Trolley Tuesday 12/7/21 - The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light... Revisited

After much delay, welcome to our final November rewrite! This one's a bit special because it's actually a rewrite of our second-ever "guest piece" by our friend, photographer, railfan, and Milwaukee native Jonathan Lee. As a love-letter to Milwaukee and its interurbans, it was a fantastic piece; but for a reader, it was a bit too lengthy! That's why we're condensing and refining the best parts of his report, in fairness to the work he did for us and the quality you, the riders, expect from Twice-Weekly Trolley History! While Milwaukee is famous in heavy-rail circles as forming part of the legendary Milwaukee Road, its streetcars and interurbans are equally as legendary, skirting the fine line between innovation and insolvency. On today's Trolley Tuesday, we raise our beer mugs high as we look at what's made Milwaukee famous to traction fans!

Eastern Kings of Midwest Streetcars

A Milwaukee horse-drawn streetcar in 1872.
(Shepherd Express)

Henry Villard of the Northern Pacific Railway,
with a moustache made for Main Street.
(Public Domain)

Milwaukee’s electric railways began with an outfit known as the North American Company, owned by Henry Villard (1835-1900, of Northern Pacific Railway fame). The North American Company was perhaps the first electric utility holding companies in the nation, and one of the keys to its growth was finding a market for daytime use of electricity. Early on, most power was used for illumination and only a few hours at night. All over the country, the emergence of electric street railways proved to be the perfect thing to fill this daytime gap in market demand, and the situation was no different in Milwaukee. Under his Edison Illuminating Company of Milwaukee, Villard purchased, consolidated, and electrified the various competing horsecar lines in the city, and induced local politicians and executives to invest in his interests. One such person was Henry Clay Payne (1843-1904), a New England transplant who was the local Postmaster and investor in gas and street railway companies. He was a key figure in the union of the early city system into the Milwaukee Street Railway Company (MSR) in 1890. 

An early city car of The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company.
(Joseph Canfield)

Henry Clay Payne, from Mail to Milwaukee.
He was later made Postmaster General under TR.
(Joseph Canfield)

Payne's interests included the Milwaukee and Fox River Valley Railroad, which was planning a never-built electric line from Appleton, Wisconsin to Milwaukee. Appleton, along with Richmond, VA and South Bend, IN, was one of the first American cities to electrify its street railway system under the Wisconsin Light, Heat & Power Company (WLH&P), which was controlled by John I. Beggs. Henry Payne moved on to become Postmaster General under the first Roosevelt in 1902, leaving control of the MSR, in addition to the WLH&P, to John I. Beggs (1847-1925). Beggs' company included holdings in Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin in addition to the aforementioned cities, and this is partly how the future TMER&L came to dominate the southeastern Wisconsin traction scene. Beggs was there on January 29th, 1896, when a court foreclosed on and sold the Milwaukee Street Railway, and on the same day, the "The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light" Company (Yes, the "The" was integral, also TMER&L or TM) was incorporated to take over the MSR's assets.

The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company's logo in the 1920s.
(Joseph Canfield)

John I. Beggs, begging for a comb
for his moustache.
(Bruce McCulloch Jones)

Beggs felt that intercity electric lines (as the term “interurban” was in its infancy) were essential to connecting his scattered Wisconsin utility properties, and so he focused more on the their development and the city lines than their associated electric utilities, something which went on to haunt future management. However, this also meant that he was able to expand his system into one of the most expansive in the country, with connections as far from Milwaukee as Kenosha, Watertown, Burlington and East Troy. When the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric (predecessor to the North Shore Line) failed in 1908, Beggs attempted to take control of it and, had he succeeded, his system would have reached into Illinois and to Chicago. Unfortunately for him, Samuel Insull won out, and Kenosha was as far south as his empire ever reached. One of John Beggs’ earliest competitors, and eventual acquisitions, was the Waukesha Beach Electric Railway (WBER), chartered in 1894 to go between Waukesha to Oconomowoc, with construction undertaken by the unfortunately-named C.E. Loss & Co. of Chicago. (Fortunately, there were no losses incurred.) The line was extremely successful, in spite of not completely fulfilling its original charter; it only made it six miles north out of Waukesha, with its route beginning at the Chicago & North Western (C&NW) station in town.

The Circus is in town at Waukesha Station as the "Old Milwaukee Special"
of the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI, passes through on an undated excursion.
(Gary Storck)

The Yeast Rises in Athens

A line of interurban trains wait to take parkgoers home in this
1910 view of the Waukesha Beach station.

This shortfall was actually intentional, given the line’s eventual use as a pleasure beach railway. The promoters had hoped to develop a resort on Pewaukee Lake, naming it Waukesha Beach. This began as a bathing beach and idyllic country park, but soon became much more than that. A fleet of Pullman-built, 37-foot motor cars and similar, open-bench trailers hauled the masses to the beach, which quickly became a regional icon. Eventually, as TM looked to expand west towards its original goal of Madison, the line from Waukesha to Pewaukee Lake began to look very attractive as a link in the new system, which it added in 1897. Unfortunately, the curves and grades out of Waukesha were not up to TM's exacting standards and were abandoned after the Watertown Division main line bypassed it in 1907. Over the years, this lakeside resort transformed from simple picnic grounds and swimming beach to one of the Midwest's most elaborate amusement parks. Billboards all over the region shouted “Waukesha Beach, the Fun Center of Southern Wisconsin”, including a roller coaster, multiple bandstands, baseball fields, and all kinds of rides and fairground-type amusements.

Two such amusements included a twenty-foot Ferris wheel and a Grand Carousel.
(ActiveRain)

The Public Service building when new in 1905, with a 
TM train at the foot of the building.
(Joseph Canfield)

Beggs' ambition didn't solely translate into sheer distance and expansion, as he had grand designs for the system’s other aspects. In 1905, he completed the four-story Public Service Building in downtown Milwaukee between Michigan, Everett, 2nd, and 3rd Streets. This housed TM's corporate offices and served as Milwaukee's main interurban terminal. With two waiting rooms and 14 tracks, three outside the building and ten inside, it was the largest interurban terminal in the country at the time. Out in the country, sturdy waiting shelters were provided with distinctive architectural features, and in the major towns and terminal cities, storefront ticket offices and waiting areas were the norm until substantial off-street terminals were built by the 1920s. 

One of the fancier stations was Lake Park Station, featuring this adorable Arts-and-Crafts
inspired station shelter that the trolleys passed through.
(Joseph Canfield)

A more rural interurban shelter at Government Hill, on the Watertown Divison.
(Joseph Canfield)

At a later point, car No. 1165 is seen crossing the Milwaukee River
on the ex-Milwaukee Northern line at Grafton.
(Joseph Canfield)

Interurban rights-of-way were built to a higher standard than most, with stone or concrete bridges, large fills and cuts, and generally broad curves to enable fast running and a smooth ride. This was best demonstrated on the line to Waukesha, Oconomowoc and Watertown, which passed through the rolling, sometimes rocky, sometimes marshy landscape of the southern Kettle Moraine. Electrification of the interurban lines was initially at 3300v AC, but although this had the advantage of allowing fewer substations per mile, its associated equipment was cumbersome and heavy, and the system was eventually converted to use 1200v DC, then finally 600v DC in 1927.

Interurban Business Brings Full-Bodied Flavor

A map of the Milwaukee Electric by the late 1940s, showing the different
branch lines inherited as well as lines up and down Lake Michigan.
(Milwaukee County Transit System)

The company went from incorporation (in October 1905) to initial completion (in November 1907) in a very short time, indicative of the boom years of interurban construction. Original plans called for 112 miles of line, with double track from Milwaukee to Cedarburg, where the line would split; one branch went north to Sheboygan, and the other northwest to West Bend and Fond du Lac. Some grading was done on the Fond du Lac branch, but it was never built. Nonetheless, the road's shops and a major station were located conveniently at Cedarburg. The Milwaukee Northern (NM) also built a downtown Milwaukee terminal at 5th and Wells, easy walking distance from the North Shore Line’s station. They extended a street line down 6th Street to TM’s Public Service Building, with a “city” service every ten minutes. Though a boon in the start, this lengthy street running turned out to be problematic in the long run. A suburban service from Milwaukee to Brown Deer was also operated for a time.

City cars and interurban trains crowd the streets of the Public Service Building in this
undated but possibly mid-1930s photograph, before the big transit strike.
(Milwaukee Notebook)

The North Shore Line's Milwaukee terminal, as captured
by Richard H. Young during a June 12, 1962 fantrip.
(The Trolley Dodger)

Unlike TM, the MN solicited freight service heavily and early, and established pick-up and delivery service for off-line customers at Sheboygan and Milwaukee like its competitor, North Shore. A street track connection was actually built between the MN and the North Shore in Milwaukee, and the latter's Merchandise Dispatch cars ran all the way through to Sheboygan for a time, expediting goods such as plumbing fixtures from the Kohler plant nearby. This traffic was so ubiquitous that the trains earned the nickname “Bathtub Specials”. The close link between the MN and the North Shore can, in part, be explained by the fact that neither had anything to do with John Beggs' North American Company, and by the Northern's connection to another Insull property, the Wisconsin Power & Light's line from Sheboygan to Plymouth and Elkhart Lake. Insull eyed the MN to physically link his Wisconsin and Chicago-area holdings, but this never happened.

A Central Electric Railfan Association charter train passes through the
Wisconsin Chair Company's building in the late 1940s.
(Joseph Canfield)

Weakened by post World War I inflation and early auto competition, the MN was snatched up by the North American Company (NAC, probably the aircraft people) in 1922, with TM purchasing all of its outstanding stock. Operations were slowly integrated with those of TM, and eventually the old MN city and suburban services were cut. One of the new improvements was an off-street station in Sheboygan in 1925, and this served both TM and Wisconsin Power & Light cars. The MN express freights were continued, and some TM express motors were reconfigured to MU with those of the North Shore. Further improvements included a block signal system, upgraded ballast and roadbed, and rerouted track to eliminate some tight curves on the street in Port Washington. The latter’s end result that the main line punched through the main factory building of the Wisconsin Chair Company. The other interurban lines also got some attention, with new, off-street terminals being built in Watertown, Burlington and Kenosha, the latter including a brand-new entrance into town on private right-of-way.

A similar one-car service was offered on the North Shore Line.
(Don Ross)

During this period, TM became one of the very few interurbans to try offering dining service. An articulated car was built in Cold Spring Shops (more on that facility below) and outfitted with an all-electric kitchen and well-appointed dining area. It was first placed in service between Milwaukee and Watertown, but it was soon found that this route was not quite long enough for passengers to enjoy a full, proper meal, so it was moved to a Kenosha-Milwaukee-Watertown routing which took roughly two hours. However, since most passengers traveled to and from Milwaukee and not through it, the service was not economical and was dropped during the Depression, with the articulated car becoming an otherwise-standard interurban. 

The dining car set No. 1196-1197 in later life.
(The Transport Company Web Station) 

The Milwaukee Electric demonstrates its own version of
"intermodal" service in partnership with Yellow Coach and Truck
in early 1930-1931.
(Detroit Public Library)
 

Other innovations of the time were not even rail borne. Bus connections were offered to places such as Madison, Fond du Lac and Lake Geneva, using what were then considered luxurious highway coaches. TM embraced buses as a way to expand, not replace, its interurban service, and eventually routes reached as far as Iron Mountain, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Another rubber-tired innovation was an early form of intermodal container haulage. The Cold Spring Shops forces worked their magic once again and came up with a box motor that could haul an intermodal truck trailer. This was quite successful for a time and helped make up for TM's early lack of freight service development and promotion. All of these improvements and modernizations did not go unnoticed by the nationwide transit industry, and TM was recognized for its achievements by receiving the Charles A. Coffin Award for Innovation in Electric Traction in 1931, temporarily stealing it away from the three usually-winning Insull-owned lines!

And if there's one thing Samuel Insull loves more than total control of all
midwestern utilities, it's winning the "First and Fastest" award, as this railfan
magazine now commemorated in its title.
(First and Fastest)

The Bitter Taste of Poor Public Relations

An illustrative shot of the 1897 Milwaukee transit strike, using the
1899 Cleveland streetcar strike.
(Case Western Reserve University)

Much of this took place under the gathering storm clouds of the Great Depression, and as its effects were felt by TMER&L employees, old wounds were reopened. Back in 1897, riots had erupted when motormen and other workers attempted to unionize and were met with scab labor. TM workers had long felt resentment at what they saw as the absentee ownership of the system by the North American Company, which was based in New York City. Local politics were trending left as they were across much of the nation, as people became rightly angry at the Wall Street bigwigs that had contributed to the economic suffering experienced by everyday people across the country. 

Scenes of the 1934 transit riot in Milwaukee, featuring damaged and mobbed streetcars.
(Joseph Canfield)

In 1934, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) attempted to get TM to recognize its union men and respect their demands. No progress was made, and the AFL called a strike early in the morning of June 26th, which initially went almost unnoticed. That same night however, union supporters, who were more frustrated with TM’s lack of action and were more action-inclined, stormed the Kinnickinnic car station and a group of streetcars outside of it, tying up traffic. Eventually, groups of unrelated agitators joined the fray (mostly jobless workers from other industries and parts of the city) who took out their unemployed frustration on the city's transportation provider. 

The local papers the very next day.
(Milwaukee Sentinel)

The result was dozens of trolleys with doors ripped off, poles damaged, and windows smashed. 12,000 people were involved in the unrest at Kinnickinnic Station and were pushed back by police wielding tear gas. An estimated 10,000 people participated in a similar incident at the Fond du Lac car station, and 2,000 at West Allis Station. This group demanded the release of prisoners taken earlier by the police and were successful in getting these demands met. Rioting soon spread further as a group targeted Lakeside Power Plant in St Francis, TM's central generating station. One death resulted when a man broke through a window and touched a metal pipe to a high-voltage switchboard inside. Eventually, labor officials came in from Washington to settle the strike at high level, consulting directly with S.B. Way, TM's president at the time. Streetcar service was a total mess the next day, but this eventually recovered. The strikers' demands were also satisfied, but there were unintended consequences.

We can totally blame this on Samuel Insull.
(Public Domain)

Unrest like this affected many cities' transit systems and helped convince the national Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that power utilities should divest themselves of transportation interests. This would help quench future labor disputes, as the thinking went, since transit systems would be managed by smaller and more local organizations as opposed to absentee corporate control. As stated before, this is how Samuel Insull lost his public utilities empire, including his three interurban lines. Furthermore, an unintended result in many cities, Milwaukee included, was the beginning of a switch away from rail-based transit. Bus service, it was thought by TM management, would be less susceptible to disruption by labor disputes in the future.

Notable Streetcars

A Milwukee Electric 500-series car passes by a 
South Milwaukee-bound articulated train in the 1940s.
At this point, the South Milwaukee was yet another
National City Lines enterprise.
(Joseph Canfield)

Though those city cars came from many builders, a TM favorite was the St. Louis Car Company of St. Louis, Missouri. Most cars, from the workaday 500s, 600s and 800s to the unique but troublesome center-entrance 700s, passed through Cold Spring Shops and received the unique touches and modifications. Some cars were built from scratch at Cold Spring and others, especially the interurbans, underwent radical surgery there. Patient success stories included some of the most unusual and notable streetcars and interurbans ever seen, designs idiosyncratic to Milwaukee. Among these were the open, party car 'Marguerite', festooned in lights, a fleet of St. Louis-built cars converted to articulated units (these were later augmented by St. Louis articulateds, which were ordered for South Milwaukee suburban service but ended up seeing city and interurban service in addition to their intended role), several cars from the same builder modified with more powerful motors and differing door arrangements, the home-built dining car mentioned earlier, and, most famously, the 1180/1190-series “Duplexes”.

Ex-Milwaukee Electric Cars No. 1188-1189 under Kenosha Motor Coach Lines ownership.
(Don Ross)

I&C Combination Car No. 606 when new in 1923.
This car was later rebuilt into the one you see above.
(Don Ross)

These began a star-crossed history with the ill-fated Indianapolis & Cincinnati Traction Company (I&C), a line which never reached Cincinnati, yet ordered several very large and heavy high-speed, all-steel combination cars in anticipation of this goal. These were among the most substantial interurban cars ever constructed and quickly proved to be much more than the I&C needed, as several went to the Union Traction of Indiana with some later serving with the Indiana Railroad. The remaining eight were purchased by TM in 1929 and converted into articulated units by cutting the cars in two just ahead of the rear truck and inserting a new section which included the articulated pivot, supported by a third, center truck. They were provided with MU controls and often ran in multiple with single cars on heavy schedules. They ran all the way up until 1950, a testament to their success. Back on the I&C, Cincinnati-built curved-side lightweight cars had replaced the heavy steel ones in 1928, but the economies realized by then these weren't enough to save the line, which was abandoned amid the Depression in 1932. In a bizarre twist of fate, after two other owners, the I&C lightweights ended up on TM territory for a brief stint of operation under, where they replaced the I&C combination cars.

An I&C "Lightweight" car, built by Cincinnti Car Company in 1928, trundles its way
across 2nd and Michigan Streets in Milwaukee, under Speedrail ownership.
(Don Ross)

Rapid Transit, Rapid Decline

A Duplex on the "Rapid Transit" elevated line crossing both
the Menomonee River and the MIlwaukee Road main line.
(Joseph Canfield)

The Duplexes were almost synonymous with what was one of the most major and ambitious improvement projects ever conceived by an interurban: the Rapid Transit Line. This was to be a high-speed, totally grade-separated speedway into downtown Milwaukee, with multiple tracks allowing for local and express operations and terminating in the basement of the Public Service Building, accessed via a short subway. Overall, the goal was one held by many interurban companies, but attained by only a few: to remove interurbans from the city streets and vastly improve scheduled running times. 

A meet on the "Rapid Transit" line at 35th Street.
(Joseph Canfield)

As the TM was still directly involved with electric power generation and distribution at the time, the Rapid Transit Line also provided a new right-of-way for the company's high-tension power lines, with enormous structures supporting them directly above and integrated with the catenary support structures. Work began in 1924 and proceeded slowly due to muddy conditions brought on by unusually wet weather, followed by an unusually harsh (even for Wisconsin!) winter in 1925. The first section opened in 1926, from 35th Street, then the western city limit of Milwaukee, to a point called West Junction, some 4.5 miles away, where the line split, with cars for East Troy and Burlington (the Muskego Lakes Division) going south, and cars for Waukesha and Watertown (the Watertown Division) curving west. Watertown Division traffic began using the Rapid Transit Line in 1926, with “Local Rapid Transit” service being provided by 600-series city cars converted for one-man operation.

A Milwaukee Electric car speeds along the line to Waukesha 
towards Soldiers Home.
(Joseph Canfield)

Not long after, the western section was completed to 100th Street to join the Waukesha interurban route, and, around the same time, the southern branch to Hales Corners opened. The last, and most important, segment to open did so with unfortunate timing, in late 1930 as the Great Depression was barely a year old. From 35th Street to a point near 8th and Hibernia, the route cut into the north side of the Menomonee River Valley, requiring extensive (and expensive) excavation. Additionally, the City of Milwaukee stipulated that no street grade could be changed as part of the project, so utility relocation and new overpasses added to the construction difficulty and expense. Between 12th and just east of 10th Street, a steel elevated structure, intended to go further and connect with street trackage, brought the line over Hibernia Street and down into a two-level storage yard. 

Milwaukee Electric No. 1121 has a freight train in tow as it makes
 its way to the freight terminal along the "Rapid Transit" line.
(88Nine Radio Milwaukee)

This yard also contained a new express freight facility and a transfer area for TM's unique rail-truck service. A spur from the lower level ran up to the portal of the never-completed subway that was to bring the Rapid Transit Line into the basement of the Public Service Building. Instead, trains ended up using a “temporary” wooden trestle to street level, and used an alley, then 6th, Clybourn, and Michigan to reach the Public Service Building five blocks east. Despite the temporary/permanent nature of the downtown connection, the Rapid Transit Line was a success (at first), reducing running times by almost a half hour compared to the old routes using city streets alone. However, the effects of the Depression very quickly took their toll in reduced ridership. Already in 1930, the separate local service using the one-manned 600s was dropped and interurbans began making local stops as requested. This could be cumbersome, especially with the large Duplexes.

A Milwaukee Electric interurban train (headed by a Duplex)
is bound for Racine and Kenosha in this undated view.
(The Transport Company Web Station)

Management had planned, and actually began, an extensive improvement project to bring the city entrances of other interurban lines up to “Rapid Transit” standards, starting with the Milwaukee-Racine-Kenosha (MRK) Line. This involved several reroutes off of streets, grade separations from railroads and highways, and dedicated station facilities in a few places, but the most critical element- the downtown entrance- was never realized, despite a proposal to route MRK trains via a circuitous, though marginally faster, route involving the Lakeside Belt Line. Instead, MRK trains plodded along congested Kinnickinnic Avenue to reach the Public Service Building. Rapid Transit improvements to the Milwaukee Northern Division barely even commenced, only resulting in a couple of grade separations with streets, one new station at Silver Spring Road, and one new bridge over a creek on the north side of the city. Plans for the Northern were perhaps the most grandiose though, with one scheme that almost did go forward involving electrification of the Milwaukee Road's famous “Beer Line” branch and a long subway under 6th Street to connect to the Public Service Building!

The now-ruined Beerline B Railroad spur in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 2008.
(compujeramey)

A Milwaukee Electric trolley bus is spotted on National
Avenue, May 30, 1963, ten years after the end of the TM.
The electric tracks belong to the recently-defunct North Shore Line.
(William C. Hoffman, The Trolley Dodger)

Unfortunately- and you probably saw this coming- all of these grand plans and improvements ultimately were almost for naught (despite the Rapid Transit Line delaying the inevitable and lasting until the 1950s). During the war’s boom years, many Milwaukee city lines (Racine and Kenosha's had already been converted to bus and trackless trolley) were completely rebuilt and other facilities were rehabilitated. One brand-new line was constructed, in 1942, to serve the Supercharger Company plant in West Allis (home to the Allis-Chalmers company). Ridership swelled on both the city and interurban lines, and any planned line abandonments or conversions to bus were postponed. Immediately after the war, TM management sought to retain riders who were quickly choosing the automobile, and heavily advertised their attractively priced weekly passes. These passes, valid on all buses, streetcar lines, and interurban routes operating within city limits, were very forward-thinking for the day, and similar passes and tickets would show up on transit systems nationwide in the following decades. Indeed, the basic style of that weekly TM pass would remain with only a few changes into the era of all-bus operation, right up until discontinuance of paper transfers and passes by the Milwaukee County Transit System in 2016.

Milwaukee Electric is really out there, promoting itself as "the most liberal transfer in existence".
Try topping that one, modern-day transit services!
(Joseph Canfield)

The Tepid Transport Company

The change in Milwaukee's interurban ownership and name also involved
a color change, into a much-subtler and ominous Pullman green and poppy yellow.
(The Transport Company Web Station)

The seeds of the mighty TMER&L’s downfall were planted during the waning days of the Depression, when the first cutbacks began. In 1935, the Public Utilities Holding Company Act was passed by Congress. The result for many interurban railways around the country, TM included, was the separation of electric power and railway interests. This was usually problematic at best and disastrous at worst, as profits from electric power generation and distribution often helped subsidize the same company's rail operations. In 1938, TM's electric interests were passed off to the Wisconsin Electric Power Company (WEPCo, although the former maintained a close affiliation with the latter) and the rail operations were reorganized as The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Transport Company (TM still), known to many and often advertised as simply the very authoritative-sounding “The Transport Company”.

The trolley loop at Port Washington, following the cutback of
the Northern Division to Sheboygan.
(Joseph Canfield)

The same year marked the beginning of the very slow end of the interurban system, when the Burlington line was abandoned, stripping St Martin's Junction (where the East Troy and Burlington routes split) of its “junction” status. In 1939, the East Troy line was cut back to Hales Corners, except for the section between East Troy and Mukwonago. 1940 saw the end of two lines, or rather sections of them; the northern portion of the Milwaukee Northern Division from Port Washington to Sheboygan in February of that year, and in September, the Watertown Division west of Oconomowoc. That line was further axed west of Waukesha in 1941, on the eve of Pearl Harbor. This was fortunate timing, as during the war, any further cuts were postponed and, as already mentioned, the system saw heavy wartime ridership. From 1941 until 1948, the TM interurban network reached as far as Port Washington, Waukesha, Hales Corners and Kenosha, and the city streetcar network, though nibbled away at beginning during the Depression, was still basically intact.

An ex-TM car crosses the Hales Corner line bridge at West Junction.
(The Transport Company Web Station)

At the end of the war, management made the decision to divest itself of all remaining interurban operations and scale back the city lines. However, despite being very successful with interurban bus operation previously, the company at this point had no interest in it, finding it easier to keep operating what remained until buyers could be found. The Port Washington line had already been sold in 1942, and the Waukesha line was the first after the war to be spun off, in 1946. Both lines went to local Greyhound operator Northland Greyhound. After six years of operation by that company, overseen by The Transport Co., the Port Washington line was let go in 1948, and the MRK Line, having been purchased by the Kenosha Motor Coach Company in 1946, was abandoned south of Racine in September 1948, with the remainder going in December. This left only the Milwaukee-Waukesha and Milwaukee-Hales Corners lines (and the slowly-shrinking city system), which were still respectably busy.

Speedrail

Jay Maeder assures the Milwaukee public that his delivery of used Cincinnati Car Company
and Maguire-Cummings "Curveside" cars will help restore the city's interurban service.
(The Trolley Dodger)

That brings us to the last gasp of the interurban system, a very short period crammed with enough activity to fill several years, a time that began with great promise, hope and ambition, and ended with disaster, disappointment and unfulfilled dreams. However, as this trolleypost is already running very long, we heartily advise you to check out our post on the "1950 Milwaukee Speedrail Disaster", as much of Speedrail's unfortunate history is defined by that wreck. The report also contains the final remnants of the Milwaukee interurbans, as it exists today in its new identity of the East Troy Electric Railroad. 

 

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. 

We understand if your eyes are a bit tired from reading the huge amount of information we've imparted onto you today, so we'll make our outro brief. Once again, thank you to Jonathan Lee for the herculean task of writing today's episode and Nakkune for editing said herculean episode. 

Our resources today included "TM, The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company" by Joseph Canfield (of which all photos today are credited, unless otherwise noted), "The Electric Interurban Railways in America" by George W. Hilton and John F. Due, and a few "First & Fastest" articles, along with the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Transit Historical Society, and the East Troy Electric Railroad Museum of East Troy, Wisconsin, as well as the credits in each photo caption. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Thursday, we cover our first carbuilder of the month as we look at the legendary St. Louis Car Company. 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!