Trolley Tuesday 2/15/21 - Empresa Ferro Carril Curitybano

When it comes to choosing what cities to cover on any given Trolley Tuesday or Thursday post, often I like to pay tribute to my friends by focusing on the city that they live in, more than ones that are more well known, larger, or more famous. As I have a longtime friend in Brazil, I thought I could pay tribute to them by focusing on their home city of Curitiba, the eighth-largest city in the country and the capital of the state of Paranà. Long known as a haven of European immigration and cattle breeding, the "City of Eternal Fog" has also featured a once-great streetcar system that cultivated both European and American influences, which today's (late) Trolley Tuesday will focus on.

   

A Mule's Paradise

A ticket for the Ferro Carril Curitybano (note the antiquated spelling)
from the 1890s, valued at 100 reis (nominally, $20 today).
(Allen Morrison)

    Streetcars first appeared on the streets of Curitiba in 1883 under the franchise of a local Brazilian-born businessman named Boaventura Clapp. The franchise was dubbed the Empresa Ferro Carril Curitybano (Curitibano Railroad Company, or EFCC) and construction of the first line took place between 1883 and 1887. The biggest development during construction came when the first steam railroad between Curitiba and the port city of Paranguà (some 60 miles east of the former) was finished by 1885. This growth, largely seen as an important modern development, helped elevate Curitiba from a major cattle and mineral trading post into what some hoped to be a world-class city. The first line, running from the railroad station on Avenida 7 de Setembro to the Batel district (almost 1.5 miles long) opened on November 8, 1887. After almost a decade of service, by which point the railroad had gained another 11 miles of track and 20 mule-drawn cars, Clapp sold the EFCC to Amazonas & Companhia, an Italian-managed firm run by Santiago Colle. Little did Clapp know, but this small transaction opened up the EFCC to further European influence in the 20th century.

A conductor poses gaily next to a Seminàrio-bound horsecar on the Batel Line extension.
Note the original, extremely narrow gauge of 700mm.
(Allen Morrison)

The Gauls Invade Brazil

A stock sheet for the South Brazilian Railways Company Limited, showing a dummy-hauled
streetcar on the left and an electric steeplecab-led freight train on the right.
(Allen Morrison)

Electricity displaces horses as an unnumbered streetcar poses
next to an outgoing mule car in the summer months in Curitiba.
(Allen Morrison)

    Santiago Colle kept the EFCC largely the same as it had been under Clapp's control, with horse-drawn mules serving Curitiba's historic center. The railway was now serving a population of almost 50,000 people by 1900, and this rapid growth soon eclipsed the horsecars, necessitating a massive shakeup. By 1910, Colle's Amazonas & Companhia sold the EFCC to Frenchman Eduardo de la Fontaine Laveleye, one of the founders of the South Brazilian Railways Company Ltd. (SBR) of London, England. The SBR at the time was interested in expanding both streetcar operations and planning major electrified freight sectors around southern Brazil, and immediately began working on modernizing the EFCC. Swiss company Brown, Boveri & Cie were hired to electrify the system, while Belgian company Les Ateliers Mètallurgiques were hired to build the new single-truck streetcars. The first of these arrived at Paranguà in April 1912 and began testing in August that same year.

The odd trolley-wire set up of the early EFCC electrics, featuring
hard-angled wires set down the middle of this passing siding on
the Portão Line, 1914.
(Cid Destifani)

    One of the more unique features Brown, Boveri & Cie implemented on the EFCC was the use of an offset trolley wire; instead of having the wire follow the meter-gauge track's centerline, the wire was offset closer to the curb with the trolley poles able to swivel like a modern trolleybus. While the reason for this is unknown, it did enable trolley wires to be hung closer together in a more-modern "catenary" style without much profiling. Also unusual was the lack of any visible numbers on the streetcars, which (one can imagine) made motorman assignments quite difficult on paper. Most of the streets in Curitiba were also unpaved, so rails were laid right on the dirt in lines outside of the city center. The first electric streetcar began serving Curitiba on January 7, 1913, and by the next year, a new line to Portão (some 3 miles southwest of the city center) opened along Avenida Repùblica Argentina. 

Laying tracks in the middle of the street, past the Curitiba railway station, in the early 1900s.
(Collection of the Historical and Geographical Institute of Paranà)

American Interlopers

A modern map, featuring the ultimate reaches of the Curitiba streetcar system.
A more legible version can be read and perused here.
(Allen Morrison)

In 1916, a Belgic tram trundles along the unpaved Av.
João Gualbert on the Bacacheri Line.
(Cid Destefani)

    As the population in Curitiba grew (reaching almost 80,000 people by 1920), so too did the suburban lines. New lines radiated out from the main depot loop that reached out to Matadouro in the southeast, Bacacheri and Fontana in the Northwest, Trajano Reis in the north, and the Seminàrio via Batel in the west. However, while the added growth was necessary for the railway's longevity, it did also put them into dire financial straits. Thus, in 1924, the city of Curitiba took over the South Brazilian Railways and contracted the Companhia Força e Luz do Paranà (Paranà Power & Light Company, or CFLP) to run the streetcars and electric utilities. The CFLP was another utility company run by the United States conglomerate, Electric Bond & Share (who also ran Veracruz and Panama's streetcars), and it did not take long for them to exert their influence on Curitiba's tramway. Gone were the odd offset wires, now replaced by more traditional trolley wire, and single-track lines remained the norm with only one major rerouting in 1939, when the Batel line was moved south off Avenida Comendador Araùjo to Avenidas Emiliano Perneta and Benjamin Lins. 

As Curitiba modernized, so did the cars to meet the automobile menace.
Here, an unidentified CFLP car is headed for "Siquiera Campos" at Praça Osòrio, 1928.
This was later bypassed after 1939.
(Allen Morrison)

Notable Streetcars

A Les Ateliers Mètallurgiques catalog page shows the details and features of
Curitiba's "jardiniere" ("summer") cars from 1912.
(Allen Morrison)

A hoard of Curitiba's citizens crowd three cars on
the Trajano Reis line, with No. 25 clearly seen, in 1932.
(Cid Destefani)

    Though Curitiba's trolley fleet remained quite small throughout its existence (never once rostering a double-truck streetcar), they were nonetheless quite varied for such a small system. For instance, the streetcars built by Les Ateliers Mètallurgiques of Nivelles, Belgium, were quite unique. Originally built as enclosed cars, the humid weather of Curitiba necessitated these cars to be built as "convertibles" with removable sides during the summer months. According to a contemporary catalog page, the cars were 26 feet long, sat 24 people with standing room for 16, and used hand-operated chain brakes. After the Americans took over in 1928, these cars gained numbers (Nos. 1-28) for the first time and ran until being quietly retired sometime in the mid-1930s, when maintaining the European trolleys became financially untenable. 

Ex-Boston streetcar No. 102 is seen at Praça Generso Marques in the early 1930s.
(Allen Morrison) 

This odd little duck is actually a rebodied Birney car, possibly
rebuilt by the CFLP in the late 1940s. Note the PCC car design cues
in the skirts, the sides, and the windscreen. This car is ex-Baltimore.
(E.C. Piercy)

    Displacing the Belgic trolleys were 30 "Birney" single-truck cars built by the J.G. Brill Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, between 1920 and 1921. The first order of twenty cars came second-hand from the Boston Elevated Railway of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in 1931, while the second order of ten came from Porto Alegre, Brazil (another Electric Bond & Share enterprise) in 1937. This latter order originally came from Baltimore, Maryland, USA. The CFLP spared no expense in rebuilding the frames into meter gauge and sent them off to work the whole system. Even as the city grew, the cars still remained small and this became a major setback once World War II began and gasoline rationing went into effect. With its small cars and single-track routes with limited opportunities to pass or run around, the antiquated CFLP system was due for replacement.

The same car seen later on, having somehow derailed at an unknown date.
Note the art deco fins around the the headlights, and the round-bar anticlimber.
(Unknown Author)

The Curitiba Master Plan

A Birney on the Portão line along Av. Repùblica Argentina,
with repaving crews surrounding the little dirt-elevated trolley, 1952.
(Cid Destefani)

    Buses already began displacing streetcars on Curitiba's outlying routes during World War II, with the first being the Batel-Seminàrio Line. By the end of the war, the CFLP sold its streetcars and 17.4 mile system to the city of Curitiba, who formed the Companhia Curitibana de Transportes Coletivos (Collective Transport Company of Curitiba, CCTC) in 1945. Despite now having full control of the streetcars, the city also had to shoulder the burden of operating deficits and debts, which soon led to closure after closure after closure. Over the next seven years, the lines to Bacacheri in the northeast, Guabirotuba and Matadouro in the south, and Trajano Reis to the north were all bustituted and redundant downtown loops also closed. In the wake of these lines closing, paving crews stepped in to pour asphalt into the ground and pave Curitiba for a modern, automotive future. By July 1952, the last line operating was the Portão line and by the end of the month, it was gone. Curitiba was the first Brazilian capital city to close its streetcars.

Boca Maldita, Curitiba, in the 1970s, with nary a streetcar (but plenty of pre-war cars) in sight.
(Vander Disenha)

Curitiba's current Rede Integrada de Transporte, featuring its
iconic cylindrical bus station platforms.
(Oren's Transit Page)

    However, despite the loss of their funny little streetcar system, Curitiba never stopped wanting to attain "world-class city" status. Even without the trolleys, Curitiba was looking to the future in the 1960s when it implemented its "Master Plan" in 1968, which involved closing high-pedestrian-trafficked streets like XV de Novembro Street to vehicles and implementing ring roads under the Trinary Road System. One of the biggest additions of the Master Plan was the Rede Integrada de Transporte (Integrated Transportation Network, or RIT) in 1974, a dedicated articulated-bus transitway more akin to an interurban line than bus line. Despite its shortcomings (including depending on motor buses and having overcrowding issues), it has remained a gold-standard system and an inspiration the world over for other prospective bus rapid transit systems, and sees a daily ridership of 2.3 million people over its 6 lines. With metrics like these, the RIT really shows other cities how transit-oriented development is supposed to be done.

Samba De Una Tranvia So

Ex-Boston car No. 110 is in storage in Curitiba, looking
quite worse for wear but otherwise in one piece.
(Preserved Traction)

    But what remains of Curitiba's original trolleys, ones that today could symbolize a greener future for Paranà's capital city? Honestly, not much. Due to their second-hand nature, the Birneys were bound to be scrapped at some point. Only one has since escaped the scrap heap; Birney car No. 110 (ex-Boston) was placed in storage in the back of the Rua Barão do Rio Branco carbarn for several decades before being rediscovered in the 1990s. After a cosmetic restoration that restored its original yellow and white color, the car was put on display at the Praça Tiradentes in November 1999. In 2003, the car was removed from display and moved to a storage yard at 414 R. Josè de Lima, Barrio Emaus, Curitiba. It is still in solid condition despite the years taking a toll on the little car, and remains the only Boston Birney in preservation.

Ex-Santos Car No. 206 on display as the "Bondinho da Rua XV"
(The 15th Street Cable Car) in the early 2000s, as an information center.
(Antonio Gorni)

No. 206 in its modern guise as a library tram, 2019.
(City of Curitiba)

    The other streetcar on display now trundles for no-one but remains a happy and stalwart sight along the pedestrian-only Rua 15 de Novembro. Originally built for the São Paolo system and running in Santos, streetcar No. 206 was originally built as an open-sided double-truck summer car from Les Ateliers Metallurgiques in 1928 and was rebuilt into an enclosed car by the 1950s. After retirement in 1973, No. 206 was put on display on Rua 15 de Novembro and first served as a child daycare, then a visitor's information center by the 1980s. As of 2010, the car has undergone its third cosmetic restoration into a miniature library and remains a stalwart part of the pedestrian walkway's ambiance. After all, there's nothing like grabbing a book, sitting down to read, and imagining you're rolling through the streets of Curitiba once again, whisked away to another, more romantic time.

The interior of the "Bondinho de Leitura" ("Little Tram of Reading").
(Ideas for Libraries)

   

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. Today's sources are Allen Morrison's abridged writeup of the Curitiba trams and the attached bibliography, as well as a City of Curitiba article about the "Bondinho de Leitura". I'd also like to thank my friend, artist, and Curitiba native, Daniel D.C. for his local input in writing today's episode. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Thursday, we look at the trolleys of Sao Paolo, Brazil! 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!