Sutter Street Railway's grip car 46 and trailer 54 have been preserved and are displayed in the San Francisco Cable Car Museum.
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As with many cities, the problem in flat Chicago was not one of incline, but of transportation capacity. This caused a different approach to the combination of grip car and trailer. Rather than using a grip car and single trailer, as many cities did, or combining the grip and trailer into a single car, like San Francisco's California Cars, Chicago used grip cars to pull trains of up to three trailers. In 1883 the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Railway was opened, which had a most curious feature: though it was a cable car system, it used steam locomotives to get the cars into and out of the terminals.
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CCR used a grip that could grip either side of the cable, allowing the grip car to operate in either direction. NCSR and WCSR grip cars could operate in one direction only. None of the grips could be used on other lines. Approximately 700 grip cars were in service.
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Switching directions on a cable train can be very difficult. Each track can go in one direction only, and the grip car has to be at the head of the train. Turning around a loop was common, at the end of most lines there were loops. In the downtown area the loops went around several blocks, increasing the area the line would otherwise serve.
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Combination grip car The passenger numbers caused a different approach than many other cities. Some single cars were used, but on most lines grip cars pulled trains of up to three trailers (reduced to two by law in the 1890s). Most grip cars were short and open. Four different types of grips were used, one by each company and the WCSR's south and southwest lines using a fourth.
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In 2015 yard switcher CSL #L202 and flat car CTA #314 are at the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, Illinois. CCRy #209 cable trailer and CSL #9020 electric trailer are at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. Horsecar #10 and grip car #532 were on exhibit in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in 1979. One CCRy streetcar station from 1893 survives at 5529 South Lake Park Avenue in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
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The original cable depot served a short cable line to the Milsons Point ferry wharf. A typical cable tram consisted of two vehicles, a leading open tramcar, known as the "dummy" or "grip" car, and a second car that was an enclosed saloon tram or trailer. The system was powered by a large steam winding engine in Ridge Street. The engine's flywheel hauled an endless steel cable lying beneath the road between the rails in a shallow channel along the tram route.
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State Street service started on January 28, 1882, Cottage Grove Avenue on February 26. Counter to some people's expectations, the cable cars did not suffer much from the elements, and the harsher Chicago climate with extreme variations in summer heat and winter cold was no problem for them. The number of passengers caused a different approach to the cars than the San Francisco cable car system. Rather than using a grip car and single trailer, or combining the grip and trailer into a single car, like the "California Cars", CCRy used short bi-directional grip cars to pull trains of up to three trailers.
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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden, Germany; in Estonia (1920s–1930); between Jelenia Góra, Cieplice, and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in the UK at Lytham St Annes, Neath (1896–1920), and Trafford Park, Manchester (1897–1908). On 29 December 1886 the Melbourne newspaper The Argus reprinted a report from the San Francisco Bulletin that Mr Noble had demonstrated a new 'motor car' for tramways 'with success'. The tramcar 'exactly similar in size, shape, and capacity to a cable grip car' had the 'motive power' of gas 'with which the reservoir is to be charged once a day at power stations by means of a rubber hose'.
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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden, Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra, Cieplice, and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in the UK at Lytham St Annes, Neath (1896–1920), and Trafford Park, Manchester (1897–1908). On 29 December 1886 the Melbourne newspaper The Argus reprinted a report from the San Francisco Bulletin that Mr Noble had demonstrated a new 'motor car' for tramways 'with success'. The tramcar 'exactly similar in size, shape, and capacity to a cable grip car' had the 'motive power' of gas 'with which the reservoir is to be charged once a day at power stations by means of a rubber hose'.
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