These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel rail or 'tramway'.
Horsecars on tramlines were an improvement over the omnibus as the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on iron or steel rails (usually grooved from 1852 on), allowed the animals to haul a greater load for a given effort than the omnibus and gave a smoother ride.
The horse-drawn streetcar combined the low cost, flexibility, and safety of animal power with the efficiency, smoothness, and all-weather capability of a rail right-of-way.
The first rail passenger services in the world were started by the Oystermouth Railway in Wales, using specially designed carriages on an existing tramline built for horse-drawn freight dandies.
The earliest streetcars used horses and sometimes mules, usually two as a team, to haul the cars. Rarely, other animals were tried, including humans in emergency circumstances.
Problems with horsecars included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing of.
Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar.
achudars
arumakan
signer
tosseto
miholovesq
matleenalaakso
wingnus
motherhoodinadhd
bcrikko
tarugoconf
ddemaree
lynnandtonic
jponch
caitiem20
jennybc
chriscoyier
lara
holman
dougneiner
yeseniaperezcruz
cromwellryan
tanoku