Well,
nobody's town calls their mass transit by this name (darn!),
but the inventor of the cable car first called his invention an
endless wire ropeway!
When
people say, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” they mean
that people see a need and create a new device to meet that need. And
when Andrew Smith Hallide saw a horrible accident on the hills of San
Francisco—a horse working with a team of horses to pull a streetcar
lost its footing on the steep roadway, and fell, resulting in its own
death and the death of several other horses!—Hallide knew there had
to be another way to take people from here to there over those steep
hills! A way that didn't endanger horses.
And
his idea involved a sort of rope made of wire.
That's
what the cable in a cable car is, after all. Ropes are made by many,
many fibers twisted or braided together to make a strong cord, and
cables are very similar except, instead of fibers twisted/braided
together, cables are made up of twisted/braided metal wires.
So
I love the name “endless wire ropeway”—although I have to admit
that a 5-syllable name isn't as handy as a shorter name.
If
you're wondering why today, of all days, is Cable Car Day, this marks
the anniversary of Hallide's first cable car railway patent, in 1871.
That's 142 years of clang-clang-clang history!
Take
a virtual ride on a cable car here.
This video shows how wire rope cables are made, and this one
shows how normal fiber ropes are made.
Also
on this date:
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