Trolley Thursday 4/21/22 - Why There Hasn't Been a Trolley Post in a While

I'm usually not one to be so open about my private life on my blog, especially this one which is a testament to my own enthusiasm and passion for streetcars, but I feel I owe my loyal readers and riders an explanation of why there hasn't been any new blogposts or content lately.

Trolley Tuesday 3/22/22 - The Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway

Interurbans are, as proven time and again on this blog, a very Ameri-centric concept. Even the word itself, "interurban" brings up more images of American railroads like the North Shore, Pacific Electric, and Key System than anything worldwide. And yet, the concept of an electric railway with full separation from a road and private right-of-ways caught on around the world anyway. In Canada, they called these kinds of roads, "radial railways" as they "radiated out into the suburbs of Toronto". At the same time as these radial railways, Canada's commonwealth owner England had their own little interurban line that was as fast and as sophisticated as their American counterparts but not called an "interurban" at all. On today's (late) Trolley Tuesday, we're Humberside as we look at the Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway, Britain's only interurban!

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.

Trolley Thursday 2/3/22 - Sociedad Cooperativa de Transportes Urbanos y Sub-Urbanos de Veracruz

As the first port of call for explorers, pirates, and immigrants alike, Veracruz has been held in high regard as a part of Mexican history. For railway enthusiasts, it was the eastern end of what became Mexico's first steam railway to Mexico City, some 273 miles away and for many immigrants, an entire world. For traction enthusiasts, it was site of only the second horsecar railway in the entire country, and one with a very descriptive but unwieldy name. Despite this, and being in the shadow of the Mexico City Streetcar system in both size and reach, the Sociedad Cooperativa de Transportes Urbanos y Sub-Urbanos de Veracruz (SCTV) remained a stalwart part of the city for nearly eighty years, and a welcome haven for sold-off, secondhand streetcars. On today's (belated) Trolley Thursday, we're at the True Crossroads as we look back on the streetcars of this Heroic City.

Trolley Thursday 1/27/22 - The Interurban Cars of the Pacific Great Eastern

Welcome to the last (belated) trolleypost of January! We hope you have enjoyed the country of Canada, as we venture south to Mexico and Central America next month. 

As for today's topic, it's one that's rather out there, even for the scope of this blog. In all the coverage we've had over the past three years, the stories of the interurbans we tell all seem to end the same: company goes belly-up due to nobody caring about its existence anymore, so the cars get sold to scrap merchants or donated to museums, or (more rarely) sold onto other uses. For many American interurban cars, their ultimate fates involved another life in the Great White North, and it is for that purpose why today's Trolley Thursday will look at the second-hand interurban cars of the Pacific Great Eastern.

Trolley Tuesday 1/25/22 - The British Columbia Electric Railway

The province of British Columbia has always been known as the "Final Frontier" of Canada's westward expansion. To the railroads like Canadian Pacific and Canadian National, there was nothing more imperative or essential than gaining a connection to the Pacific Ocean. The strongest outpost in that province proved to be Vancouver, whose reputation as a Canadian jewel city and popular filming location ensures its longevity and legacy in the eyes of many. Yet, before the Hollywood cameras, British Columbia was known for another rolling icon that took after the utility-owned interurbans of Midwest America: the British Columbia Electric Railway. On today's (belated) Trolley Tuesday, we look back on the BCER as it grew in the Saltwater City and prospered by land until the inevitable end.

Trolley Thursday 11/18/21 - The Puget Sound Electric Railway... Revisited

Well, we've been away for quite a while. I had unexpectedly become busy and my editor was on vacation, so we were not able to bring you this latest rewrite until now. That being said...

Today's trolleypost rewrite deals with the Puget Sound Electric Railway, the first series of posts I had using an actual book (that being Warren G. Wing's "To Tacoma by Trolley", a present from one of my friends). While those three posts are still pretty thorough, I found them artificially bloated and awkwardly paced because I tried to fit every fact I could into them from just a glancing read. Today, however, things will be different as we smell the fresh... whatever kind of air that is in Tacoma and we return to the Pacific Northwest as we look at Washington's finest interurban, the Puget Sound Electric Railway!

Trolley Thursday 10/7/21 - Boston's Summer Street Bridge Disaster

Welcome, foolish mortals, to another October trolleypost! This month, we're doing famous streetcar disasters from all over the United States and our first port of call is, appropriately, a port city. Along Boston's famous Charles River (where you'll find me along with lovers, muggers and thieves) are (currently) nine bridges that guide cars, rapid transit, and commuter trains over the waters to safety on the other side. One of these is the Summer Street bridge, a drawbridge on the southeastern side of Boston's South Station, which once carried the Boston Elevated Railway (or BERy) along with normal automobile traffic. So, what happens when a streetcar tries to cross this bridge when it's all drawn up? You get one soaked trolley, forty-six deaths, and the deadliest accident in Boston before the Cocoanut Grove fire of 1946. Put on your scuba gear and sound the alarm, it's time for Trolley Thursday.

Trolley Thursday 9/9/21 - Angel's Flight

Deep in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, among all of the modern skyscrapers and historic Beaux-Arts buildings, lies a rather unsuspecting and quite strange railway. It's the shortest public railway in Los Angeles, at just 298 feet in length, and has since been superseded by a concrete stairwell that travels right beside it up the side of Bunker Hill. And yet, it remains one of the city's most popular and well-traveled tourist attractions (if you count being "well-traveled" as "moving about 300 feet south of its original site". Yes, on today's (delayed) Trolley Thursday, we drop all pretenses and take a magnifying glass to Los Angeles' longest running "rapid" transit railway, Angel's Flight! Grab your La-La Land DVD and join us as we ascend through this unique funicular's histo-oh, we're already at the top.

Trolley Tuesday 8/10/21 - The Cars of the San Diego Electric Railway

On Thursday, we covered the general history of the San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy), a sprawling 100-or-so mile electric railway system that helped grow America's Finest City into the international port it is today. On this Trolley Tuesday, we'll be opening up the Adams Avenue Carbarn and looking at the many varied streetcars the SDERy rostered. From the usual smatterings of horsecars and cable cars, to home-grown designs and pioneering streetcars, we have it all! So sit back, ride and relax, and enjoy today's post!

Trolley Thursday 3/29/21 - San Francisco's Cable Cars in Film and Television

There are two things certain in life whenever the city of San Francisco is established in a film: the appearance of the Golden Gate Bridge and the familiar "clang-clang" of a cable car. In the 148 years since the establishment of the Clay Street Hill Railway, San Francisco's once-revolutionary cable cars are as much a part of the city identity as Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, and Lombard Street. Hollywood studios have since caught on to the cable car's inextricable link to the city identity, so much that if a film is set anywhere near San Francisco, there's bound to be the familiar "clang-clang" and clatter of a passing cable car, even if they don't appear! On the last Trolley Tuesday of April, let's look back on the film cameos of these wonderful little cable cars! (And by no means is this an exhaustive list, just some films I find interesting that are worth checking out.)

Trolley Tuesday 4/20/21 - Muni and MSR's Streetcar Fleet

No, we're not doing a weed joke today. After all, you shouldn't operate public transit while high.

Whenever we talk about the types of streetcars a company's used over its lifetime, it's always a struggle to find out which ones to talk about. Sometimes, a fleet may be a little too boring or too under-reported to write something interesting about, while others may have one or two significant cars with the rest being generics or home-builds. For San Francisco, however, it seems almost every car they've had from the first electric cars in the 1890s all the way to the modern day has been significant in some way. Thus, bear with us (and the length of this report) on this lovely Trolley Thursday as we open up the Muni Geneva Division Carhouse and appreciate the artful cars of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) and the Market Street Railway (MSR)!

Trolley Thursday 4/15/21 - The San Francisco Municipal Railway

Today, San Francisco boasts one of the most sophisticated and multi-faceted rapid transit systems in the United States in all its different modes. From trolleybuses to light rail vehicles, underground rapid transits to antiquated cable cars, the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni for short) really does cover everything under the sun. But, 120 years ago, one of the first city-owned street railways in America not only had a hard time getting established, but also meeting the modern-day demands of the City by the Bay's growing population. On today's Trolley Thursday, we look at how Muni became such a juggernaut in San Franciscan mass transit and how they've remained one of the most famous street railways in the world to this day. Now grab your ClipperCard and let's get riding!

Trolley Thursday 3/11/21 - The Los Angeles Railway Type "C" Sowbellies

One thing that set the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) apart from the Pacific Electric (PE) was a relative lack of streetcar nicknames. No cars were ever nicknamed after the areas they worked in (as they were expected to work on every single line of the system), nor did they have any notable eccentricities that set them apart enough to warrant a nickname. However, aside from the "termite squasher", there was one streetcar that did get a nickname and it turned out to be one of the most controversial, and certainly the most hated, streetcar type on the Los Angeles Railway. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's let the flanges squeal as we look at the history behind one of the LARy's most unique (and most maligned) streetcars, the Type "C"s, or "sowbellies" to shop crews.

Trolley Thursday 12/11/20 - A Brief History of the New York Subways and Elevateds, Part 2

Welcome back to Part 2 of our New York Subway and Elevated excursion! On Tuesday, we covered the early independent histories of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) and how both built up Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx as their own public transit empires. Like all good things though, private transit enterprises were not long for this world and both companies soon found themselves under public city control. Could a city as big and diverse as New York really run their own mass transit, and run it well? All of this and more in today's Trolley Thursday, all about the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA).

Trolley Thursday 10/27/20 - Notable Streetcars and Rapid Transit of Boston

 While Boston has had a fantastic and varied streetcar history, possessing both the oldest subway in America and some of the longest-running revenue streetcar lines in the world, one of the biggest oversights we've had this month is discussing just how varied and unique some of Boston's streetcars actually are. We already touched on the differences between heavy- and light-rail systems, so now that we've established where these cars have run (and still do), we can dig deep and see what sets Boston's streetcar fleet apart from the rest of America. Climb aboard and indulge in your inner nerd as we excitedly discuss the different types of streetcars to grace the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) and the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (better known, of course, as the MBTA). 

Trolley Thursday 10/8/20 - The Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad

Public beaches are such a fact of life in America, today, that any normal person would be up in arms at some rich person encroaching upon a public recreational land. However, prior to 1896, no city-owned beaches existed in the United States and, as such, it was a free for all. Even after receiving rail connection in 1875, "Chelsea Beach" was just another ownerless public common until the Metropolitan Park Commission (now the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation) assumed control and opened the renamed "Revere Beach" to the public on July 12, 1896. Since then, the beach has continued on with tens of thousands of people visiting its temperate waters every single year, and almost always on an MBTA Blue Line train. As autumn draws the curtains on one of the hottest summers on record, return with us now to the thrilling trains of yesteryear as we recount the history of the Boston, Revere Beach, and Lynn Railroad.

Trolley Thursday 9/17/20 - The Conestoga Traction Company

 Deep in Pennsylvania's Dutch Country, you wouldn't expect something as modern as an interurban system to intrude upon the otherwise peaceful, low-tech life of the Amish. However, even the Dutch country was not free of its own interurban system, and quite a large one at that. The Conestoga Traction Company may be forgotten now, but at one point it was one of the largest non-metropolitan systems in Pennsylvania, providing farmers and travelers with means to get from its center at Lancaster to the tiny farm towns such as Elizabethtown, Pequea, and even Strasburg. It even formed the basis for a notable comic and cartoon series! But all of that, and more, lies in today's Trolley Tuesday!

Trolley Thursday 9/10/20 - The Philadelphia Transportation Company

 On average, streetcars have a normal service life of twenty years before a major overhaul, with only minor servicing needed to keep them on the up-and-up. Even the most futuristic light rail vehicles can seem outdated in such a short amount of time. But what happens when the mid-century hits, automobile ownership rises, and National City Lines comes knocking on your doorstep? Find out how it affected the city of Brotherly Love, the Philadelphia Transport Company (PTC), and more, on today's (late) Trolley Thursday!

Trolley Tuesday 9/8/20 - The Brill Company and The Cars of the PRT

The cars of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (up until 1940) seemingly set the standard for what an American streetcar roster should look like, as their carbarns were packed with Peter Witts and PCC's, both ubiquitous streetcars of the United States. Their proximity to the J.G. Brill Company of Philadelphia, PA, also gave them unprecedented access to new car classes and prototypes that would have otherwise remained on the drawing board. On Today's (late) Trolley Tuesday, we'll take a brief glimpse at the Brill Car Company and its association with the city of Philadelphia.