Untitled Document
The Cable Car in America
By George Hilton.
Softcover, 8.5x10.5", 484 pages, 646 illustrations, 43 maps. 1997.
"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
"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.
"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
"George W. Hilton is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. His many books on railroad and transportation history include American Narrow Gauge Railroads and The Ma & Pa: A History of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad."
