| The single storey building from 1892 was built as
the electricity generating station for South
Staffordshire Tramways. It has a gable pediment and an
entablature with the following lettering: "The South
Staffordshire Tramways Electric Generating Station". It
also carries the date "1892". The pediment has a
bullseye window with iron glazing bars. The frontage has
semi-circular window arches, rising from imposts and
iron-glazed windows with roundels under an arch. There
are covered coal basins at the rear from the adjacent
Walsall Canal. The building was locally listed in 1985
and is now part of a wine warehouse.
From the Jim Boulton Collection.
Electrically powered trams came to Darlaston in 1893
with the formation of South Staffordshire Tramways. The
company had about 23 miles of track linking Darlaston,
Wednesbury, West Bromwich, Handsworth, Great Bridge,
Dudley Port, Dudley, Walsall, and Bloxwich. In the first
year about 4,000,000 passengers were carried.
The installation was carried out by the Electric
Construction Corporation of Wolverhampton and all of the
electrical equipment was designed by the company's
design engineer Thomas Parker. The tram motors were of
the Elwell-Parker type and built by E.C.C. The
sub-contractors for the cars were the Lancaster Carriage
and Wagon Company and the stationary engines were
produced by Brown, Marshalls & Company. The boilers were
made by Musgrave & Son of Bolton, and the posts to carry
the overhead wires were produced by James Russell & Sons
and John Russell & Company.
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