The real origin of "tram" is indicated, rather, by the following list of possible derivations, which I take from Skeat's "Etymological Dictionary":—
Swedish: Tromm, trumm, a log, or the stock of a tree; also a summer sledge.
Middle Swedish: Tråm, trum, a piece of a large tree cut up into logs.
Norwegian: Tram, a door-step (of wood). Traam, a frame.
Low German: Traam, a balk or beam; especially one of the handles of a wheel-barrow.
Old High German: Drām, trām, a beam.
Thus in its original signification the word tram, or its equivalent, was applied either to a log of wood or to certain specified objects made of wood.
The word itself was in use in this country as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, since on August 4, 1555, a certain Ambrose Middleton, of Skirwith, Cumberland (as recorded in the Surtees Society "Publications," vol. xxxviii., page 37, note), made a will in which he left "to the amendinge of the highwaye or tram, from the weste ende of Bridgegait, in Barnard Castle, 20s." There is no reason to doubt that the "highwaye or tram" here referred to was a road across which logs of wood had been laid, the name "tram" being applied thereto by reason of its aforesaid original signification. It is, further, easy to understand how, when the pioneer rail-ways were made entirely of wood, the word tram-way should, for that reason, still be applied to them. Just, also, as "tram" had already passed from a log of wood to a wooden sledge or to a wheelbarrow handle, so it was given by pitmen in the north of England to the small waggon in which coal was pushed or drawn along in the workings.
When "plates" were nailed on to the wooden rails of the early rail-ways the use of the word tram-way may still have been regarded as appropriate; it was retained for the plates or rails provided with a flange, and lines constructed with flanged plates or rails were, in turn, called plate-ways, tram-ways, or dram-ways to distinguish them from other ways or roads made with rails having no flange.
In course of time the wooden rails which had been the original justification for the use of the word or prefix "tram" disappeared, and even the flanged rails were to be met with only on canal or colliery lines; but "tramway"—now a complete misnomer—is the name still given in this country to what in the United States are more accurately known as street railways.