I had the Hilton interurban book and it is terrific. I hope to have it again some day, with the other two you mention.
It is wrong to it was not a GM issue at all. You are only partly right. GM did buy NY Railways in 1926 with the express intention of converting to bus as soon as a decent model could be developed, and it took them eight years. GM did threaten cajole, and use influence in some cases, including New Orleans with reference to the Canal Street abandonment only. The consipracy where they paid a meaningless small fine had more to do with their partly owned properties buying only GM buses and freezing Ford and White and Mack out of the business and not concerning streetcar conversion.
In 1952, MIT Professor Ballsbaugh, who taught transportation planning, said:
David, railroads have no future in the United States. If you want to be a railway electrification engineer, go to France and become a Frenchman. Exact quote. GM Funded the department at that time.
With respect to the “GM conspiracy”, no less an authority than George Hilton himself testified before Congress that it was all hogwash. It’s more a product of the hostility to GM in the 1973 oil crisis than anything that actually happened.
I could write a lot about this subject becuase I’ve looked into some of the original sources, not just what people with political agendas have written about it. I don’t want to get into a lot of detail here, but let me make a few points:
(1) The factual basis of the “conspiracy theory” is that GM and several other companies provided capital to a transit holding company called National City Lines in the form of purchases of preferred stock. This is a financing device wihich in no way gives the preferred stockholders any “control” of the company -it simply gave them a right to be paid dividends before any dividends are paid to the common stockholers. As part of the deal, NCL agreed to buy all of its supplies from the companies that had bought its preferred stock (in other words, if NCL bought busses, it would buy them from GM, if it bought tires, it would buy them from Firestone, etc). At no time was NCL controlled by GM or any of the the suppliers involved in this arrangement. In fact, it was NCL which cooked up this arrangement and marketed it to its suppliers. I would point out that it is not at all unnusual for a supplier to provide financial support to its customers. That’s exactly what Sam Insull did when he purchased and supplied capital to various interurban properties, including the North Shore and the South Shore. Insull was not a traction tycoon - he was an electric utilities man (the Henry Ford of the electric utilities industry). His primary interest in traction companies was because, at the time, they were some of the largest users of the electric power his utilities were producing, and he believed he could keep them viable with additional capital investment.
You confirmed my statement that the only “conspiracy” was not really a conspiracy but an open (but non-legal) agreement to buy from only one manufacturer. It is more than a matter of generalities. New Orleans did want to get rid of most of its streetcar for he usual reasons that you have stated (most were converted before the law mandating two-man operation was repealed, and New Orleans never ran single-truck Birney Safety cars), but did want to keep both Canal and St. Charles, especially after conversion to one-man. GM told them they would not locate a new plant in Louisiana if the Canal Line was kept. It wasn’t a matter of cash but of prestige. And NOPSI nuckled under with the agreement that St. Charles would be kepot.
In New York City, Third Avenue Railway management did want to keep certain heavy streetcar lines which could still (some even with conduit) be operated more profitably with streetcars than with buses. The city forced the conversion. The anti-trolley impetus was so great that even Nortons Point, which could have been operated as a light line with the track connection to the rapid transit system for maintenanc kept at its elevated Stillwell Avenu terminal, was abandoned. A 100% PRW line with no street running whatsover. frequent service, and a feeder to four subway lines at the elevated Stillwell terminal.
Roy Chalk wanted to keep the remaining DC streetcar lines and said so. A Congressinal vote forced the change. Remember that Washington built a new conduit line to serve some government establishment in 1942 and built new conduit trackage for the DuPont Circle underpass, plus a pair of new underground stations, after WWII, I think even after the Benning LIne was abandoned.
I was told that Ballbaugh had gone to the railroads for funding but was turned down, and then went to GM. &nb
Yet despite all the “evidence” the fact is that it was largely GMC that put the streetcars out of business. Her is how:
Politicking to get a law passed that money collected from state and federal highway taxes of any sort could only be used for highway purposes. This meant that one of the largest USA industries, highway transportation, did not pay real estate taxes on 95% of the property it used. This gave personal auto passenger transportation and truck freight transportation a big boost compared to competition.
This law was overturned by new legislation, needed so the funds orginally intended for a 2nd Ben Franklin Bridge, but very very inadequate for that job, could be used instead for the Camden - Lindewald Rapid Transit (for which the money was sufficient), which has made the 2nd Bridge unnecessaruy by turning auto commuters into transit commuters. The very first “crack in the concrete.”
Developed the first practical transit bus that could really compete with the streetcar. The 1934 Yellow Coach.
Developed the first practical diesel transit bus in 1952. The standee-window WWII diesel, first used on military basis and then the basis for most streetcar conversions and replacement of worn out older buses after WWII.
Occaisonal political influence as Canal Street New Orleans.
Made it possible for a transit system owner to realize quick profits by selling streetcar track and copper wire scrap as income, and then leasing instead of buying buses with the leasing costs as operating expenses to justify fare increases or going out of business and dumping t
Well, let me briefly respond to this, since I want to actually go to bed tonight.
We need to distinguish between “streetcars” and “light rail” (a distinction usually not made by those who believe in the GM conspiracy). While the vehicles might look the same, the service is very much different. “Streetcars” are vehicles that share the street with other street vehicles and have to fight through the traffic, just like other street vehicles. The difference is that, unlike other street vehicles, streetcars operate on railroad tracks most of which are buried in the street, while other vehicles drive on the pavement. “Light rail”, in contrast, is a form of rapid transit service, where the rail vehicles operate mostly on exclusive rights of way (typically, even when they operate in streets, they operate in reserved lanes).
With respect to streetcars, once buses were developed which were large enough to handle the number of passengers a streetcar could handle (which occurred around 1950), it is difficult to see what advantage a transit company could see in retaining streetcars. The railroad in the street (and the overhead wire) imposed large, continuing costs on the enterprise which could be avoided by conversion. These included maintenance of the tracks (as I recall, the Chicago Surface Lines had a force of 100 employees who did nothing else), and periodic track renewal (The track structure had a life of 30-35 years. Since most streetcar lines had last been renewed in the 1920’s. by the 1950’s they were coming up on another renewal cycle). Any railroader will tell you that tracks in pavement, such as at grade crossings, are some of the most difficult tracks to maintain and renew. A streetcar system involved many miles of tracks in pavement, not just short distances at grade crossings. Beyond the direct track costs, most streetcar operators were responsible for stree
Again, I agree with you it was not a conspiracy. It was sound business practice. I read the article some time ago and it does not disagree with what I posted.
GM developed the buses that could replace streetcars. Not in 1950 but in 1934, the 1934 Model Yellow coach with rear engine and efficient peter-witt style passenger flow. Then the economics where buses could compete with streetcars on a cost basis when diesel power replaced gas with greater fuel efficiency and far less maintenance. But again, this was a GM development. And this grew out of diesel development, just like the FT freight locomotives. So, yes, GM was largely responsible for replacement of electric railways (and many of the streetcar lines replaced were almost entirely on private right of way, Sparows POint in Baltimore, Cabin John in Washington, Columbia Road in Boston. Hodimont in St. Louis, the trolley elevated served by a number of lines in Hoboekn and Jersey City, just to name a few…
The modern streetcar system in Toronton is mostly streetcar. Sharing space with autos and general traffic. There is a trend, Spadina, Harborfront to put new lines mostly on PRW, but King and Queen and Carlton are heavy lines running in street traffic. St. Clair has moved to transit only lanes, used only by the streetcar line there and by the buses that share the street for some distance.
The economics of light rail and streetcar are similar. Very heavy lines, those carrying more than 20,000 passengers a day, are still, even now, more economically operated by streetcars or light rail where land is available, then by buses.
Of course neither bus nor streetcar/light rail transit is self-supporting from the fairbox.&nbs
I’m not familiar with what went on in Providence (or who got convicted for what). As to Minneapolis, there’s a very good, recent book on the Twin Cities streetcar system; Isaacs “Twin Cities By Trolley”, University of Minnesota Press, 2007. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it since it goes way beyond the normal picture book fare. According to the book, several former TCRT officials were charged and convicted of a sale and kickback scheme in connection with TCRT’s streetcar to bus conversion. Apparently what they did was to cause TCRT to sell surplus materials (including almost new PCC cars) at discount prices and then get kickbacks from the purchasers, which they pocketed (p. 292). Nice work if you can get it. The book also has a good discussion of the “GM conspiracy” (pp. 293-97).
With respect to Toronto, I haven’t been there for more than 20 years so I’m not sure what they’ve been doing. However, as I recall, they were running streetcar trains last time I was there. That changes the operating cost economics, probably more in favor of streetcars. Some U.S. cities also operated streetcar trains (either multiple unit or motor trailer), but these operations generally ended in the 1930’s,as patronage declined. For most U.S. cities after WWII, the issue wasn’t how to increase capacity by running trains, but how to fill single cars as passengers deserted the transit system for private automobies. I recognize that there were some U.S. cities that continued to have large loads, but this was a distinct minority.
With respect to comparisons between streetcar and bus “operating costs”, I’ve dealt with railroad costing, and the first thing I ask when I see this term is what costs are included and what costs are excluded. For example, an obvious difference between streetcars and buses are the infrastructure costs of the streetcar system. Are the streetcar’s
Operating costs include track maintenance including eventual track replacement but do not include the initial investment. When I say that Woodward Avenue, Detroit, and Flatbush Avenue, Brookly,. regular streetcar lines, should have remained streetcar lines, I would note that the track was in good condition when lines were abandoned, and that the equipment was reasonably modern. When it comes to the vast majority of streetcar and interurban lines in the USA, of course you are right, and the swing to personal auto transportation made then good candidates for bus conversion. I am merely pointing out that there were and are exceptions. Note that Philadelphia has restored streetcar service on Garrad Avenue and that the historic F line in San Francisco (mostly PCC’s, some Milan Peter Witts, and an occasional special like the Blackpool “boat” and MUNI No. 1) is the one line that comes closest to paying all its operating costs in the entire MUNI network.
I think even you would agree that abandonment of Long Beach PE by the government authority that then owned it was a bad mistake. And Nortons Point in Brooklyn was similar (smaller) but much harder to restore, since much of the ROW now has buildings.
But to say that GM dfid not cause the conversion of streetcars to buses is like saying that Electro Motive did not cause the dieselization of North American Railroads.
But, again, it was not a conspiracy, just smart business practice.
Amtrak’s rental payments to the host roads don’t really even cover the operating costs, much less the host road’s incremental capital costs for hosting the Amtrak trains. Nine bucks a train mile (or thereabout) is a real steal! Backing it off the LD train’s costs doesn’t change the picture much. They still leave a streak of red ink in their wake.
You’re almost certainly right that the rental Amtrak pays for its LD trains is too low - the freight railroads have been complaining about it for years. But that’s a different issue from the one I was addressing. Whether too high or too low, the rental Amtrak pays its host railroads includes compensation for the infrastructure it is using, including the host railroad’s capital costs. To my knowledge, Amtrak treats the rental as an “operating cost”(there could be an exception to this where Amtrak pays for Amtrak owned improvements, but that’s normally a small part of the infrastructure it is using when it’s a tenant). On the corridor, by contrast, a big chunk of the money Amtrak is paying for infrastructure is treated as capital costs, not operating costs. That means, if you just compare Amtrak’s “operating cost” coverage on the corridor vs the long distance services (a comparison I’ve seen made many times), you’re comparing applies and oranges. The comparison isn’t really telling you anything about the relative economic viability (or nonviability) of the two services.
The reason I raised the Amtrak issue is because it’s a modern example of the “operating cost” comparisons which are frequently made in discussions of streetcars vs buses. In fact, you’ll see them in this thread - streetcars are said to have lower “operating costs” vs buses above a certain level of traffic. But, if the streetcar’s infrastructure costs are being excluded from this comparison (because they are “capital”, not “operating” costs), the comparison is meaningless. Costs are costs. From a business standpoint, if the money is being spent, it doesn’t matter much what bucket they are assigned to in the accounting system. After all, when you pay for a restaurant meal, does it matter much to you whether you put your copy of the check into your right rather than your left pocket?
I would counter that the rental payment is such a small part of the overall cost of the LD train operations that it’s irrelevant when comparing operating costs. It’s not “apple and oranges”, its’ “Macintosh and Red Delicious”. As you point out, servicing capital is a real business cost - most of the time. In the case of US transportation, capital is more often than not given some sort of subsidy - or even a free ride -so comparisons of any kind are rarely very clear. Amtrak is not viable no matter how you rearrange the deck chairs, though some parts of the operation generate (or consume) more operating cash than others. How you allocate all of this to the corporation’s capital spending really doesn’t matter in the end. e.g. the NH to Boston electrification benefits both the Acela and Conventional trains. How would you allocate the revenue from each toward the debt service? If you decided that the conventional service wasn’t generating enough cash and decided to can it, then Acela would have to carry the whole load and the overall picture might be worse. (morphing threads are not bad!)
I don’t recall I said anything about the allocation of costs between two services that are using the same rail infrastructure. I was using an Amtrak example to illustrate a point about streetcars vs buses. However, with respect to your comments about capital costs being susidized, I will say that, whether the capital costs are funded from the farebox, or are funded by the government through subsidies, they are still costs of the service in question and must be taken into account in assessing economic viability, whether the issue on the table is streetcars vs buses or Amtrak. A susidy may make the economics more favorable for the party being subsidized, but it makes the economics correspondingly less favorable for the subsidizer (and, if the government is providing the subsidy, the poor taxpayers upon whose back all harebrained government schemes seem to ride). There’s no free lunch.
With respect to your comments on cost allocation, there is no one “right” way to allocate costs between two services using a single rail infrastructure. The “right” answer largely depends on the question being asked. For example, if you are simply trying to compare the financial performance of two services using the same infrastructure, the most obvious way is to just allocate the joint and common costs between services on a unit basis (cars or passengers). For example, if Service A has half the cars and Service B has the other half, you allocate the costs 50-50. “But wait”, the advocates of Service B might say. “The infrastructure would exist for Service A even if Service B weren’t being provided”. So, they would argue that the only costs Service B should be assigned are the incremental costs directly attributable to the service (presumably, in this example, less than half of the total costs). This isn’t necessarily “wrong”. In fact, it is “right”, if the question on the table is whether Service B should be discon
A few comments on the above post (not necessarily disagreements)
Perhaps you have seen some financial statements I have not, but I’m not aware that “operating costs” shown by transit companies included costs for “eventual replacement” of their streetcar investment. To do that, they would have had to calculate current replacement costs for the infrastructure, and then allocate that agai
Exactly. The Toronto system is well-managed, and track replacements are scheduled routinely, wiht the system kept in good shape. It comparitive operating costs on a passenger mile basis were available to me and bus passengers cost about 25% more to handle than streetcar passengers both per passenger and one a passenger mile basis. I think this information is still available at APTA. It was only specific heavy lines that should have been kept, and most of DC’s lines fitted that desciption, otherwise Roy Chalk would not have wished to keep them. And at the time, the PCC’s were mostly relatively new, and many did see further service in Cairo, Alexandria, and Sarajavo.
Remember that while track requires replacement after 50 or 60 years, the streetcar can also last that long, while a bus wears out in 15 years. There was a dramatic improvement in streetcar technology with the PCC. But a modernized PCC, equipped with wheel chair lift at its front door, air-conditioning, and electronic based instead of relay based controls, can hold its own in performance and passenger comfort with the latest equipment.
And why did PTC put streetcars back on Garrad Avenue. Public pressure. The riders wanted them back. The riders prefered streetcars over busses. Given a choice between a hard wood seat cold in winter and warm in summer noisy hard riding 40-year-old relic, and a modern bus, in 1950 or today, most riders would prefer the bus. But between any bus and a well-maintained PCC or a modern LRV, the riders will choose the rail vehicle.
(1) As I recall, the Girard streetcar reactivation in Philadelphia was actually quite controversial. It was held up some time by local opposition (probably adjoining property owners). At one point, I believe SEPTA indicated it was considering the disposal of the newly modernized PCC equipment.
(2) I question whether the Toronto “operating cost” comparisons with bus include all of the infrastructure related costs, for the reasons stated in my earlier notes. It’s undoubtedly true, however, that a streetcar system capable of operating trains will likely have lower “operating costs” per passenger (or even per vehicle) than a system (streetcar or bus) that uses only single unit vehicles. But, in most U.S. cities, the problem by the 1950’s wasn’t capacity - it was the opposite. There wasn’t enough traffic to fill even single unit cars on a regular basis (in Omaha-Council Bluffs, for example, which was once a major streetcar metro area, they removed the standee straps from the streetcars in the 1930’s). An additional problem in the U.S. by the 1950’s was that the population (customer) base was expanding beyond the historic limits of the streetcar system, while the areas served by the streetcar system were declining.
(3) The statement that streetcar trackage lasts 50-60 years may be true of modern construction, where the rails are fastened to concrete panels. But I seriously doubt whether it was true as to historic streetcar construction, where the tracks were built on wood ties (just like regular railroads) and then covered by the street material. The drainage issues alone wouldn’t have been favorable to long life. Most streetcar systems that survived into the 1950’s were rebuilt during the 1920’s, and were converted before they needed to be rebuilt again. But Pittsburgh is a good test of the 50-60 year estimate. Assuming the Pittsburgh s
I agree that Pittsburgh Railways should have bought fewer PCC streetcars, itself converted the lighter feeder lines to buses where service would not be compromised, especially some street running outer shuttle lines, some of which even got PCC’s. and invested more in rebuilding downtown orginal installation track. But the tracks on Woodward and Gratiot and Michigan (only those three lines) in Detroit and on Canal in New Orleands were in good shape and cars rode smooothly, the historic and well maintained cars in New Orleans and the modern and well maintained PCC’s in Detroit. Political pressure and GM was involved in both.
Tracks in Toronto have always been kept in good shape and the ride is smooth. Again, economically, the heavy lines are the lines that economically should have been kept streetcar. and where the track renewal economics make sense. Toronto has converted its lighter and feeder lines to bus and dosn’t run streetcars above rapid transit on the same street. It has a balanced approach to transportation, but the easy money prevented such a solution for the Twin Cities. In New York and DC it was simple prejudice, the needs of the private auto driver having precedence over that of the transit rider. But again, even these two matters, GM was at least partly responsible, the lease purchase deal and the psychology that to be a real American, one must own an auto and public transit is for the poor and foreigners. Sure there was contorversy in Philadlephia, but what the riders wanted was streetcars. It was not the riders that objected, just those used to parking their cars where streetcars did and now again run to access the carbarn.
Under the Roy Chalk management, those DC lines that had deteriorated conduit had already been abandoned. The conduit operated systems had learne how to cope with snow and sleet
You’re almost certainly right that the rental Amtrak pays for its LD trains is too low - the freight railroads have been complaining about it for years. But that’s a different issue from the one I was addressing. Whether too high or too low, the rental Amtrak pays its host railroads includes compensation for the infrastructure it is using, including the host railroad’s capital costs. To my knowledge, Amtrak treats the rental as an “operating cost”(there could be an exception to this where Amtrak pays for Amtrak owned improvements, but that’s normally a small part of the infrastructure it is using when it’s a tenant). On the corridor, by contrast, a big chunk of the money Amtrak is paying for infrastructure is treated as capital costs, not operating costs. That means, if you just compare Amtrak’s “operating cost” coverage on the corridor vs the long distance services (a comparison I’ve seen made many times), you’re comparing applies and oranges. The comparison isn’t really telling you anything about the relative economic viability (or nonviability) of the two services.
The reason I raised the Amtrak issue is because it’s a modern example of the “operating cost” comparisons which are frequently made in discussions of streetcars vs buses. In fact, you’ll see them in this thread - streetcars are said to have lower “operating costs” vs buses above a certain level of traffic. But, if the streetcar’s infrastructure costs are being excluded from this comparison (because they are “capital”, not “operating” costs), the comparison is meaningless. Costs are costs. From a business standpoint, if the money is being spent, it doesn’t matter much what bucket they are assigned to in the accounting system. After all, when you pay for a restaurant meal, does it matter much to you whether you put your copy of the check into your right rather than your left pocket?
Again, the Toronto system is a well-mange dsystem in whicvh continual upgrading of track and other fixed acilities takes place and is included in the operating costs. Every year they program a particular piece of track to rebuild, with cars rerouted to parallel lines if possible, or single tracked with pancake portable crossovers. or temporary bus substitution. Most transit experts recommend buses for lines having less than 15,000 passengers a day, llihgt rial or streetcar can beocme competitive if their a cheap private right of way in the 15,000 - 25,000 per day patronage, but really starts becoming cost effective above 25,000 passengers/day. Above 80,000, bewtter go to completely grade separated rapid transit. Probalby 98% of the transit lines by mileage cary less than 15,000 passengers by day, so the bus is by far and away the vehicle of choice. But rail does have a place and always really did have a place and this definitely inlcudes on-street operation where appropriate.