Westinghouse and edison fought what was known as the war of the currents. eventually, westinghouse triumped using alternating current for power distribution. alterning current is better for power generating because

This is because AC is easier to transform from a higher voltage to another, lower voltage, using transformers. High voltage means less resistive losses in the power lines during transmission. This is why power is transmitted at many hundreds of thousands of volts and is only transformed into 110V or 220V near the consumers.  

Arise 8 run 1 this means go 8 up and 1 across, which is steepest