11 Cable Car on Powell St crop, SF, CA, jjron 25

A cable car (usually known as a cable tram outside North America) is a type of cable railway used for mass transit in which rail cars are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required. Cable cars are distinct from

funicular A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite e ...

s, where the cars are permanently attached to the cable.

History

The first cable-operated railway, employing a moving rope that could be picked up or released by a grip on the cars was the Fawdon Wagonway in 1826, a

colliery railway line An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British ra ...

. The London and Blackwall Railway, which opened for passengers in east

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, in 1840 used such a system. The rope available at the time proved too susceptible to wear and the system was abandoned in favour of

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

s after eight years. In America, the first cable car installation in operation probably was the

West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway The IRT Ninth Avenue Line, often called the Ninth Avenue Elevated or Ninth Avenue El, was the first elevated railway in New York City. It opened on July 3, 1868 as the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, as an experimental single-track cable ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, as its first-ever elevated railway which ran from 1 July 1868 to 1870. The cable technology used in this elevated railway involved collar-equipped cables and claw-equipped cars, proving cumbersome. The line was closed and rebuilt, reopening with

s. In 1869

P. G. T. Beauregard Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard (May 28, 1818 - February 20, 1893) was a Confederate general officer of Louisiana Creole descent who started the American Civil War by leading the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Today, he is commonly ...

demonstrated a cable car at

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

and was issued . Other cable cars to use grips were those of the Clay Street Hill Railroad, which later became part of the San Francisco cable car system. The building of this line was promoted by Andrew Smith Hallidie with design work by

William Eppelsheimer William Eppelsheimer (January 26, 1842– June 9, 1920) was a tramway engineer known for his work on cable car systems. He was born in Alzey in Germany and studied engineering at the Polytechnikum Karlsruhe. in 1868 he left Germany by ship f ...

, and it was first tested in 1873. The success of these grips ensured that this line became the model for other cable car transit systems, and this model is often known as the ''Hallidie Cable Car''. In 1881 the Dunedin cable tramway system opened in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

and became the first such system outside San Francisco. 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. It was one of the most extensive in the world with 1200 trams and trailers operating over 15 routes with 103 km (64 miles) of track. Sydney also had a couple of cable tram routes. 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 (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1882 and went on to become the largest and most profitable 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 From 1898 to 1950, various companies operated local trolley lines over the Brooklyn Bridge, taking passengers from many points in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States to the Park Row (BMT station), Park Row terminal in Lower Manhatta ...

was opened, which had a most curious feature: though it was a cable car system, it used

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. Cablecarpicjpg

On 25 September 1883, a test of a cable car system was held by

Liverpool Tramways Company The Liverpool Tramways Company was operated horse-drawn tramway services in Liverpool from 1869 to 1898. History In 1868 the Liverpool Tramway Company obtained permission to construct an Inner Circle line and lines to Walton and Dingle. Serv ...

in Kirkdale,

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

. 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 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. Other cable car systems were implemented in Europe, though, among which was the Glasgow District Subway, the first underground cable car system, in 1896. (

, 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 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

, and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. 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 electrically-powered

trolley Trolley may refer to: Vehicles and components * Tram, or trolley or streetcar, a rail vehicle that runs on tramway tracks * Trolleybus, or trolley, an electric bus drawing power from overhead wires using trolley poles ** Trolleytruck, a trolleyb ...

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—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, cable traction in general has seen a limited revival as automatic people movers, used in resort areas, airports (for example, Toronto Airport), 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.

Operation

The cable is itself powered by a stationary engine or motor situated in a cable house or power house. The speed at which it moves is relatively constant depending on the number of units gripping the cable at any given time. The cable car begins moving when a clamping device attached to the car, called a ''

grip Grip(s) or The Grip may refer to: Common uses * Grip (job), a job in the film industry * Grip strength, a measure of hand strength Music * Grip (percussion), a method for holding a drum stick or mallet * ''The Grip'', a 1977 album by Arthur Bl ...

'', applies pressure to ("grip") the moving cable. Conversely, the car is stopped by releasing pressure on the cable (with or without completely detaching) and applying the brakes. This gripping and releasing action may be manual, as was the case in all early cable car systems, or automatic, as is the case in some recent cable operated people mover type systems. Gripping must be applied evenly and gradually in order to avoid bringing the car to cable speed too quickly and unacceptably jarring passengers. In the case of manual systems, the grip resembles a very large pair of pliers, and considerable strength and skill are required to operate the car. As many early cable car operators discovered the hard way, if the grip is not applied properly, it can damage the cable, or even worse, become entangled in the cable. In the latter case, the cable car may not be able to stop and can wreak havoc along its route until the cable house realizes the mishap and halts the cable. One apparent advantage of the cable car is its relative energy efficiency. This is due to the economy of centrally located power stations, and the ability of descending cars to transfer energy to ascending cars. However, this advantage is totally negated by the relatively large energy consumption required to simply move the cable over and under the numerous guide rollers and around the many sheaves. Approximately 95% of the tractive effort in the San Francisco system is expended in simply moving the four cables at . Electric cars with regenerative braking do offer the advantages, without the problem of moving a cable. In the case of steep grades, however, cable traction has the major advantage of not depending on adhesion between wheels and rails. There is also the advantage that keeping the car gripped to the cable will also limit the downhill speed of the car to that of the cable. Because of the constant and relatively low speed, a cable car's potential to cause harm in an accident can be underestimated. Even with a cable car traveling at only , the mass of the cable car and the combined strength and speed of the cable can cause extensive damage in a collision.

Relation to funiculars

A cable car is superficially similar to a

, but differs from such a system in that its cars are not permanently attached to the cable and can stop independently, whereas a funicular has cars that are permanently attached to the propulsion cable, which is itself stopped and started. A cable car cannot climb as steep a grade as a funicular, but many more cars can be operated with a single cable, making it more flexible, and allowing a higher capacity. During the rush hour on San Francisco's Market Street Railway in 1883, a car would leave the terminal every 15 seconds. A few funicular railways operate in street traffic, and because of this operation are often incorrectly described as cable cars. Examples of such operation, and the consequent confusion, are: * The

Great Orme Tramway The Great Orme Tramway ( cy, Tramffordd y Gogarth) is a cable-hauled gauge tramway in Llandudno in north Wales. Open seasonally from late March to late October, it takes over 200,000 passengers each year from Llandudno Victoria Station to just b ...

in Llandudno,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. * Several street funiculars in Lisbon,

. Even more confusingly, a hybrid cable car/funicular line once existed in the form of the original Wellington Cable Car, in the

city of

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...

. This line had both a continuous loop haulage cable that the cars gripped using a cable car gripper, and a balance cable permanently attached to both cars over an undriven pulley at the top of the line. The descending car gripped the haulage cable and was pulled downhill, in turn pulling the ascending car (which remained ungripped) uphill by the balance cable. This line was rebuilt in 1979 and is now a standard funicular, although it retains its old cable car name.

List of cable car systems

Cities currently operating cable cars

Traditional cable car systems

The best-known existing cable car system is the San Francisco cable car system in the city of

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. San Francisco's cable cars constitute the oldest and largest such system in permanent operation, and it is the one of the few still functioning in the traditional manner, with manually operated cars running in street traffic. Other examples of cable powered systems can be found on the Great Orme in North Wales. and in Lisbon in Portugal. All of these however are slightly different to San Francisco in that the cars are permanently attached to the cable.

Modern cable car systems

Several cities operate a modern version of the cable car system. These systems are fully automated and run on their own reserved right of way. They are commonly referred to as people movers, although that term is also applied to systems with other forms of propulsion, including funicular style cable propulsion. These cities include: *

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, United States – The BART to OAK link between the BART mass transit system and Oakland Airport, based on Doppelmayr Cable Car's Cable Liner Pinched Loop *

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and par ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

– The Perugia People Mover, based on Leitner's MiniMetro *

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, China - The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, based on Soulé's SK *

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in ...

- The Cabletren Bolivariano, based on Doppelmayr Cable Car's Cable Liner Pinched Loop *

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich () i ...

, Switzerland - The Skymetro connects the Zurich Airport's main Airside Center, Gates A, B and C with its mid-field Gates E, based on OTIS's Otis Hovair

Cities previously operating cable cars

Australia

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

(1885–1940, the Melbourne cable tramway system) * Sydney (1886–1905)

France

Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territori ...

– The Poma 2000 (service ended in 2016) *

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

(

Tramway funiculaire de Belleville The Belleville funicular tramway (french: tramway funiculaire de Belleville) was a cable car which from 1891 to 1924 connected the Place de la République in Paris to the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville, on a hill in the Belleville q ...

1873–1935)

Lebanon

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

(Late 1880s until destruction during the Lebanese Civil War)

New Zealand

(1881–1957, the Dunedin cable tramway system) *

(1902–1979, the original Wellington Cable Car hybrid system)

Philippines

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

(Early 1900s-1930s, the Manila-Malabon railway.)

Portugal

* Lisbon (converted to regular tram lines in the early 20th century: ''São Sebastião'', ''Estrela'', and ''Graça'')

United Kingdom

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

( City of Birmingham Tramways Company Ltd, 1888–1911, converted to electric traction) *

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

(

Edinburgh Corporation Tramways Edinburgh Corporation Tramways formerly served the City of Edinburgh, Scotland. The city used four-wheeled double-decked trams painted dark red (madder) and white – a livery still used by Lothian Buses and the post-2014 Edinburgh Trams. Ori ...

, 1899–1923, converted to electric traction) *

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...

( Glasgow Subway, 1896–1935, converted to electric traction) * Hastings *

(trial in 1883) *

, England (1884–1909, Highgate Hill Cable Tramway connecting Archway with Highgate, the first cable car in regular operation in Europe) * Matlock (1893–1927, the Matlock Cable Tramway)

Isle of Man

* Douglas (1896–1929, the Upper Douglas Cable Tramway)

United States

Cable car on Yesler Way at 3rd Avenue in 1940

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

(1890–1897) * Binghamton, New York (trial in 1885) *

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behi ...

** Brooklyn Cable Company's Park Avenue Line **

Brooklyn Heights Railroad The Brooklyn Heights Railroad was a street railway company in the U.S. state of New York. It leased and operated the streetcar lines of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, but started out with the Montague Street Line, a short cable car line conn ...

Montague Street Line Montague may refer to: Places Australia * Montague Road, Adelaide * Montague, a neighbourhood in South Melbourne, Victoria * Montague Street Bridge, South Melbourne * Montague railway station, South Melbourne Canada * Montague, Ontario ** Smi ...

* Butte, Montana (1889–1897) *

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

(1882–1906) ** Chicago City Railway **North Chicago Street Railroad **West Chicago Street Railroad *

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state lin ...

* Cleveland, Ohio *

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...

(1886–1900, the Denver Tramway) *

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the List of municipalities in Mi ...

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58, ...

(1886–1892, the North Hudson County Railway's Hoboken Elevated) * Kansas City, Missouri (1885–1913), including 9th St Incline (1888–1902), 8th St. Tunnel in use (1887–1956) *

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

(1885–1889)

Second Street Cable Railway The Second Street Cable Railway was the first cable car system to open in Los Angeles. Opened in 1885, it ran from Second and Spring Streets to First Street and Belmont Avenue. The completed railway was 6,940 feet long, just over a mile and a q ...

, (1886–1902)

Temple Street Cable Railway Streetcars in Los Angeles over history have included horse-drawn streetcars and cable cars, and later extensive electric streetcar networks of the Los Angeles Railway and Pacific Electric Railway and their predecessors. Also included are modern l ...

, (1889–1896) Los Angeles Cable Railway *

's Ninth Avenue Line **

** Third Avenue Railroad's

125th Street Crosstown Line The Bx15 and M125 bus routes constitute the Third Avenue/125th Street Line, a public transit line in New York City. The Bx15 runs between Fordham Plaza and the Hub in the Bronx, running primarily along Third Avenue. The M125 runs between the Hub ...

** Third Avenue Railroad's Third Avenue Line ** Metropolitan Street Railway's Broadway Line ** Metropolitan Street Railway's Broadway and Columbus Avenue Line ** Metropolitan Street Railway's Broadway and Lexington Avenue Line ** IRT Ninth Avenue Line (defunct) *

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

(1888–1889) *

(1886–1899) *

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County, Nebraska, Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. List of ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

(1890–1904) *

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

* St. Louis, Missouri *

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

, California (1890–1892) * Seattle, Washington (1888–1940)Hilton (1982), pp. 389–407. * Sioux City, Iowa *

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the ...

(1899–1936) *

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

(1891–1938)Hilton (1982), p. 465. *

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma and List of United States cities by population, 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...

* Washington, D.C. (1890–1899, part of the Washington streetcar system) *

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

References

;Specific ;General * Hilton, George W. (1982). ''The Cable Car in America (Revised Edition)''. San Diego, California: Howell–North Books. Reprinted 1997 by Stanford University Press. . * ''Of Cables and Grips: The Cable Cars of San Francisco'', by Robert Callwell and Walter Rice, published by Friends of the Cable Car Museum, first edition, 2000. * ''Chicago Cable Cars'', by Greg Borzo, published by The History Press (2012),

External links

Information
Cable Car Museum

Cable Car Guy

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040204085610/http://www.lostnewyorkcity.com/buildingphotos/Plate-51-b.html The Cable Building(New York City) Broadway Cable car line.
How Cable Cars Operate
San Francisco Cable Car Museum
San Francisco Cable Car Movie from 1905
Patents * ''Railroad track'' * ''Endless wire ropeway'' {{Authority control Rail technologies Railways by type Articles containing video clips