Cable cars are used in steep hilly terrain like San Francisco where traction motors would likely just spin their wheels on the tracks. In really steep terrain they usually are on overhead monorail tracks like a ski lift.
Trams, streetcars, and trolleys usually are electric cars that run on tracks. My dictionary says they can get power from the tracks, but in my knowledge they mostly get it from overhead wires. Only subways, els, and other systems where the tracks are protected from access usually get power from the tracks and I have never hear those systems called by these names.
The common thing to all these systems is that their power supply is external to the cars.
Now a bonus fact, originally most of the amusment parks were built to use the excess electricity from these lines on weekends when traffic was down, and were built at the end of the line to generate revenue for the street railway system.
graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" -----------------------------------
Peter Williams wrote:
Frits SAID:
In the Netherlands it is called a tram.
A trolley bus here is an electrical bus,
it it powered through power lines that
hang above the pavement, but it rides
like normal busses, so there is no rails.
That is how our trams work in Melbourne and Adelaide. Electric motor drive fed by an overhead wire, they run on tracks. All the old cable types were taken out of service and the cable system removed many years ago.
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