Even before the advent of electric trolleys, attempts were made to develop workable streetcars to replace the malodorous horse-drawn models in use since the 1830s in most U.S. cities. One solution was a small steam locomotive designed to pull a four-wheeled car along a track through city streets. But the steam locomotives terrified horses, and runaways caused injuries and deaths. So the techies of the time contrived to cover the steam locomotives with dummy shells designed to look like regular car bodies – and it worked! Horses were calmed by the deception. A steam dummy was a small steam locomotive completely enclosed in a wooden body. The locomotives were thereby disguised to look like streetcars. The theory was that they wouldn't scare the horses that way when they ran on city streets. The Trolley Lines were not the first 'street RR's'. Many cities (tho not so many as later had electric lines) had Horse car lines. In the street railway field, the 'dummy' evolved to displace the horse, speed the traffic, allow handling of more cars. The electric lines, by there success superseded most of the 'dummy lines'. The name arose because the dummy engines were 'silent' [1] or, or, in the parlance of the times (ca 1870) 'dumb'.