Find the word definition

Crossword clues for horsecar

Wiktionary
horsecar

n. A streetcar or tram drawn by a horse.

WordNet
horsecar

n. an early form of streetcar that was drawn by horses

Wikipedia
Horsecar

A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered (usually horse) streetcar or tram.

These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel rail or ' tramway'. These were local versions of the stagecoach lines and picked up and dropped off passengers on a regular route, without the need to be pre-hired. Horsecars on tramlines were an improvement over the omnibus as the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on iron or steel rails (usually grooved from 1852 on), allowed the animals to haul a greater load for a given effort than the omnibus and gave a smoother ride. 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.

Usage examples of "horsecar".

Charles Street into the knotted streets of downtown, grazing lampposts and cutting ahead of irate horsecar drivers.

He was stepping into a crammed horsecar and waiting for change from the conductor.

But then it dawned on him that the ringing bell was coming from behind, where another horsecar was approaching.

We stood on the platform of the horsecar together, and when I objected to his paying my fare in the American fashion, he allowed that the Italian usage of each paying for himself was the politer way.

But often we went our walks through the snows, trudging along between the horsecar tracks which enclosed the only well-broken-out paths in that simple old Cambridge.

Late in the day they took a crowded horsecar back to their hotel on Walnut Street.

Riley smiled, paid his check, sauntered out into the street and caught a horsecar bound for Madison Square Garden.

The rails of a horsecar line were embedded in the centre of the road, while small carriages waited by the sidewalk as their owners ducked under striped awnings into shops and offices.

Serving Boston and its suburbs, the horsecars were enclosed two-ton compartments lined with enough places to hold around fifteen passengers.

I hear he often rides in the horsecars with the horses, when some owner or trainer happens to be feeling tenderhearted, or he hitchhikes in automobiles, and sometimes he even walks, for Unser Fritz is still fairly nimble, no matter how old he is.

We used to make sulkies, buggies, Deerborns, and horsecars, now we mostly make army wagons.

They recalled the Broadway of five, of ten, of twenty years ago, swelling and roaring with a tide of gayly painted omnibuses and of picturesque traffic that the horsecars have now banished from it.

They made a Sunday excursion to the Zoological Gardens in the Thiergarten, with a large crowd of the lower classes, but though they had a great deal of trouble in getting there by the various kinds of horsecars and electric cars, they did not feel that they had got near to the popular life.

There, amid the carriages, horsecars and pedestrians, he chanced upon an incredible sight: two houses, resting on rollers and being dragged along by oxen.

Carts and hacks and gigs bumping over the cobbled street, alongside horsecars and cable cars running on rails.