Editing Cable car (railway) (section)

== History ==
[[File:Minories stationLBR.jpg|thumb|left|Winding drums on the [[London and Blackwall Railway|London and Blackwall]] cable-operated railway, 1840]]

[[File:Cable Driving Plant, Designed and Constructed by Poole and Hunt, Baltimore, MD.jpg|thumb|Cable Driving Plant, Designed and Constructed by Poole & Hunt, Baltimore, MD. Drawing by P.F. Goist, circa 1882. The powerhouse has two horizontal single-cylinder engines. The lithograph shows a hypothetical prototype of a cable powerhouse, rather than any actual built structure.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hilton|first=George W.|title=The Cable Car in America|year=1971|publisher=Howell NorthBooks|location=Berkeley, CA.}}</ref> Poole & Hunt, machinists and engineers, was a major cable industry designer and contractor and manufacturer of gearing, sheaves, shafting and wire rope drums. They did work for cable railways in Baltimore, Chicago, Hoboken, Kansas City, New York, and Philadelphia.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Cable in Chicago: Speeding along the Streets Rapid Transit there for Miles|newspaper=The Baltimore Sun|page= 8|date=Nov 9, 1889}}</ref>]]

The first cable-operated railway to use a moving rope that could be picked up or released by a [[Cable grip|grip]] on the cars was the [[Fawdon Wagonway]], a [[colliery railway line]] that opened in 1826.<ref>Erskine Hazard, "Observations upon Rail-roads", [https://books.google.com/books?id=yrgFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA275 ''The Franklin Journal and American Mechanics' Magazine''], Vol. III, No. 4 (April 1827); p. 275.</ref><ref>Fawdon Wagonway, [http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_structure_information.asp?struct_id=722 Structural Images of the North East] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120902001020/http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_structure_information.asp?struct_id=722 |date=2012-09-02 }}, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 26 Mar. 2004.</ref>  

Another began operation in 1840: the [[London and Blackwall Railway]], which hauled passengers in east [[London]], England.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Robertson |first=Andrew |date=March 1848 |title=Blackwall Railway Machinery |journal=The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal |publisher=Wiley & Putnam |location=New York |volume=11}}</ref> The rope available at the time proved too susceptible to wear and the system was abandoned in favour of [[steam locomotive]]s after eight years. 

In America, the first cable car installation in operation probably was the [[IRT Ninth Avenue Line|West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway]], [[New York City]]'s first-ever [[elevated railway]], which ran from 1 July 1868 to 1870. The collar-equipped cables and claw-equipped cars  proving cumbersome, and the line was closed and rebuilt to operate with [[steam locomotive]]s.

In 1869, [[P. G. T. Beauregard]] demonstrated a cable car at [[New Orleans]]<ref name="St. Charles Streetcar">{{Cite book |title=St. Charles Streetcar, The: Or, the New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad |author=James Guilbeau |date =2011 |publisher =Pelican Publishing Company |isbn=9781879714021 |pages =48–49 }}</ref><ref name="The Streetcars of New Orleans">{{Cite book |title=The Streetcars of New Orleans |author=Louis C. Hennick |author2=Elbridge Harper Charlton |date = 1965 |publisher =Pelican Publishing |isbn=9781455612598 |page =16 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.asme.org/getmedia/40ef6e7c-697d-4f77-8daa-059a37f698b3/101-St-Charles-Avenue-Streetcar-Line-1835.aspx |title=St. Charles Avenue Streetcar Line, 1835 |access-date=2016-03-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220072405/https://www.asme.org/getmedia/40ef6e7c-697d-4f77-8daa-059a37f698b3/101-St-Charles-Avenue-Streetcar-Line-1835.aspx |archive-date=2016-12-20 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and was issued {{US patent|97343}}.

In 1873, the [[Clay Street Hill Railroad]], which later became part of the [[San Francisco cable car system]], was first tested. Promoted by [[Andrew Smith Hallidie]] with design work by [[William Eppelsheimer]], the line's grips became the model for other cable car transit systems, whose cars were often known as the ''Hallidie Cable Car''.

In 1881, the first such system opened outside San Francisco: the [[Dunedin cable tramway system]] in [[Dunedin]], [[New Zealand]]. For Dunedin, [[George Smith Duncan]] further developed the Hallidie model, introducing the pull curve and the slot brake; the former was a way to pull cars through a curve, since Dunedin's curves were too sharp to allow coasting, while the latter forced a wedge down into the cable slot to stop the car. Both of these innovations were generally adopted by other cities, including San Francisco.

In Australia: the [[Melbourne cable tramway system]] operated from 1885 to 1940 and was one of the most extensive in the world with 1200 trams and trailers operating over 15 routes with 103&nbsp;km (64 miles) of track; while Sydney had two cable tram routes - Milsons Point to North Sydney (1886-1905) and King Street Wharf to Edgecliff (1894-1905).<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Powerhouse Collection - Sydney cable tram trailing car by Hudson Brothers |url=https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/207898 |access-date=2025-01-21 |website=collection.powerhouse.com.au |language=en}}</ref>

Cable cars rapidly spread to other cities, although the major attraction for most was the ability to displace [[horsecar]] (or [[mule]]-drawn) systems rather than the ability to climb hills. Many people at the time viewed horse-drawn transit as unnecessarily cruel, and the fact that a typical horse could work only four or five hours per day necessitated the maintenance of large [[stables]] of [[draft animals]] that had to be fed, housed, groomed, medicated and rested. Thus, for a period, economics worked in favour of cable cars even in relatively flat cities.

For example, the [[Chicago City Railway]], also designed by Eppelsheimer, opened in [[Chicago]] in 1882 and went on to become the largest and most profitable [[Cable cars in Chicago|cable car system]]. As with many cities, the problem in flat Chicago was not one of incline, but of transportation capacity. This caused a different approach to the combination of grip car and trailer. Rather than using a grip car and single trailer, as many cities did, or combining the grip and trailer into a single car, like San Francisco's ''California Cars'', Chicago used grip cars to pull trains of up to three trailers.

In 1883 the [[New York and Brooklyn Bridge Railway]] was opened, which had a most curious feature: though it was a cable car system, it used [[steam locomotive]]s to get the cars into and out of the terminals. After 1896 the system was changed to one on which a motor car was added to each train to maneuver at the terminals, while en route, the trains were still propelled by the cable.

[[File:Cablecarpicjpg.jpg|thumb|right|A San Francisco cable car travels along California Street in the city's Financial District.]]

On 25 September 1883, a test of a cable car system was held by [[Liverpool Tramways Company]] in [[Kirkdale, Liverpool|Kirkdale]], [[Liverpool]]. This would have been the first cable car system in Europe, but the company decided against implementing it. Instead, the distinction went to the 1884 [[Highgate Hill Cable Tramway]], a route from [[Archway, London|Archway]] to [[Highgate]], north London, which used a continuous cable and grip system on the 1 in 11 (9%) climb of Highgate Hill. The installation was not reliable and was replaced by electric traction in 1909.<ref>{{cite book |last=Taylor |first=Sheila |title=The Moving Metropolis |publisher=Calmann and King |location=London |year=2001 |page=82 |isbn=1-85669-241-8}}</ref> Other cable car systems were implemented in Europe, though, among which was the [[Glasgow Subway|Glasgow District Subway]], the first underground cable car system, in 1896. ([[London]], England's first deep-level tube railway, the [[City & South London Railway]], had earlier also been built for cable haulage but had been converted to electric traction before opening in 1890.) A few more cable car systems were built in the [[United Kingdom]], [[Trams in Lisbon|Portugal]], and [[Belleville funicular tramway|France]]. European cities, having many more curves in their streets, were ultimately less suitable for cable cars than American cities.

Though some new cable car systems were still being built, by 1890 the cheaper to construct and simpler to operate [[electricity|electrically]]-powered [[tram|trolley]] or tram started to become the norm, and eventually started to replace existing cable car systems. For a while hybrid cable/electric systems operated, for example in Chicago where electric cars had to be pulled by grip cars through the loop area, due to the lack of trolley wires there. Eventually, San Francisco became the only street-running manually operated system to survive{{snd}}Dunedin, the second city with such cars, was also the second-last city to operate them, closing down in 1957.

===Recent revival===
In the last decades of the 20th-century and the early 21st-century, cable traction in general has seen a limited revival as [[people mover|automatic people movers]], used in resort areas, airports (for example, [[Terminal Link]] at [[Toronto Pearson International Airport]] opening in 2006 and [[Oakland Airport Connector]] at [[Oakland International Airport]], [[San Francisco]]), huge hospital centers and some urban settings. While many of these systems involve cars permanently attached to the cable, the [[Minimetro]] system from [[Poma]]/Leitner Group and the [[Cable Liner]] system from [[DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car]] both have variants that allow the cars to be automatically decoupled from the cable under computer control, and can thus be considered a modern interpretation of the cable car.