether the Corporation will or will not take them over now, has not yet been decided. However, by a majority of fourteen votes it has sanctioned the substitution of electricity on the overhead method, and this is being proceeded with; and when the transformation is complete Birmingham and district will have an electric tramway system of nearly a hundred and ten miles. Its tramways have always been popular, and at a charge of a penny for a three-mile ride--a record for cheapness--56,000 passengers made use of them on Mafeking Day, no small proportion of a city of 522,182 inhabitants! Before quitting the subject of tramways, it will be interesting to note the fares charged in different parts of the world. In London they begin at a halfpenny. On the Continent they vary; for example, in Berlin the fare is 1¼_d._ for two miles, and a halfpenny for each additional mile; in Paris it is 3_d_. inside, with transfer ticket, and 1½_d._ on the platforms, or outside the car; in St. Petersburg 1¼_d._ and 1½_d._ is the fare; in Stockholm it is the curious sum of 1⅜_d._; in Florence it is 1_d._ from the suburbs to the city, and 1½_d._ across the city; in Cape Town it is 3_d._ for three miles; and in Canada the fare averages 2½_d._, and 5_d._ after midnight. PROVINCIAL RURAL TRAMWAYS The memorable question once put to the House of Commons, “What is a pound?” to this day has not met with a strictly accurate reply. The same may be said of the frequent inquiry, “What constitutes a Light Railway?”