The world's first first cable-powered street railway was built in
San Francisco by Andrew Hallidie in 1873. During the next fifteen years, many cities in the U.S. and elsewhere built cable
railways to replace horse-powered streetcars. When electric streetcars became practical in the late 1880s, they in turn
quickly replaced cable cars almost everywhere. Fittingly, San Francisco is now the last city in the world to operate cable cars.
The last previous survivor in the U.S. was Seattle (1940); abroad, Dunedin in New Zealand (1957). |
