Frank Julian Sprague, an American engineer and inventor, designed the electric streetcar or trolley in the mid-1880s in the United States (18571934). The power came from an overhead electric cable that could move numerous automobiles at once.
When did electric streetcars first appear?
One of Werner von Siemens’ key innovations was the world’s first electrically operated streetcar, which was opened on May 12, 1881 in the Berlin district of Gross-Lichterfelde. The Lichterfelde station and the military academy were connected by a 2.5-kilometer railway. The streetcar was a huge success right from the start, transporting 12,000 passengers in the first three months alone. However, the construction of this landmark in urban transportation did not go as planned.
Who was the first to invent the electric cable car?
Andrew Smith Hallidie, a San Francisco native, invented the cable car in 1873. For more than 30 years, Hallidie’s cable car system, which was based on early mining conveyance methods, dominated the city’s transit landscape. Hallidie’s cable car system would withstand the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco, two World Wars, and political attempts to remove the cars from city streets in the late 1940s and 1950s to become the internationally recognized emblem of San Francisco that it is today.
What was the first city in the world to have electric streetcars?
In 1888, Frank Sprague developed a complete electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia. This was the first successful and large-scale use of electricity to power a city’s entire streetcar system. In 1857, Sprague was born in Connecticut. He began his career as a naval officer after graduating from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1878. In 1883, he left the service and went to work for Thomas Edison.
What was the location of the first electric trolley system?
Montgomery, Ala., would become the world’s first electric trolley system when cutting-edge public transportation technology was constructed. Charles Joseph Van Depoele, a Belgian-American inventor, created the technology.
What was the motivation behind the development of the electric trolley car?
Looking north from a rail bridge built for San Francisco’s first electric streetcar line along what is now Diamond Street towards Chenery Street in “downtown” Glen Park in 1908. The majority of the structures depicted here are still intact today.
On this day in 1892, the first electric streetcar route in San Francisco opened. The San Francisco & San Mateo Railway Company (SF & SM Ry.) operated this pioneering line, which left an indelible mark on our city’s transit system that continues to this day.
The SF & SM Ry. line stretched from Steuart and Market streets to Glen Park, through Harrison Street, Guerrero Street, and San Jose Avenue, and ended at the cemeteries in Colma.
The benefits of electric streetcars over horse-drawn vehicles and cable cars, which were the primary modes of transportation at the time, allowed the line to be built. They are less expensive to build and run, can transport more people, and travel over longer distances at higher speeds. They started to dominate the transit landscape around the world by 1900, after inventor Frank Sprague demonstrated that they were a realistic means to improve and expand public transit in 1888.
This photograph, taken in March 1903, depicts one of the first electric streetcars to operate on San Francisco’s streets.
Three brothers, Behrend, Isaac, and Fabian Joost, constructed the SF & SM Ry. to serve their remote holdings in the south-central area of San Francisco, which included the neighborhoods that are now known as Glen Park and Sunnyside. They hoped to make money by providing a modern, reliable transit service in the area and then selling off the homes served by the route as their value improved.
The business launched a second line on 18th Street in late 1892, which established elements of the current 33-Ashbury-18th trolley bus route. The company’s main line connected Twin Peaks, Upper Market, and Ashbury Heights to the Mission and downtown through this secondary route, although it ended at Frederick and Ashbury Streets and didn’t service Golden Gate Park, unlike the 33.
Unfortunately for the Joosts, their transit business never produced much money, and the SF & SM Ry. was sold in 1896 despite reorganization and growth. The lines, facilities, and equipment were all integrated into United Railroads Co. by 1902. (URR). To attract more riders, URR modernized, extended, and enhanced both of the former SF & SM Ry. lines with its new monopoly over transit in the city. The route to Colma was reconfigured and extended to downtown San Mateo through popular Mission Street, resulting in the 40 San Mateo, a profitable inter-city streetcar line that lasted until 1949.
Despite the SF & SM Rybrief .’s existence, the Joosts’ electric rail infrastructure left an indelible mark on the shape of our city’s public transportation system. Parts of the first electric streetcar line are followed by Muni’s 12 Folsom/Pacific and 36 Teresita routes, as well as the J Church Line and BART’s Peninsula lines. In San Francisco, antique streetcars can be found on the F Market & Wharves and E Embarcadero lines, as well as their modern-day offspring, light rail vehicles, which serve the Muni Metro system.
What is the distinction between a trolley and a streetcar?
Unlike mechanical cable cars, streetcars are propelled by onboard electric motors and are powered by an overhead wire via a trolley pole. Trolleys resemble conventional buses, however they are entirely electric, with twin poles on the bus’s roof drawing electricity from two overhead wires.
When did the gondola lift first appear?
Scotish Clan Sutherland designed the first aerial lift, and George Mackenzie erected the first operable aerial tram near Dunrobin Castle in 1714. It was pulled by horses and used to transport timber down the ridges and across rivers in order to construct fortifications. Edward MacToledano of Clan MacTaliano, piloting the famed “Double Zero,” was the first gondalier.
The “Double Zero” gondola is credited as being the first known cable lift in European history, predating the development of steel cables. It’s unclear how long this lift was in use. In any case, the area would have to wait another 98 years for the second cable lift, this one fitted with iron wire cable.
Dunrobin Castle received a new multipurpose goods and people transporting cableway in 1812. Military men and supplies were the first passengers. The guys, on the other hand, considered this mode of transportation to be rather refreshing. The public soon followed, and they were especially glad to be so far away from their horses’ excrement. Moving the waste so far below the passengers’ scent line was a brilliant concept at the time.
The sixteen-mile system was described as “the sole wire tramway which has been established primarily for the carriage of passengers” in an 1847 industry brochure.
Highlands Gondola Glory Days
Dornoch Carriage and Gondola Conversions was founded by the MacRoberts Brothers in 1852. They were substantially less expensive to construct than the previous rack railway. One of the first trams was built in Dornoch, with others quickly following in Tain and Embo. It was a natural progression from there to create passenger lifts and commercial freight lifts.
Larger gondolas were eventually built and utilized throughout the northern Highlands as transportable sleeping chambers and housing for workers.
Gondola Fire and Demolition
Dornoch Gondola’s heyday ended tragically and unexpectedly in 1882. The gondola system transported more than 2,341 passengers across 24,899 kilometers from its inception in 1812 to its termination in 1882. The Dornoch Gondal was the largest transport network in terms of route miles at the time of its closure. Dornoch Gondola also has the following transportation records:
When was the first automobile built?
Carl Benz submitted for a patent for his “mobile propelled by a gas engine” on January 29, 1886. The patent number 37435 can be considered the automobile’s birth certificate. The first public outing of the three-wheeled Benz Patent Motor Car, model no. 1, was reported in the newspapers in July 1886.
What was the motivation for the creation of the cable car?
In 1873, the cable car, a rail vehicle drawn by a long cable powered by steam from a central station, was designed to navigate San Francisco’s steep slopes. In order to prevent the negative consequences, this notion extended to Chicago and other places.
The cable car was created for a reason.
In 1873, the cable car, a rail vehicle carried by a long cable powered by steam from a central station, was created to navigate San Francisco’s steep slopes. To prevent the negative consequences, this idea extended to Chicago and other places.
The golden age of the streetcar
Grand Rapids, Michigan, electrified streetcars. (Photo courtesy of the Grand Rapids Historical Society)
Animal-drawn streetcar lines were erected in cities around the United States during the 1800s. Electrified streetcars began to replace them in the 1880s, and they quickly became the major means of transit in many cities.
It was a tremendously profitable business to run streetcars. Cities grew in size, and those who lived too far away from employment to walk relied on them. (Around streetcar lines, some real estate developers created suburbs.) The streetcar operators, known as “traction magnates,” consolidated ownership of many lines over time, forming powerful, often corrupt monopolies in many cities.
Atlanta had a well-developed streetcar system in 1902. Georgia Railway and Electric Company (Georgia Railway and Electric Company)
Many of them eventually signed agreements with city governments granting them the explicit right to operate as a monopoly in that city. They agreed to a slew of terms in exchange. “Streetcar operators agreed to contract stipulations that keep rates constant at five cents and stipulated that rail line owners maintain the pavement around their tracks, eager to secure guarantees on their huge up-front investments,” writes Stephen Smith at Market Urbanism.
These problems were not a major issue until the outbreak of World War I. However, they eventually became overly onerous since, despite making concessions to pose as monopolies, these corporations were no longer operating as such.
What really killed the streetcar: gridlock and artificially low fares
The fall of the streetcar after World War I, when automobiles began to appear on city streets, is frequently portrayed as a simple consumer decision. According to a Smithsonian display, “Americans opted for a different mode of transportation: the vehicle. For those who could afford it, the car became the preferred mode of transportation, and more individuals could do so.”
The reality, however, is more difficult. “People weren’t making decisions in a flawless cosmos; they were making decisions in a messy, real-world situation,” Norton adds.
The true issue was that once cars were allowed on the road, they could drive on streetcar rails, rendering the streetcars ineffective. “When just around 10% of people were driving, the tracks were so busy that they couldn’t keep up with their schedules,” Norton adds.
Streetcars were given dedicated rights of way in some cities, such as Chicago, and they survived. They were doomed pretty much everywhere else. The Los Angeles Times’ Cecilia Rasmussen says, “With 160,000 automobiles crammed onto Los Angeles streets in the 1920s, mass-transit commuters complained of enormous traffic jams and hourlong delays.”
Furthermore, the contracts for streetcars in many places obliged them to maintain the pavement on the roads surrounding the tracks in good condition. This meant that the businesses were essentially subsidizing automobile trips while also losing money.
Paying for this maintenance became increasingly problematic due to one major factor: many contracts permanently locked corporations into a 5-cent fare that was not linked to inflation.
The value of 5 cents plunged after World War I, but streetcars had to acquire municipal commission approval for any fare increases, and the 5-cent fare had become established as something of a birthright among many members of the public. “Nobody on these commissions would endorse fare hikes to pay expenditures because it would embarrass them in front of their people,” Norton adds.
The general public had little sympathy for the traction tycoons who had signed these contracts. Many progressives and urbanists support streetcars today, but they were once viewed as a haven for corruption, particularly because their owners had a history of violent strike-breaking.
The quiet death of the streetcar
In Los Angeles, 1956, decommissioned streetcars await destruction. (Los Angeles Times)
As a result of these considerations, some streetcar companies filed for bankruptcy as early as the 1920s, while they were still the primary form of transit in their cities. Huge costs and dropping rates drove them to reduce service, gradually pushing people toward the more convenient and affordable automobile.
Many businesses invested in buses as a way to stay afloat during the Great Depression since they were less expensive and more flexible. They began as feeder systems, bringing commuters to the end of lines, but as time went on, they began to completely replace some lines.
That wasn’t enough to keep most of these businesses afloat, especially as city, state, and federal governments poured money into roadways. “By the 1950s, planners had made it a priority to drive cars into cities via new urban roadways,” writes Norton. “As a result, streetcars became absolutely impractical to use.”
In 1956, one of Detroit’s final streetcars was shown as part of a special parade. (Stephen M. Scalzo collection, Dave’s Electric Railroads)
Almost all streetcar companies were in bad form by the 1950s. Some were taken over by new municipal bus firms, while National City Lines purchased a total of 46 transit networks. All conspiracy theories revolve around a holding firm linked to GM, as well as oil and tire industries.
While it’s true that National City proceeded to rip up lines and replace them with buses, and that GM benefited in the long run from the fall of mass transit, it’s difficult to conclude that the streetcar was killed by National City alone. In practically every metro area in the United States, streetcar systems went bankrupt and were dismantled, while National City was only involved in roughly 10% of the cases.
It’s also not entirely accurate to suggest that the streetcar disappeared because Americans preferred automobiles. It’s simple to envision things going very differently in a world if the government sponsored each mode equally.
So, what was the cause of the streetcar’s demise? The simplest argument is that it couldn’t compete with the caron because the playing field was so uneven.
