Trolley Thursday 12/03/20 - The New York Railways & the Third Avenue Railway System

Today, New York City is home to a vast, extensive network of elevated and underground railroads that span its five boroughs, and no establishing shot of the Big Apple is complete without such a train roaring through a subway station or clattering overhead on some century-old iron girders. But before New York found its identity through rapid transit, the borough of Manhattan was on the move thanks to an extensive streetcar grid from its very inception in 1832 to the final "bus-titutions" in the mid-1950s. On this Trolley Thursday, let's see how streetcars were "made in Manhattan" and explore the extensive history of the New York Railways!

A World First!

John Mason, a strapping young lad and enterprising street railway magnate.
No moustache to speak of.
(Public Domain)

A map of the NY&H's original
Harlem Line, going up the Bowery.
(TribecaTrib)

November 14, 1832. On a sleepy morning in Lower Manhattan, history was made as the first street railway in the world lightly trotted from Prince Street north to East 14th Street, just 1.5 miles north. Financed and chartered by wealthy banker and landowner John Mason, the New York & Harlem Railroad (NY&H) was planned to connect Lower Manhattan to Harlem at the very North in stages, with the first being Prince Street to East 14th. Fares were set at the princely sum of 15 cents ($4.54) and the line's single horsecar, the appropriately named "John Mason", could only hold 15 people at the time. Nevertheless, excited New Yorkers eagerly piled on the roof and inside the car for the rough but revolutionary ride on smooth steel rail.

John Stephenson's original patented design of the "John Mason",
featuring a low floor and three compartments much like a
normal railway coach of the time.
(6sqft)

The line's engineering was accomplished by Irish immigrant John Stephenson, who Mason hired earlier that year. Mason was inspired by an image of a French omnibus and directed Stephenson to copy that design for the rails. Wanting to put his all into the project, Stephenson modified the drawings with dropped floors between and at the ends of the wheels and the seats positioned over the wheels and springs for "maximum comfort." This luxurious and revolutionary design, coupled with the steel wheels over wooden road wheels, meant horses could travel twice as fast with half the effort while passengers could enjoy a smooth ride. 

[WARNING: This next section has a disturbing image. Viewer discretion is advised. We're sorry.]

A fallen horse in the middle of a New York City street, 1900.
(Bowery Boys History) 

Mason continued to expand the railroad until he finally reached Harlem on October 26, 1837. From there, the railroad grew into a prominent freight connector railroad while still maintaining its horse-powered transport. However, as other street railroads grew in the wake of the NY&H's success, several mounting problems were starting to become evident. Horses ran rampant in New York, powering everything from streetcars, omnibuses, and carts. This meant that not only was New York rife with horse droppings, but many horses were worked so hard that they often collapsed in the street and their bodies left behind. The New York and Harlem attempted to alleviate this issue by running steam trains, but civic hostility to the loud, smoky locomotives meant horses remained the dominant power until the late 1870s.

The Other Cable Cars in New York

An artistic depiction of the Brooklyn Bridge cable
house and one of the cars used.
(Bowery Boys History)

Around this time that horses were falling out of fashion, Manhattan attempted to find other ways to power their street railways. In 1883, following the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, a hybrid steam-and-cable car system ran over the bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Two power/cable houses were located on either side of the approaches, with the steam locomotives believed to be too weak or unable to handle the steep approaches. Thus, they were reduced to switchers on either side of the East River. Two years later, the railroad was becoming a highly-profitable commodity with the period between 1885-1888 as carrying well over  a million passengers. By 1896, with the railway running at peak, the steam locomotives were replaced by an electric switcher, but cables still hauled trains across the bridge.

Cable car tracks are being embedded at Union Square.
This spot was popularly known as "Dead Man's Curve"
due to the high speeds the gripmen accomplished.
(Bowery Boys History)

At the same time, deeper in Manhattan, a new cable car system was being constructed at Union Square (South of the Flatiron District) based on Scottish Engineer Andrew Hallidie's work in San Francisco. The Metropolitan Traction Company (MTC, founded in 1886) was already a prominent holding company for street railways at the time, so going into the cable car business was their first true big investment. Prominent rich men like William Charles Whitney (of the Whitney family) and financier Thomas Fortune Ryan (his middle name is LITERALLY fortune) helped make the 3.6 mile line from Bowling Green to 36th Street possible, but the public wasn't so jazzed about it.

Immediately, newspapers and citizens found the cable cars to be an inconvenient transit system at best, and a death trap at worst. Front pages were emblazoned with the dangers of the now-faster cable cars, showing maimed humans, fallen animals, and broken carriages. First-hand accounts lamented that while the cable cars were faster than the horsecars, they all still had to share the same street and, thus, were subject to the same terrible gridlock. It's no wonder how New York's elevated system gained popularity before the advent of the motorcar. The cable system lasted until 1901, when it was quietly converted to electricity, while the last horsecar actually ran in New York City until 1917. 

A newspaper cartoon for Life Magazine, May 2, 1895, depicting the horrors
and trauma inflicted "in the wake of a cable car."
(NY Public Library)

More Companies Than One Can Shake a Trolley Pole At

The New York Railways Co. system
when it was created in 1911.
(Public Domain)

By this point, New York had as many street railways as they had streets, with each north-south or crosstown (east-west) line claiming an avenue and staking their life on it. The New York & Harlem was already purchased by the bigger New York Central Railroad by 1864, and its horsecar lines were leased by the now-reorganized Metropolitan Street Railways (MSR) in July 1896. The NY&H still led the way for Manhattan Streetcars, however, as just ten years prior they introduced the first electric streetcar on September 17, 1888 on the 86th Street Service. Immediately, the line was met with hostility as residents and city officials saw the overhead wires as making their city ugly, so after a nine-year return to horsecars, the line reopened in 1897 with a below-ground conduit occupying where the cables once ran.

By the turn of the century, the MSR owned almost all of the railroads in the Bronx and Manhattan and quickly set about consolidating and streamlining its services. This included the Broadway Line from Lower Manhattan to Seventh Avenue (eventually one of the most famous lines), the Sixth Avenue Ferry Line from West Broadway to Upper Manhattan, and Crosstown lines like the Spring and Delacey Street Line (connecting the Hudson River and East River ferries) and the Central Crosstown Railroad running from the Christopher Street Ferries to 23rd Street. Almost all of the entirety of Manhattan's Street Grid was now controlled by a single company, and the last independent piece fell under its control in 1900.

The Third Avenue Railroad

The Third Avenue Railway System logo.
(Public Domain)

The Third Avenue Railway System in Manhattan, The Bronx,
and Westchester County, 1935.
(Baruch College)

The Third Avenue Railroad System (TARS) was one of the first horsecar companies to come in the wake of the success of the New York & Harlem, and just like the others, followed in the wake of mass-cable-isation when other companies were doing it. The line ran originally from City Hall to 62nd Street, but soon extended north into 129th Street, and at peak had more than 1,700 horses in its stables. When it came time to electrifying in 1899, the ban on overhead wires in Manhattan (from the MSR's original attempt in 1888) meant the TARS turned to unorthodox ways of powering their streetcars.

A gasoline-powered streetcar from 1909, with the radiators
backpacked on the roof.
(Electric Railway Journal)

One such idea was a gasoline-electric streetcar in the early 1900s, which used a tiny gas generator to make the electric power needed to move the car, but this turned out to be quite loud and very slow. Another idea was making the cars dual mode, with trolley poles fitted to run cars outside Manhattan and into the Bronx. This worked for a time, but where TARS lacked in streetcar propulsion, they certainly had an abundance in expansion. 

The company quickly leased several other streetcar lines during the late 1890s with the first being the Dry Dock, East Broadway & Battery Railroad, but the rapid expansion put them into immediate bankruptcy by 1900. The Metropolitan Street Railway eventually controlled them that same year, but this system too collapsed under financial strain in 1908. The TARS continued on its own, sharing leased lines with the new New York Railways Company (NYRC) in 1911.

Battleships and Battery Streetcars

Ok, I think that's too much corporate history. Why don't we talk about streetcars?

A false-colored postcard of the "Hobbleskirt" cars in New York City.
They were painted in a creamy yellow-white with a dark stripe, and rode on
platformed trucks instead of tucking them in frame, which helped make them so low.
(Spacing Magazine)

After first being incorporated, the NYRC spent its formative years finding replacements for its aging and stinking fleet of horsecars as well as old Brill cars. The city was still left with a grid of former cable car lines, now running electric conduits underneath, and low capacity and high service gridlock was a never-ending issue. The solution came in 1912, when the NYRC tasked the J.G. Brill Company of Philadelphia, PA, to create new low-floor streetcars that could not only take advantage of the "hobble-skirt" fad but also ease boarding times and service speed. Two of Brill's engineers immediately created the "Hedley-Doyle Steel Stepless Streetcar", a low-slung trolley that put the big powered wheels at the very end of the car and left so much room in-between for the lowest floor possible, just ten inches off the ground.

The infamous "Broadway Battleship" in a post-delivery
promotional photograph. 
(John Smatlak)

Three different prototypes arrived in Manhattan later in 1912, and all were vastly different. Prototype No. 6000 was a double-decker car known popularly as the "Broadway Battleship" for its immense size, and it featured an open second level and a single center, "Pay As You Enter" entrance. This quality was copied directly from the San Diego Class 1 Streetcars of the same year, which combined the center entrance with the "Pay As You Enter" farebox that eliminated much of the conductor's labor duties. Despite its outrageous size and twin-50HP traction motors giving it a top speed of 25 miles per hour, the infamous "Battleship" remained a one-off and only one other of its type was constructed for the Columbus Railway Power & Light Company in 1914.

New York Railways Co. No. 5000 poses for its delivery. The tiny cowcatcher
is really a small excuse for a "safety fender."
(John Smatlak)

Prototype battery-electric No. 7000 poses in 1912
after delivery, with railway officials inspecting it.
(John Smatlak)

The other two prototypes were far more successful. Prototype No. 5000 was a single-level center entrance car on two bogies that was later followed by 175 other cars between 1913 and 1914. The design proved so popular in introducing the "low floor" concept that other companies like Southern Pacific, Columbus Railway Power & Light, and Wilkes-Barre Railways all ordered their own cars like it. These 176 cars were later joined by the diminutive 7000-class single bogie low floors, which were intended as battery-electric, light-duty cars serving systems outside the conduit, such as the Bronx. As with the 5000, the 7000 was joined by 115 cars from Brill between 1913 and 1914. Unfortunately, primitive battery technology meant the 7000's needed constant recharging and this wouldn't be truly perfected until the modern Brookville Liberty some 100+ years later. 

The Big Apple Outgrows Its Streetcars

One of New York City's most-loved
mayors also really hated streetcars.
(Public Domain)

By the time Jay Gatsby took over the public imagination and announced the Roaring Twenties were in full effect, the NYRC was beginning to lose relevance. New suburbs outside the streetcar system along with winter unreliability and being thought of as "traffic obstacles" were reducing passenger numbers and raising automobile ownership. The fact that New York had just ended horsecar operations in 1917 and was now rapidly seeing irrelevance in its streetcars were staggering, with only the Third Avenue Railway barely hanging on through other company holdings. Countless mayors into the 1920s openly denounced the streetcars as non-progressive for a modern city like New York, starting with Jimmy Walker in 1925, then Fiorello LaGuardia in 1935. LaGuardia infamously said, of the NYRC streetcars, that they were "as dead as sailing ships", and this was the rallying cry for National City Lines (NCL) to move in and sweet-talk the city.

The Greyhound Bus Terminal at Penn Station in
1936. Very modern, almost too modern.
(Museum of the City of New York)

After LaGuardia blocked the NYRC from investing in the new PCC cars like Brooklyn had, it didn't take long for buses to begin substituting for streetcars. Through a controlling stock interest with the Fifth Avenue Coach Company, NCL took over many of the now-hated streetcar lines under the New York Railways Corporation (which came about after the NYRC went into receivership in 1925) and replaced them with new buses, starting with the Madison Avenue Line from Park Row to 135th street in 1935. As if to make it even worse, when the new bus encountered the last southbound streetcar service, the much faster bus slowed down to let the streetcar lead the final stop into its terminal at Park Row. This move ended up backing up the other buses following this, who arrived bunched up at Park Row altogether. Interestingly, this practice remains the same to this day.

A Third Avenue Railway "Lightweight" car rumbles
around 73rd and Broadway.
(Dave Klepper)

Despite the rapid "bus-titution" of New York over 18 months, a resultant stockholder lawsuit demanded a token streetcar operation on all lines until June 1936. After June 1936, all streetcar services finally stopped after the 86th Street Crosstown Line gave up the ghost and the remaining New York & Harlem trolleys were taken over by the Madison Avenue Coach Company. The Third Avenue Railway System continued to work around this time with reconditioned 600-series "Lightweight" Peter Witt-style cars in and around New York City starting in 1939, but by November 1946, they too stopped running streetcars within Manhattan.

Nostalgic Remnants of a Bygone Era

Ex-MSR No. 191, now SDERy No. 1043, in storage
at the Western Railway Museum.
(Darrick J. Wong)

Sadly, only two New York Railways cars made it into preservation. When built for the Metropolitan Street Railways in 1908, Brill wooden semi-convertible No. 191 worked in and around New York until 1942, when it was retired as Third Avenue Railway System No. 436 and sold to the San Diego Electric Railway. There, it worked until 1947, when it was retired and sold to the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, CA. Today, the car is still in a derelict condition but remains under cover. Only time will tell when it is restored into San Diego or New York condition. The other is ex-Third Avenue Railway No. 220, which has found its home at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven, CT. Originally a cable car, it was rebuilt as a "slot scraper" in 1908 and has now been restored into a passenger-carrying streetcar.

Former cable car, now running on electricty. No. 220 poses with
Ex-Interborough Rapid Transit No. 1227 at East Haven, CT.
(Constantine Steffen)

Former TARS No. 674, now Vienna No. 4225,
poses in service.
(Crich Tramway Museum)

Twenty-three cars of the former Third Avenue Railway System have had a better chance in preservation, with eight cars in an operable condition. After TARS stopped running streetcars in 1946,  their 600-series "lightweight" fleet was sold to the Wiener Stadtwereke Verkehrsbetriebe (Viennese Tram System) in Vienna, Austria. While there, they became known as "Amerikaners" and were eventually retired in 1971 following a new city ordinance recommending the use of track brakes rather than wheel brakes. Of the cars that went, six cars have found new homes in Europe and in America: No. 674 remains inoperable at the National Tramway Museum in Crich, England, no. 637 is now on display in the Graz Tramway Museum in Austria, and one car is even located in the Mariazell Museumtramway in Mariazell, Austria, but it is currently undergoing restoration in Ploiesti, Romania. Vienna has even kept one car, former No. 636 and now 4208, for periodic operation. Two of these cars has since come home to the United States: No. 631 which is now at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, ME, and No. 629 at the Shore Line Trolley Museum.

The same car today, now restored to Third Avenue Railway System No. 674.
An American in Britain.
(Crich Tramway Museum)

Despite a long, frenetic, and complex history, the New York Railways Company left a significant impact on the Big Apple that still longs to be filled. Understandably, we left a lot out and much of what I've written can be gleaned from other sources listed in the outtro. One thing is for certain though: Mayor LaGuardia may have called these streetcars "as dead as sailing ships", but one thing I'd like to add now is they're also as nostalgic as one. Maybe that's why they're worth remembering and saving.

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included the National Tramway Museum of Crich, England, the Seashore Trolley Museum of Kennebunkport, ME, the Shore Line Trolley Museum of East Haven, CT, as well as the New York Daily News, 6ftsq.com, and the Flickr archives of John Smatlak. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by Brian Clough and can be found on his site, Banks of the Susquehanna. On Tuesday, we start our trek ever upwards with the New York Elevated Railway! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!