The Cable Car in America: A New Treatise upon Cable or Rope Traction As Applied to the Working of Street and Other Railways - Softcover

"One opens this book with a mixture of wonder, envy, admiration, and awe. At first glance it seems to be another coffee-table book. . . . Then you open it, and find that it is nothing less than a superbly researched compendium of every cable tramway ever built in North America. . . . Read it and you are left with a dazed feeling that, on this particular subject, not one other word need ever be written." -- Modern Tramway and Light Rail Transit "No one before or since attempted such a complete history of the cable railway. It ranks very high in the area of U.S. transit history." -- John D. White, Curator Emeritus of Transportation History * Smithsonian Institution * "There was nothing comparable before this book's appearance, and there has been nothing since." -- Robert M. Vogel Review of the Original Edition"Between the covers of this one volume lies the entire history of a mode of urban transportation, from invention through development and demise. It is done thoroughly, interestingly, and with magnificent illustrations. It could only have been done by a person who was at once a competent scholar, a serious railfan, a historian with a broad perspective, and a writer able to communicate with the professional and amateur alike. And Professor Hilton is just that." -- Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin

Enriched with almost 700 illustrations, this book has long been the definitive study of the American cable car, a widely touted form of urban transportation that operated in 29 cities across the United states. This once-promising technology proved inefficient, however, and cable cars were soon replaced by electric trolley cars. Today, they are only to be found as a tourist attraction traversing the steep hill of San Francisco.