STREET RAILWAY. A railway laid upon the public streets of a city or a town, and intended principally for the transportation of passengers. The street railway had its origin in the early tramways of Great Britain (see RAIL WAyS) , and such roads are still denominated tramways in all European countries. The street railway for passenger traffic is, however, dis tinctly an American development, and the mod ern passenger tramways of Europe owe their inception to the United States. A street rail way was operated in New York City in 1831-32, on which a horse car, much like an old English stage coach in construction, ran from Prince Street OD the Bowery to Yorkville and Harlem, following for some distance the route now occu pied by the Fourth Avenue Railway, which still operates under the original charter granted in 1831. The road was known as the New York and 'Harlem Railroad, and it continued in opera tion as a horse-car line until 1S37, when it was temporarily changed to a steam-car line. In 1845 the operation of the horse ears on the railway line was resumed, and it remained the only horse car line in New York until 1852, when charters were granted for the Second, Third, Sixth, and Eighth Avenue lines. Street railways were first built in Boston, Mass., in 1856. Philadelphia, Pa., had its first line in 1S57. The street rail way was introduced into England in 1860 through the efforts of George Francis Train, the first line being started in Birkenhead opposite Liver pool. Roads were laid in Liverpool in 1868. in London in 1869-71, and afterwards in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin. A recent authority (Du mont, Automobiles sur rails, 1898) says that the first horse tramway in France was built in 1856 on a line extending from Paris to Saint-Cloud, and was called the 'American' railway; but that the first horse-car line in Paris itself was not built until 1875. Street railway enterprises be gan to be taken up by the South American coun tries in 1866.
The street railway rail of 1832 was a wrought iron bar about 5 inches wide, with a groove from inches to 21/4 inches wide and from 1 inch to inches deep, for the wheel flange. The wide and deep groove in this rail gave trouble by the wheel tires of ordinary vehicles and wrenching them. To remedy this fault the step rail was adopted. This consisted of a flat
bar having a flat surface from 3 inches to 5 inches wide flanked by a ridge or tread about 1 inch high and 1% inches wide. This form of rail came into extensive use, especially in Amer ica. Another form of step rail had the tread in the centre flanked by a fiat surface on each side. The next development was a return to the grooved rail, but with the groove wedge-shaped and narrow. These early forms of rails were simply iron bars spiked to the tops of longitu dinal timbers. This timber was replaced by metal longitudinals, chairs, and supports of va rious sorts as experience suggested improve ments, until finally the attempt of trying to maintain the tread or wearing surface of the rail separate from the supporting body was abandoned and the modern girder rail was orig inated. The girder rail consists of a base and web like the ordinary Trail for railways, but has a wide grooved head. With the advent of the girder rail the former difficulty of insecure and uneven joints was decreased and at the same time a rail was developed which gave the necessary stiffness for carrying the rapidly increasing weights of cars which were made pos sible by the development of mechanical propul sion. The construction of modern street railway is more fully described in the article on ELECTRIC RAILWAYS.
The success of the first street railways estab lished, inventors and engineers turned their at tention to devising means of mechanical propul sion. These various methods fall into seven classes as follows: Traction by steam motors, by compressed air, by gas motors, by carbonic acid engines, by ammonia engines, by cables, and by electricity. Steam, gas, compressed air, and vapor motors have been employed in com paratively isolated instances and under special conditions, although they have been the subject of considerable experimentation and are to be met with occasionally in Europe and to a less extent in the United States. The only systems of mechanical propulsion which have attained extended use in America (leaving elevated rail ways out of account) are cable power and elec tric motors. The development of electric propul sion for street ears is described in the article on ELECTRIC RAILWAYS.