Trolley Thursday 7/15/21 - The Fresno Traction Company

We're now out of the Bay Area on today's Trolley Thursday (on a Friday?) as we head inland to look at the streetcars and interurbans of the Central Valley! We start our journey today with one of the biggest and most-notable cities in the CV, Fresno (Spanish for "ash tree"). Between 1885 and 1939, streetcars were the way to get around town and in 1903, all of these companies were consolidated under the Fresno Traction Company by (who else?) Henry E. Huntington of the Pacific Electric Railway. Under electrification, the city was able to ease out into the suburbs and rostered almost one-hundred electric streetcars until growth stagnated and automobile ownership took over this once-proud backcountry streetcar. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's get on our high horse and ride through the ash trees as we appreciate the brief but bright history of the Fresno Traction Company!

  

I'm Gonna Take My Horse to the Old Town Road

Streetcars began rather early in Fresno following its incorporation in 1885, as the first horsecars began operating just four years later in 1889. The Fresno Street Railroad ran a short distance through Mariposa, K, and Tulare Streets as far as the city limits went, and eventually reached the south city limits later on. Competition was quick to form as the Fresno City, Belmont, & Yosemite Railroad was also chartered to run to the north city limits and the Fresno Railroad was charted to run from the south city limit to the Fresno County fairgrounds. As the city grew into a hub of business and exchange in the otherwise-empty San Joaquin Valley, these lines merged into the Fresno City Railway (FCR) just before electrification in 1901. When the horsecars were first built, they used very light 20-pound "T-rail" embedded into the city streets, but in anticipation for electrification, the Fresno City Railway rebuilt about 11.5 miles of horsecar lines with 61-pound rail in 1901. 

Another Dam Project in the Valley of Ashes

The San Joaquin Light and Power Building in Fresno, CA.
(Historic Fresno)

The Big Creek Hydroelectric Dam at Pittman Creek.
(Southern California Edison)

Electricity was provided by the San Joaquin Power Company, a utility company formed in 1895 to provide the fledgling town of Fresno with power and water. To do this, they turned to the massive San Joaquin River and decided to dam it, forming the basis for what Californians now know as the "Big Creek Hydroelectric Project". Under planner John S. Eastwood, the massive dam project formed plenty of hydroelectric reservoirs from the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains that brought water down 6,200 feet to the valley floor. The project was originally handled by the San Joaquin Power Company, but in 1902, the project changed hands and was now funded by three Los Angeles investors under the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation: A.C. Balch, W.G. Kerckhoff (1856-1929), and one Henry Edward Huntington (1850-1927). Yes, that Henry E. Huntington.

The Emperor of The Angels, with his magnificent moustache.
(The Huntington)

The Fresno City Railway Co. carhouse and terminal
in Downtown Fresno. For his efforts, Wishon was made
General Manager of the FTC.
(Historical Marker Database)

Brought on by local Fresno businessman Albert Graves Wishon, the three men threw thousands of dollars into the Big Creek Hydroelectric Project and received, in turn, complete ownership of the Fresno City Water Company and the FCR. Huntington, who already owned the Los Angeles Railway and the Pacific Electric Railway, saw great potential in having another streetcar holding in an untapped market and immediately set about consolidating and standardizing the electrification of the railway. Kerckhoff followed Huntington to Fresno as he owned half of the Pacific Light & Power Company that Huntington founded and provided electricity to Los Angeles. Wires were strung up on Fresno streets along with the glamourous and amazing electric lamps and rails were upgraded to take on heavier trolley cars. By 1903, the Fresno Traction Company (FTC) was formed to consolidate all of the street railroads under the mighty fist of Huntington and the man received a reservoir and major boulevard named after him. 

Huntington Boulevard, with the big wide trolley median now a grassy field.
(Gribblenation)

The Fresno Avenue subway on the last year of operation
in 1939, going under the SP tracks.
(Waymarking)

Both Wishon and Huntington were also in the real estate business and saw the fortunes they could make jacking up land prices through electric railway connections. Wishon purchased nearby Recreation Park on Cedar Avenue and Ventura Street and planned to fit it with a bandstand, merry-go-round, dance-hall, saloon, and a dog racing track with a double-tracked streetcar line leading up to it. Through the Pacific Improvement Company, who owned a nearby 190-acre alfalfa field along Ventura Street, a right-of-way was secured and Mariposa Street was selected as the mainline out of the city. It was renamed "Huntington Boulevard" after 1907, when service to Recreation Park began, and the neighborhood around it eventually built up into a lavish, tree-lined streetcar suburb with 267 new homes by 1920. Two years later, in 1909, the Fresno Avenue Subway was built to go underneath the extant Southern Pacific Line and ended up being among the last large construction projects undertaken under Huntington's ownership, along with a carbarn at the end of Tulare Street.

An earlier photo of the Fresno Subway with an SP train crossing overhead.
(Gribblenation)

Is It Really an Interurban without Electricity?

A "Double Birney" is bound for Roeding Park
in this 1930 view.
(Unknown Author)

After 1910, with Huntington's sale of the Pacific Electric to the Southern Pacific Railway (SP) completed following the death of SP president and all-around greedy bastard E.H. Harriman (1849-1909), ownership of the FTC also fell to SP through a controlling stock interest. Like in Southern California, SP was quick to expand all operational aspects of the FTC while still paying for the electricity from Pacific Light & Power. 

A new line to Roeding Park, one of four regional parks in the city, was completed by 1912 and in 1915, a new branchline opened to the SP-owned Fresno Beach on the shores of the San Joaquin River. (Today, this site is known as "Scout Island".)  The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake halted any more expansion out of Fresno, which was originally going to stretch 196 miles between Fresno, Selma, and Yosemite, but this was truncated to just 41 miles of street-track within the city limits. SP also began running freight trains along Huntington Boulevard as Fresno was the center of San Joaquin Valley's produce industry, and so the convenient city tracks made for highly accessible industrial switching.

The FTC rostered exactly one freight locomotive, appropriately numbered 01, for local switching.
This little boxcab was originally built in 1901 by J.G. Brill and generated 200hp.
(Fresno Bee)

A rare view of one of the Hall-Scott "Doodlebugs" on the Fresno Interurban at Fairview Station.
(Unknown Author)

A "Big Pally" No. 111, photographed 

on the Peninsular Railway in 1913.

(Ira L. Swett)

One of the railroads switched with was the nearby Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe (ATSF), who had already been running in Fresno since 1899 (after purchasing the San Francisco & San Joaquin Valley Railroad) in order to break SP's monopoly on regional transportation. Seeing their fortunes with the streetcar lines, ATSF decided to try their hand at building a 26-mile interurban line from Fresno, northeast, to the then-unincorporated city of Clovis. Instead of electricity powering this line, ATSF decided to purchase two Hall-Scott gasoline cars to power the line as it was completed. The biggest use of the Fresno Interurban Railway (FIR, as it was incorporated in 1914) was to get students to Fresno State College, and it was always popular during the local football games. When the line between J Street and Fresno State College was electrified, two leased San Jose Peninsular Railway cars ("Big Pallies" Nos. 102 and 103) served the line until 1918. That year, the FIR declared bankruptcy and ATSF purchased the railway whole in 1922. As the railway never reached Clovis, what was left became a freight branch by 1924.

 

  

Notable Cars of the Fresno Traction

A map of the Fresno Traction Company at its peak in 1923.
(Ira L. Swett)

San Francisco's "Dinky" Market Street Railway No. 578 is
typical of the early electric FTC cars.
(Neil Mishalov)

Throughout its lifetime, under both Huntington and SP ownership, the FTC owned exactly 92 electric passenger cars and trailers. The oldest trailers, built by the Stockton Car Company (Nos. 14-16 and 22-24) in 1888, were horsecars before being converted during 1902-1903. The first three electric cars (nos. 10-12) were built by Hammond in 1896 and were ex-United Railroads of San Francisco single-truck "California Cars" (two open ends, one enclosed center). These were later followed by seven double-truck cars from Hammond in 1903 (Nos. 2-9) and W.L. Holman in 1906 (17-21). In 1909, Nos. 25-34 were built by the American Car Company and featured a brand-new revolution in electric railways: The "Pay-As-You-Enter" system, or "PAYE", wherein a passenger paid as they boarded instead of a conductor having to walk down the car and individually sell or confirm each fare. These were later followed by Cars No. 41-44 from Jewett in 1912, while Nos. 17-21 were rebuilt as "PAYE" cars.

A typical Pay As You Enter car similar to what the Fresno Traction Company rostered.
(Scripophily.net)

The only remaining Fresno Traction Company "Dragon"
left at the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, California.
(Myself)

After 1913, with the electric streetcar trend moving to steel construction after incidents like the 1913 Pacific Electric Vineyard Disaster in Los Angeles, the FTC also invested in steel streetcars. The first ordered were five J.G. Brill Hedley-Doyle "Steel-Stepless" streetcars originally designed for the New York Railways and trialed by the Pacific Electric. Known to shop crews as "Dragons" for their grotesque appearance, they were much better suited to the flat lines of the San Joaquin Valley than the hills of Los Angeles due to only having two powered axles. As the older wooden cars were scrapped in the late 1910s, the Dragons were heavily relied upon until the introduction of the Birney Safety Car in 1919. This recurring running gag of our blog was first purchased by the FTC in 1919 from the American Car Company, Nos. 61-77, while two more St. Louis Car examples (Nos. 59-60) were purchased from the Stockton Electric in 1924. 

In this famous photo, a hobo tries to pull the pole on Birney No. 68
on Fulton Street, as an unknown Double Birney passes by on the left.
(Gribblenation)

Ex-FTC Car No. 83 is now decked out in red as PE No. 152.
(Southern California Railway Museum)

It seems the FTC got its Birney fix bad in the 1920s, as the tiny cars were cheap to run and maintain and served the city better than the bigger streetcars they replaced. So, in 1925, they submitted an order to the St. Louis Car Company for a larger double-truck Birney that could handle the growing capacity issues while still maintaining the economical operations. Eleven cars, Nos. 81-92, became the last ordered new by the FTC and in order to run in Fresno, both single- and double-truck Birneys had to be modified. The biggest modification was on the front end, where enormous anti-climber bumpers replaced the normal, smaller lip the Birneys were originally designed with. When the FTC went belly-up in 1939, three double Birneys (Nos. 81-83) were transferred to SP subsidiary Pacific Electric and the rest (Nos. 84-92) to nearby Central California Traction. Six of the diminutive Birneys (Nos. 61-66) were sold to the Stockton Electric and the rest were scrapped.

All Good Things Come to an End

Fulton and Kern Streets in Fresno in the late 1920s/early 1930s,
showing just how much the car had come to rule Fresno.
(Gribblenation)

A contemporary view of the Fresno Avenue Subway.
(Gribblenation)

So what killed the Fresno Traction Company? A big conspiracy from the automotive and oil industry? A back-alley city buyout? No, dear riders, it's something more mundane than that. By the mid-1920s, Fresno was embracing the motor car and this put the privately-run FTC at an impasse. With little support from its parent company and growing demand for private transportation, the railway began closing individual lines until, in 1939, it was sold to a small bus line that renamed the FTC into "Fresno City Lines". According to the City of Fresno's Department of Transportation: "The only thing of note during that period of time took place in 1946 when 'Inc.' was added to the name." The big carhouse at Tulare Street remained until it was torn down in 1966, with the land not being leased to anyone as it was still technically SP property. Street tracks in the town were torn up or paved over, even the Fresno Avenue Subway, and it seemed as if only the old ash trees would remember the streetcars.

This historic marker on Huntington Blvd is one of the
few remaining pieces of the streetcar left in Fresno.
(Historical Marker Database)

Surviving Rolling Stock and Structures

San Jose Trolley No. 143 at home in Kelley Park.
(Quora)

Today, two complete streetcars and four incomplete streetcar bodies are reported to still bear the name of the Fresno Traction Company. The Southern California Railway Museum of Perris, CA, owns two: "Dragon" No. 51 and "Double Birney" No. 83. No. 51 is currently just a skeletal body, but it is hoped that one day it can be restored into a Pacific Electric "Dragon" for representation, while No. 83 is stored in its original FTC paint following being purchased by traction enthusiast and madman Richard Fellows. Another FTC Birney is up at the Oregon Electric Railway Museum in Brooks, Oregon, but only exists as a body, as does Nos. 62 and 64 which are owned by Historic Railway Restoration of Arlington, WA, but have yet to leave Fresno. The final Birney of the FTC that survives is Fresno Traction No. 68. Originally sold as scrap in 1939, the diminutive car was later purchased by the California Trolley & Railroad Corporation of San Jose, CA, and restored as San Jose Railroad Birney No. 143, albeit with its original enormous lip-bumpers intact. Today, it runs at Kelley Park.

The "Standard Diner" when opened, featuring the "Dragon" streetcar being used as a restaurant.
(Gribblenation)

The fire damage in 2013 when the two trolleys were
still in Fresno.
(Gribblenation)

The last three FTC cars worth mentioning are the stuff of legends. Following retirement in 1935, one of the "Dragons" was hauled to 1731 South Cherry Avenue and converted into the "Standard Diner", a small corner eater. The trucks were long gone, so a concrete-and-wood base was used to sit the body down and the floor was gutted to accommodate more seats. A second trolley car, a small Birney, was then lashed to the Dragon as an extension. The two cars served as an important marker of Fresno's trolley history, even into its renaming in 1968 as "Trolley Car Carole's", until some time in the 1980s when the restaurant closed and the buildings lay vacant. Despite being entered into the Local Register of Historic Resources, the streetcars have since disappeared from their corner following the windows being boarded up and a fence put around them. In 2013, an act of arson finally took the two trolley cars and they were scrapped.

There were two trolleys here. They're gone now.
(Google Maps)

Birney No. 28 on fake trolley frames sits proud
at Trolley Park in Fresno.
(Gomaco)

The other Birney is actually a replica, mounted in much the same way as the Standard Diner cars. When redeveloping Trolley Creek Park from late 2002 to early 2003, the Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District commissioned Gomaco to construct a replica body that could handle the outdoor elements while being an interactive exhibit for visitors. Thus, Birney No. 28 (which actually had the number of a PAYE car) was built and transported to Trolley Creek Park at 5100 E. Huntington Avenue, where it sits as a fun little marker of Fresno's old history. Finally, it is worth mentioning that a surviving section of track was actually unearthed in Fresno recently. In 2010, California High Speed Rail construction crews relocating utility pipelines found old streetcar tracks on F Street. The ties and rails were carefully removed so as not to endure contamination from the old tie treatment chemicals and it is assumed they went to a local historical society or museum, if not storage.

There's also this replica Birney car in the local Old Spaghetti Factory too.
(The Old Spaghetti Factory)

  

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included "Fresno Traction" and "Fresno Interurban" by Steve Renovich, a Newspapers clipping on the FTC carhouse at Tulare Street being torn down, Historic Fresno's article on the Standard Diner and Huntington Boulevard, the Fresno DOT's history page, Gomaco's coverage of their Fresno trolley, Fresno Bee article about the uncovering of Fresno's trolley tracks, and the photo credits listed under each caption. I'd also like to thank the archives of the Bradford Electric Railway Association's Roster of Preserved North American Electric Railway Cars, the Southern California Railway Museum, the California Trolley & Railroad Corporation, and my good friend and local Fresno historian Kendall Collins, who has his own Youtube channel all about California history. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we venture back to the Bay Area for a brief look at San Jose's own Peninsular Railway interurban! 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!