To yet further add to my description of the Rottnest horse-drawn tram, I
have added a picture I had not seen before (or maybe not noticed). There
seems to be only half a dozen or so pictures of this tram.

I have been told, and I don't know how accurate this is, that all horse
drawn rail vehicles were called "trams", whether or not they carried
passengers along streets. This certainly appears true in Western
Australia where they were used for hauling logs, grain, salt, supplies
and other cargo in aplaces such as Pemberton-Northcliffe, Denmark,
Busselton, Roebourne, Dampier and many timber towns in the south west.

The term "tram" apparently came to mean a railed or fixed-route
passenger vehicle because in cities, where larger numbers of people had
horse-drawn trams mainly for people, they adopted the word for steam,
cable, diesel and electric railed passenger vehicles. Can anyone verify
this?

And here is a very recent photo of the Rottnest LRV which uses the track
built to carry munitions, supplies and troops from the Army base at
Kingston to the gun emplacements at Oliver Hill during WWII. The "Rotto
Train" is back in service after maintenance during the winter.

Cheers from Rotto.

Graham Lees