George W. Hilton is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of several books on U.S. transportation history.
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Description
Preface Part I. Cable Traction: 1. The invention 2. The expansion 3. The grip 4. The cable 5. The conduit 6. The powerhouse 7. Cable economics 8. The decline Part II. The Individual Cable Lines: San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Missouri, Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles, Binghampton, Hoboken, St. Louis.
"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, National Museum of American History 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 "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