"I... have [decided to call my invention] the Improved Endless-Wire-Rope Way."
Andrew S. Hallidie
The first cable-operated railway was the London and Blackwall Railway, which opened in 1840. It consisted of a line 3.5 miles (5.6 km) long with hemp rope hauling the cars, but because the ropes wore out too quickly, it switched to steam locomotives in 1848. In 1870 San Francisco attorney Benjamin Brooks proposed using cable cars to provide fast, inexpensive, and convenient access to the desirable heights of that hilly city. Horsedrawn cars worked well on level ground but had great difficulty with San Francisco's steep gradients. Brooks obtained a cable-line franchise from the city but was unable to obtain financing and sold it to Andrew Smith Hallidie (1836-1900).
Hallidie had been the first person in California to manufacture wire rope, and by 1871 he had two cable- car patents to his name. He hired engineer William Eppelsheimer, and the two designed the world's first practical cable car system. Their key innovation was a grip that allowed the car to stop by releasing the continuously moving wire cable and to start moving again by grabbing onto the cable. The San Francisco cable-car system began operating in 1873, proving both mechanically sound and financially successful.
For the next two decades, many cities around the world replaced their horse-driven cars with Hallidie cable-car systems. However the electric-powered trolleys available by the end of the nineteenth century proved to be less expensive to build and operate, and by 1957 only San Francisco retained an operating Hallidie system. It is still working today, but these days the tourists greatly outnumber the commuters.
