ARe there any real streetcar fans out there? HOpe so/!
i’m a streetcar fan, but my experience is limited to new orleans…
i’m an interurban fan, but my experience is limited to the suburbs of houston, where an interurban system was dropped in the early '60s…
You know in the 40s GM bought up most of the street cars and shut most of them down forceing people to buy cars. Just a tidbit of info. And in 2002 CSX lead the league in crossing collisions.
I’m not a REAL street car fan, they are only up there near the ceiling. Just some interested and quite fond of the Sacramento Northern. R.I.P.
Lowell
Growing up in the 1950’s, I liked the streamlined PCC cars operated by the CTA in Chicago (the Green Hornets). Then the CTA rushed to eliminate streetcars so, for among other reasons, they could rebuild the PCC’s into elevated cars!
More on GM’s involvement in converting streetcar lines to buses: GM formed a front company called City Lines, Inc. which proceeded to buy up streetcar lines in cities across the US, and replace streetcars with GM diesel buses. Champaign-Urbana City Lines is an example (this was before public transit districts took over private transit companies in most cities during the 1970’s). If buses were so much more efficient than streetcars, isn’t it strange that GM had to resort to this ploy? And now we’ve come full circle, with cities building light rail lines!
John W. Baie, author, www.xlibris.com/TwoTrackMain.html
…There was also the phase of transportation of trackless trolleys…Similar to buses but powered by overhead catenary wiring and elecric motors. They didn’t last very long.
In the east the Johnstown Traction Co. in Johnstown, Pa. has quite a history. It stopped running in June of 1960. Several books exist on it’s history. Some info can be pulled up on it on the Internet. It served the greater Johnstown area and even extended to several outer towns. Car barns [large brick buildings still exist].
The Co. had to weather through several severe floods and some hard economic times over the years.
QM
…We have added some clatter [streetcar clatter], I might say…Original poster come back and add to the fair box…Anyone recall how quiet the new [I think they were PCC cars], right after the war…about 1946-47. Our area got a dozen or so and the wheels were isolated [in some way], from the steel tire part of the wheels and it really deadened the clatter sound the cars made before that.
QM
improvements were being made to a street system in new orleans… new tech. cars would be quieter and streamlined, against boxlike cars from the '20s still in use… objections were raised because locals wanted the outrageous rumble and roar old cars made on paved steets… honest, the noise could raise the dead… especially noisy at nite, when most city sounds were absent…
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…You described the quiet city at night and that really brings back sound to my mind almost like it was yesterday. The sound of an older car especially, going away down the street…the whine of the traction motors, and possibly gearing or both and hitting the joints in the rails and sometimes a spark or two off the catenary and then it fades away…
QM
Not a big steet car fan either, but traction poses some interesting views. And lucky me, I live in the last city to construct from scratch a electric railroad, with commuter service and freight. Any body care to guess the name of the road?
Stay Frosty, and good to see you back here Lowell,
Ed
HNS fan? did you get to ride it? And you know the track is still there, Up uses it every day.
Market street yard and the east yard interchange still being used daily, pretty busy piece of track.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
The ‘Real’ street and trolley cars have not roamed the Milwaukee streets since the 60’s. We have the bus “Trolley” still but its just an trolly frame built over a bus chassis. The good news is that the East Troy Railroad Museum (www.easttroyrr.org) is only 45 mins from Milwaukee. I spent almost the entire opening day gawking over all of there equiptment!
If its on rails I have some intrest of it!
Icemanmike-Milwaukee
Home of the Hiawatha’s
Iceman (and others) Don’t forget the wonderful new trolley system in Kenosha Wisconsin. They have historic PCC cars painted to honor great cities that had PCC cars. For all of about twenty five cents you can ride around the city’s development zone including a very nice new natural history museum. You also go past the old Chicago & North Western depot which still features passenger service (Metra commuter trains but a train’s a train). One time I was there the Dennis Sullivan, Milwaukee’s new 2-masted schooner, was docked at the public dock – so you could ride a trolley past a tall ship!
And again that was twenty five cents to ride as much as you want. They are having a trolley festival in June that will also feature an historic WWII bus plus historic displays.
Dave Nelson
…The steel wheel on steel rails have always held an interest to me as well in the transportation system. In our midwest city here in Indiana the streetcar system was stopped around 1931…and some evidence of it’s existence is still visible. At one intersection in the western part of town the rails are still open and visible…A cement street that has not been changed. Several car barns are still in existance as well. Of course used for other purposes now. Interurban ROW’s are still visible in several directions out of the city…They stopped running about 1941. Here the terrain is level but in the east at Johnstown, Pa. the system that I remember and actually rode on, had grades to reach around in the area and must have been a factor. It was all interesting.
QM
…How extensive [in milage], is the new trolley system in Kenosha…? I used to visit there while still on the job…[The American Motors Plant].
QM
Yea I forgot about the Kenosha Trolleys. They have an event coming up soon. Thanks again Dave…
Icemanmike-Milwaukee
Just snaped to the HO in HOpe, ok, so I need coffee before I read…if your are looking for prototype info, try the Houston North Shore, it was a interurban passenger service and a freight hauler, the last electric railroad built in America. The best of both worlds, it hauled passengers and workers from Houston to Baytown and the Humble (Exxon) refinery before IH 10 was built. Had several types of motors, rail buses in the later days. Good research reference book would be “Houston North Shore” by Charles C. Robinson and Paul L. DeVeter, put out by CERA, the Central Electric Railfans Association, lots of photos of the old MoPac electric motors, and a bunch of roster info, and just a well written and researched book. You could write CERA AT p.o. BOX 503, Chicago, Ill, 60690-0503 for a catalog of their publications, they have a lot of traction info.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
I know this is a bit far away from you guys, San Francisco and San Jose CA both operate some old (PCC) and ancient (Wooden) equipment in daily service. Sure are neat to watch and ride. Also the Rio Vista trolly/interurban museum is only about 90 miles away. Rio Vista operates 5 or, ah, maybe 8 miles of old Sac Northern right of way weekends and during the summer. Trouble is, Ya gotta go RIGHT PAST the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory to get to Rio Vista. Makes the trip a “twofor”.
I’m a hard case steam fan, but have a soft spot in my head for wooden interurbans. See ya there someday, maybe . . .
Lowell
dont you recall discussions we had between nov. and jan.?
i asked about interurbans and you told me that the old r-o-ways between mp & sp made a connection between baytown and the refinery?
i rambled about the times i spent on the the train, etc.
i rode it hundreds of times between '56-'61… it converted from elect. to diesel in '48, due to declining interest and popularity of cars post-war…
if you want to read it again, i can write it again…
i have a book about the system, the beginnings of the towns of baytown & highlands, how the refinery got started, etc…