History of trams

New York's mass transit systems—the elevated steam railway above and cable trolleys below in the 1890s.

The history of trams, streetcars, or trolleys began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. Eventually, the so-called US "street railways" were deemed advantageous auxiliaries of the new elevated and/or tunneled metropolitan steam railways.

Proposed Broadway arcade-railway, 1868