The Coincidental Improbability of Electric Tram Systems Worldwide

We are told that the world's first electric tram system was invented in 1880 and tested near St. Petersburg, Russia. In North America, Montgomery, Alabama was the first location worldwide said to have a system of electric trams established in 1886. It was known as the "lightning route." (Alabama Power Co.)

The Capital City Street Railway, also known as the Lightning Route, was the first citywide system of streetcars established in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 15, 1886. This early technology was developed by the Belgian-American inventor Charles Joseph Van Depoele. Joseph Arthur Gaboury, a french Canadian from Quebec, was the owner of the horse-drawn system that was converted to electricity. One trolley route ended at the Cloverdale neighborhood. This early public transportation system made Montgomery one of the first cities to "depopulate" its residential areas at the city center through transportation-facilitated suburban development. The system operated for exactly 50 years, until April 15, 1936, when it was retired in a big ceremony and replaced by buses.

"I started to notice a close connection in my research between not only trams, trains, canals, and star forts, but the incredible similarity between these systems all over the world. Historical tram systems, also known as streetcars, keep cropping up, so this video is dedicated to this particular subject!"

SOURCE
Michelle Gibson
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RUBBER BOOM IN MANUAS, BRAZIL

1848. Manuas, Brazil. Electric Trams & Streetlights. In the Middle of The Amazon Rain Forest. No Road Until 1963!

Manaus was at the center of the Amazon region's rubber boom during the late 19th century. For a time, it was "one of the gaudiest cities of the world". Historian Robin Furneaux wrote of this period, "No extravagance, however absurd, deterred" the rubber barons. "If one rubber baron bought a vast yacht, another would install a tame lion in his villa, and a third would water his horse on champagne." The city built a grand opera house, with vast domes and gilded balconies, and using marble, glass, and crystal, from around Europe. The opera house cost ten million (public-funded) dollars. In one season, half the members of one visiting opera troupe died of yellow fever. The opera house, called the Teatro Amazonas, was effectively closed for most of the 20th Century.

When the seeds of the rubber tree were smuggled out of the Amazon region to be cultivated on plantations in Southeast Asia, Brazil and Peru lost their monopoly on the product. The rubber boom ended abruptly, many people left its major cities, and Manaus fell into poverty. The rubber boom had made possible electrification of the city before it was installed in many European cities, but the end of the rubber boom made the generators too expensive to run. The city was not able to generate electricity again for years.