A horsecar was an animal-powered streetcar (or tram).

In the United States, during the 19th century, one of the earliest form of public transit to develop was the omnibus. These were local version of the stagecoach lines, and picked up and dropped off passengers on a regular route and without the need to be pre-hired. The omnibus was an improvement over walking.

The first streetcar lines used horsecars and were an improvement over transportation by omnibus. One of the advantages was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the animals to haul a greater load for a given effort over the omnibus. The horse-drawn streetcar combined the low cost, flexibility, and safety of animal power with the efficiency, smoothness, and all-weather capability of a rail right-of-way.

Some of the earliest streetcars appeared in Baltimore, Maryland in 1828 and in New York City in 1832. These streetcars used horses and sometimes mules to haul the cars, usually two as a team. Rarely other animals were tried, including humans in emergency circumstances. By the mid-1880s, there were 415 street railway companies in the United States operating over six thousand miles of track and carrying 188 million passengers per year using horsecars.

Problems with horsecars included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day-in and day-out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing of. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for perhaps a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar.

Horsecars were largely replaced by electric-powered streetcars following the invention by Frank J. Sprague of an overhead trolley system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires. His trolleypole used a spring-loaded wheel to travel along the wire. In late 1887 and early 1888, using his trolly system, Sprague installed the first successful large electric street railway system in Richmond, Virginia.

Long a transportation obstacle, the hills of Richmond included grades of over 10%, and were an excellent proving ground for acceptance of the new technology in other cities. Within a year, the economy of electric power had replaced more costly horsecars in many cities. By 1889. one hundred and ten electric railways incorporating Sprague's equipment were begun or planned on several continents. By the turn of the century, there were almost no horsecars left.

New York City had the last regular horsecar lines in the United States, closing in 1914. A rare exception was a mule-powered line in Celaya, Mexico which operated until 1956.

External Links

• Trolleys: The Cars That Built Our Cities by Transit Glori-Mundi
• Reader's Companion to American History, Public Transportation: the Horsecar