Cable Car Day Date in the current year: January 17, 2025

The term “cable car” most commonly refers to two cable transportation systems: a type of aerial tramway and a type of cable railway. Cable Car Day was created to commemorate the invention of the latter. A cable car (or a cable tram, as it is commonly called outside of North America) is a type of cable railway in which cars are hauled by a continuously moving cable that travels at a constant speed.

The first cable car to use a moving rope that could be picked up and released by a grip was the Fawdon Wagonway. It was a horse-drawn industrial railway serving the Fawdon Colliery. A similar system was used on the London and Blackwall Railway, which opened in 1840. However, the wear and tear on the rope was too great, and both railways eventually abandoned cable technology in favor of steam locomotives.

The first practical cable car system was created by British-born American entrepreneur and inventor Andrew Smith Hallidie. While working as a miner in California, he noticed the rapid wear and tear on the ropes used to lower cars from the mine to the mill. He developed a wire rope that lasted two years instead of two and a half months and left mining to concentrate on manufacturing his wire rope.

Hallidie’s first cable car system was a type of aerial tramway called the Hallidie ropeway. Invented in 1867, it was designed to transport ore and other materials over mountainous terrain. But it was the Clay Street Hill Railroad that made Hallidie truly famous.

In the late 1869s, Hallidie came up with the idea of a cable street railway on Clay Street, a notable steep street in San Francisco, and began working on it with engineer William Eppelsheimer. On January 17, 1871, they received a patent for an “improvement in endless wire railways”, which became the basis for their cable car system.

The Clay Street Hill Railroad made its first run on August 1 or 2, 1873 (various sources disagree on the date). It began regular service a month later; its financial success led to the establishment of new cable car lines that eventually formed the San Francisco cable car system. An icon of San Francisco, the system is still in operations, although only three of the original twenty-three cable car lines remain. Other cities that still operate cable car systems (albeit a more modern version) are Oakland, California, United States; Perugia, Italy; Shanghai, China; Caracas, Venezuela; and Zurich, Switzerland.

The origins of Cable Car Day are unclear, but there is no doubt that this amazing invention and its inventors deserve recognition. If you live near a city that still has a cable car system, celebrate the holiday by traveling there and taking a cable car ride. And don’t forget to post about it on social media using the hashtag #CableCarDay to spread the word!