William Eppelsheimer (January 26, 1842– June 9, 1920) was a

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

way engineer known for his work on cable car systems. He was born in Alzey in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and studied engineering at the Polytechnikum Karlsruhe. in 1868 he left Germany by ship from

Bremerhaven Bremerhaven (, , Low German: ''Bremerhoben'') is a city at the seaport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms a semi-enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the Riv ...

for the United States. Arriving in New York he changed his German first name ''Wilhelm'' to ''William'', Eppelsheimer designed the

Clay Street Hill Railroad The Clay Street Hill Railroad was the first successful cable hauled street railway. It was located on Clay Street, a notably steep street in San Francisco in California, United States, and first operated in August 1873. History The promoter of ...

San Francisco 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 ...

. This was the first practical cable car line in the world and the first line in what was to become the San Francisco cable car system, although that line is more often attributed to its promoter,

Andrew Smith Hallidie Andrew Smith Hallidie (March 16, 1836 – April 24, 1900) was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco, USA. This was the world's first practical cable car system, and Hallidie is often therefore regarded as the inventor of ...

. He later designed the Eppelsheimer bottom grip for the Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railway, another San Francisco line, and this is still used by that city's surviving cable cars. Eppelsheimer went on to design the

Chicago City Railway The Chicago City Railway Company (CCRy) was an urban transit company that operated horse, cable, and electric streetcars on Chicago's South Side between 1859 and 1914, when it became merged into and part of the Chicago Surface Lines (CSL) metr ...

, at one time the world's largest and most profitable cable car system, and

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 ...

Highgate Hill Cable Tramway The Highgate Hill Cable Tramway was the first cable tramway in Europe. Opened in 1884, it was built to demonstrate the benefits of the technology first pioneered in San Francisco. Origin The 1860s and 70s saw a boom in horse tramway constru ...

, Europe's first cable tramway. After working in Edinburgh on the '' Edinburgh Northern Cable Tramways'' he returned to Germany by 1885.

References

*Joe Thompson (1998–2004)
Who Was Important in the History of the Cable Car?
Retrieved January 6, 2005. *George Hilton: The Cable Car in America, Stanford University Press 1997, ;Notes 1842 births German railway mechanical engineers 1920 deaths People from Alzey Engineers from Rhineland-Palatinate {{Germany-engineer-stub