Torres' experimentation in the field of cableways and cable cars began very early during his residence in the town of his birth, Molledo. There, in 1887, he constructed the first cableway to span a depression of some 40 metres (130 ft). The cableway was about 200 metres (660 ft) across and pulled by a pair of cows, with one log seat. This experiment was the basis for his first patent application in Spain, "Un sistema de camino funicular areo de alambres mltiples" ("A multi-wire suspended aerial system"),[18] for a cable car with which he obtained a level of safety suitable for the transport of people, not only cargo. The patent was later extended to other countries: United States, Austria, Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Italy.[19] Torres' cable cars used an innovative multi-cable support system, in which one end of a cable is anchored to fixed counterweights and the other (through a system of pulleys) to mobile counterweights. With this system the axial force of the cables via is constant and equal to the weight of the counterweight, regardless of the load in the shuttle. What will vary with this load is the deflection of the via cables, which will increase by raising the counterweight. Thus, the safety coefficient of these cables is perfectly known, and is independent of the shuttle load. The resulting design is very strong and remains safe in case of a support cable failure. Later, he constructed a cableway over the Ro Len in Valle de Igua [es], Spain, that was faster and motorized, but still used solely for the transport of materials, not of people.[20][14][21]