I used to collect short lengths of rail. A mechanical hacksaw (reciprocating type) cuts nice slices. However, that particular sample was made, no doubt, by apprentices at Dorman Long in 1936 for Leeds City Tramways as a sample.
Even with standardised rail (and there were many different standards), many systems had their own tyre profiles - as they did with trolley wheels. There was no economy of build scale with a standard design tramcar - virtually every tramway system ordered its own design.
And that's where Leyland came in with their buses..... the rest is history.
Tram eradication in U.K. Is somewhat more complex than just buses.
When many systems were created back in the years of yor, Councils and Towns used to put in some kind of Clause that the system would revert to their ownership after nn years. Result of this dumb policy was that owners would gradually run the system down towards the end of their time. Thus a broken or at least poorly maintained system generally in need of new vehicles was taken over. Run to death and profits if any used to subsidise the rates with the inevitable solution that the system could not be afford to be kept running or upgraded thus Busses took over. Further closures of well maintained systems occurred as Town thought that Trams were 'old fashioned' thus closing them to leave us with just Blackpool at a drastically reduced and useful size. The rest is History.
Enter John Prescott with a renewed passion for 10 or Tram Systems, some even getting to the state where Rails were bought (Liverpool) only to have the plug pulled by Alistair Darling with the excuse that the systems were unaffordable at the moment. As if they would ever be cheaper. The reality was it was that he needed the Money to pay for Tony Blairs various vanity wars that have given us so much Terrorism in recent years.
Now we have the DOT playing allah with Tram Train, Hydrogen Buses and Battery everything. Good old fashioned Trams powered by Electricity are what is needed to resolve the issues of many Towns as Croydon, Blackpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Wolverhampton are discovering. But at silly costs due to a previous Governments ill thought out policy of saddling Utility Changes on the System during build. These of course are charged at Gold Rated Prices by Privatised mostly foreign owned Utility Companies.
Wow what a rant!
JonD