It seems that some horse-drawn and steam tramways with metre gauge had already existed in Yangon before 1884. Since the 4th of March 1884 all lines were operated by the Rangoon Steam Tramway Company which extended the metre gauge network to form three routes.

Engines and cars were supplied by the Falcon Engine and Car Works of Loughborough. It seems that the tramway was not a financial success. It changed hands in 1889 and went into liquidation in 1899. Parts of the lines were later reused for the electric tramway.

In 1903 a 42-year concession for electric tramways and lightening was granted to J. W. Darwood & Company of Rangoon, who in 1905 registered the Rangoon Electric Tramway and Supply Company Ltd. Four double track routes with standard gauge (1.435mm) and two depots totaling in 18.5 miles (29.7km) length were built. The first line opened on the 15th of December 1906, the complete system was finished on the 12th of March 1906.

The first cars were cross-bench bogies and four wheelers produced by Brush Works Loughborough in 1906, some more cars were purchased from the United Electric Car Company at Preston. Further details are unknown. In March 1920 control and central management of the Rangoon Electric Tramway was transferred to Burma in order to save taxes. By 1921 77 electric cars operated on 22km of tracks. The company also started to build its own car bodies based on Brill 39E trucks with GE247 motors, 38 old engines were replaced with new BT509 engines and further cross-bench cars were purchased from Les Atéliers Metallurgiques of Nivelles, Belgium.

On 17th August 1936 the company started a trolleybus line on a former bus route with 15 trolleybuses from Sunbeam-British Thomson-Houston Co. (BTH). The line seemed to be successful and in 1938 a second line was added and the company decided to convert the whole tramway system into a trolleybus system. Works started in 1939, but soon stopped because of the war. The Japanese invasion caused much damage and tram operations was completely stopped, only one trolleybus line remained in service. The recapture of Rangoon by Allied troops in 1945 caused further damage which left the complete system beyond repair. The Rangoon Electric Tramway and Supply Company re-instantiated electric supply after the war, but not tram and trolleybus services. Electric supply got nationalized in 1953 and the company was wounded up in 1960.

In 2016 Myanma Railways started a tram service with used tram cars from Japan along the Yangon harbour line, but service was suspended after a few months.

 

Electric tram operations in Burma’s second largest city had already started two years ahead of Rangoon (now Yangon). The Mandalay Electric Co. was floated in London in October 1902 with a capital of 200,000 British Pounds. Work contracted to Dick, Kerr & Co. started right away and on the 17th of June 1904 the first electric tram car travelled along the streets of Mandalay.

The centre of the tramway system was at Zegyo Bazaar from where three lines radiated to the Irrawaddy shore, Arakan Paya (extended to Shan Su railway station in January 1907) and the court building.

The 3ft. 6in. (1067mm) gauge lines had a length of 11.3km (12.2km after extension to Shan Su railway station) and were completely double-tracked based on hardwood sleepers. The overhead equipment was of the span-wire system with 9.24mm copper wire fixed to 6.7m high standards made out of weldless steel tubes, making it a very solid and elaborated tramway system. The rolling stock consisted of 24 motor cars of single bench open cross-bench type, built by the Electric Railway & Tramway Carriage Works (Ltd.), Preston. The bodies were 10,782mm long and 1,829mm wide and offered 48 seats. The trucks were of Bush Co’s single type fitted with two Dick-Kerr standard 25B traction motors with approx. 28hp equipped with electric and handbrakes.

The company had built a power house alongside with offices and a depot at 78th Street. Three wood-fired steam with a power of 800hp provided 200kW at 500 to 550 V=. A license to sell electric for lighting was granted in 1909. As the cost of fuel has always been a large proportion of the total cost, the wooden-fired steam engines were replaced with a 225hp diesel engine from Williams & Robinson in November 1911. The diesel engine was fuelled with crude oil shipped on the Irrawaddy river from the oil fields near Magwe (today Magway) to Mandalay.

The tramway system was heavily damaged in 1944 during the Japanese occupation and again during the recapturing by Allied Troops. It was never rebuilt. Mandalay lacked a rail-based transportation system for a long time until the Myanma Railways started to build a circle line in Mandalay in the 1990s