After visiting the stores, where all kinds of spares for engines and cars were kept, followed by the stables, he commented that “even steam tramways use horses”. At the ticket office he said that the conductors were daily supplied with tickets, which they kept in a box provided for the purpose; the tickets were lettered and numbered, and each day the clerk in charge received the remainder of the day's stock back from each conductor. A fresh stock of tickets was given to each conductor on the following day, with a different index letter from that of the previous day; whilst young lady clerks checked both the cash and tickets handed in on the previous evening, one clerk dealing with cash, and another tickets, before checking results one with the other.

The manager told him that “Every conductor is now expected to pay-in all the money he receives during the day, but at one time this rule was not in vogue. Then there used to be a systematic borrowing from the fares by the conductors, and the full amount used to be abstracted from their wages at the end of the week, but this system was found to be far from beneficial to the men, and a source of annoyance to the company, so it was stopped, and now if a man is sixpence short he has to make it up, and a fine of a like amount is inflicted. Of course, there are exceptions to this stringent rule, for if it can be proved that the deficiency is not on account of the negligence of the conductor, he is not expected to make it up."

About two and a half million tickets were kept in stock.

Next to the ticket office was the tinsmiths’ shop, where all the lamps and lanterns used at the depot and on the cars were repaired. The Company had been experimenting to try to find an improved method of lighting the cars, and eventually designed a new lamp which gave a light equal to gas. One car had fitted-up with this. Five other cars were now being fitted-up with the same lighting. It is not known what type of lamps these were, though it is possible that they were operated from some type of oil-gas, stored under pressure in tanks beneath the car floors, similar to that used by the Birmingham Central.

The sand-drying and riddling room was then mentioned in passing, all engines being fitted with sanding equipment of course. To the left of the sheds was the machine room, on the doors of which a number of rules and notices for drivers and conductors were posted. The writer mentioned the following:

"A driver will be severely dealt with unless he stops as quickly as possible at the bidding of any person. Complaints have been received of the cars leaving the stations before the time announced for starting. Fines were inflicted, if offences against these rules were clearly proved, and the name of the driver involved, together with the amount he had been fined, posted up as a warning to others."

In the machine room were seen about a dozen men working on various machine operations for repairs, such as shaping, slotting, and wheel-turning. The engine wheels, as those of the cars, were of cast steel and wear of the treads took place very quickly, the former having to be re-turned about every four months. The Company was now adopting a new type of wheel which was supposed to wear much better and was constructed so as to make very little noise. The wheel centre was of rolled steel, having a replaceable tyre, and between the two, a piece of non-conducting material was placed so as to reduce noise. It was intended to fit-up all the cars and engines with these wheels soon, so as to provide an extremely quiet running fleet.

He remarked that the engines were a source of great trouble, owing to their liability to get out of repair. They were examined every night, so as to try to discover faults before any accident occurred. A book was kept, in which any driver could write any suggestion he might have for improving his particular engine, or state any fault which required putting in order. Each engine was overhauled once in about every four or five months. Every effort had been made to get over the difficulty of the emission of smoke and steam, a good deal of money having been spent in experiments.

A photograph from an old postcard showing the last steam tram that operated from Darlaston depot on 15th June, 1904. It's on its way to Darlaston from Walsall via the Pleck and Wednesbury, passing Samuel Platt's King's Hill Foundry. It would be another 15 months before the line was electrified.

Traversing cranes and a pit were provided for repair work, etc. A joiners’ shop was being erected, where all kinds of woodwork could be carried out on engines or cars. Adjacent to this was the paint shop. In the future the whole of the cars will be painted with a lighter colour, thus making them look brighter and less clumsy than the old dingy brown covering. This, it is assumed, refers to the replacement of the original dark brown with a somewhat lighter reddish brown livery. The writer ended his description of the Depot by pointing out that the reason for building the small sub-depots at the extremities of the routes was so as to enable later cars to be run and also to reduce empty mileage. The article went on to point out that conductors on the South Staffordshire actually worked less hours than any tramway conductors in the district. On the lines where the service was increased during the afternoon and evening, the men worked a large number of hours on one day, but fewer on the next. One day a week, the conductor had as holiday. Regarding fares and stages, he said that the average length of a penny stage on the Handsworth route was a mile-and-a-quarter; the cheapest ride one could have was on Fridays and Saturdays, between Darlaston and Wednesbury, where return tickets were issued at one penny each, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays, and from 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

The writer mentioned that one of the greatest conveniences to passengers was the issuing of a timetable as a ticket, or ticket as a timetable, whichever you cared to call it, but it is not known exactly what he meant.

Regarding the future, the South Staffordshire Company had been endeavouring to meet the wishes of the Darlaston and Walsall people by building a line to Wolverhampton. Negotiations had been proceeding for a long time. The hope was to book passengers from Darlaston to Wolverhampton, and vice versa, for four pence, but nothing had yet been decided. It would be a great advantage to Walsall people to be able to get to Bilston without first having to travel to Wolverhampton. It is believed that a service was still being operated on the Darlaston-Moxley section, at this time, though no doubt an infrequent one, and only an infrequent service was operated on the Bilston-Moxley section of the horse tramway, so that connections would be very poor.

One other interesting working, in connection with Darlaston Depot, deserves mention, that is the supply of coke for locomotive purposes. The depot is situated just off the Darlaston-Wednesbury Road at King's Hill, being reached by a long single track from a triangular junction on the main line, immediately adjacent to the bridge over the L.N.W. Railway at Darlaston Station which is in a cutting.

In the early days, there were two sidings parallel to the depot track, later removed. The main coke store and coke foreman's office, together with water standpipe, was situated just inside the entrance to the depot track. A little further up this track was situated a small hand-operated turntable-originally on one of the sidings and later on the single track from which a steep incline track led down through a cutting in the railway embankment, to terminate on a platform beside a railway siding. Mr. G. A. Hall, a South Staffordshire steam tram driver during the last several years of operation, described how this incline was worked.

One engine was always kept in steam at the Depot, in case of breakdown and also to perform any shunting which might be required. When a delivery of several wagons of coke had been shunted into the railway siding below, one of the several small tramway wagons kept for coke haulage was brought to the turntable and coupled by wire rope led round a fixed pulley to the stand-by locomotive, some distance up the depot line. The engine would then run slowly down towards the turntable, thus lowering the wagon to the bottom of the incline. After the wagon had been loaded, by hand-shovelling from the railway wagons, the reverse procedure was performed, with the engine and wagon then being turned and pushed down to the coke store. Coke was delivered from here to the other depots and termini, as necessary, by means of a wagon coupled behind one of the normal service cars. Coke was required at termini where they were not near to a depot. The coke was taken in bags, for convenient storage at the roadside.