Trolley Tuesday 10/5/21 - National City Lines (and the Great American Streetcar Scandal)

BOO!

Welcome back to a spooky month of October trolleyposts, dear riders! As befitting the scariest month of all (and considering I am a cowardly jackass when it comes to jumpscares), we will be looking at some famous streetcar and rapid transit disasters all through this month! Today's disaster is the most infamous for traction enthusiasts and public transit advocates, as without them, we would still have our famous street railways operating today and without the need to rebuild them from the ground up. Taking advantage of the nation's need for automobiles during and after World War II, the infamous National City Lines (NCL) stands as the biggest rapid transit disaster we have yet to recover from. And you'll find out about it, and more, on today's Trolley Tuesday.

Trolley Thursday 9/23/21 - The (Very Dense) History of the LA Metro

Over one-hundred years ago, the city of Los Angeles boasted the finest interurban transit system in the world, spanning three counties with over one thousand miles of track. The Pacific Electric Railway (PE) hauled everything from daily commuters and freight to special horse-racing and Catalina ferry trains and became inexorably linked to Los Angeles' identity as it recovered from World War II. And then... it was gone.

Today, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit District (better known as the LAMTA) seeks to reinvigorate what we lost in the wake of the PE and the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) being shut down in favor of increased bus use and car-centric road design. Despite having only a tenth of PE's tracks, LA's light rail and subways continue to look ever forward to that final frontier of efficient rapid transit, and it's why we are highlighting its history on today's Trolley Thursday!

Trolley Thursday 8/5/21 - The San Diego Electric Railway

Welcome to another month of streetcar history and stories on Twice-Weekly Trolley History! For this month, we'll be focusing on the ongoing story of San Diego's streetcars, starting with the original San Diego Electric Railway, or SDERy. San Diego has always been thought of as one of America's "World Class cities", as it was usually the first city encountered by northbound ships coming out the west side of the Panama Canal, and by the early 20th century it had already established itself as a major hub of ferry traffic, fish, lumber, and shipbuilding, to say nothing of its economic promise or its beach tourism traffic fueled by hoteliers and land development. In order for San Diego to become a "City in Motion", though, it needed the momentum of streetcars to make it America's Finest City. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's look back on the history of this legendary system and how it's set up America's current light rail craze.

Trolley Thursday 5/6/21 - The Key System

In the annals of East Bay history, no other names holds as much legend and iconic imagery as Oakland's Key System. Developed as yet another interurban real estate scheme, the eight lines of the Key System helped to develop much of East Oakland and Berkeley. The Key System maintained its dominant position in East Pay transit after the opening of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and widespread adoption of the automobile. Unfortunately, much like its contemporaries in Los Angeles, El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, the Key System fell victim to the same machinations that brought down dominant private interurbans like it in the form of the infamous National City Lines. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's hop aboard a Bridge Unit and rediscover the rich history of one of America's iconic street railways.

Trolley Tuesday 3/2/21 - The Los Angeles Railway

While the Pacific Electric (PE) gets the glory of being able to roam up and down Southern California as its premiere interurban railway, there was always the shadow of the Yellow Car following it all through downtown. The Los Angeles Railway (LARy) actually predated the PE by a full decade, but that fact did not restrict the "Yellow Cars" from growing alongside their "Red Car" counterparts (and even outlasting them by two years!). On this month's Trolley Tuesday, let us appreciate the history and the cars of one of Los Angeles' most underrated streetcar lines as we ride down to Downtown on the LARy!

Trolley Tuesday 01-12-21 - The History of the Pacific Electric, 1911-1961

One of the biggest and most mythical names in American railroading, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) originally began as a single route of the Central Pacific Railroad from their headquarters in San Francisco to Los Angeles, down the California coast. Over time, the identity of the SP outgrew its predecessor and, by the early 1900s, it had grown into one of the most powerful railroads in America. Such was the reach of the Southern Pacific that they already had two other interurban and street railway holdings on the Western Seaboard, with the Oregon Electric in Portland, Oregon, the Northwestern Pacific in Marin County, California, and the East Bay Electric in Oakland, California. With the addition of the Pacific Electric (PE), the southland streetcars were able to grow to unimaginable proportions, but perhaps that only accelerated its demise. On today's Trolley Tuesday, let's look back on the Pacific Electric, post-Great Merger, and why we still remember it fondly today.

Trolley Tuesday 12/01/20 - The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company

If there's one city well-known for its deep history with railed rapid transit, it's New York. The city's mass transit history alone can fill up every day of December and we'd still be unable to tell you the whole story. Every single mile of street and elevated rail oozes notable stories that have since become legendary from World Series-winning baseball teams to manufacturing firsts and so on. Brooklyn has always been a multi-faceted and densely-populated borough, with a rough-and-tumble reputation of hard workers, and their mass transit was equally as hardy. On today's Trolley Tuesday, it's No Sleep Till Brooklyn as we look at the enormous history the Brooklyn & Queens Transit Company, better known as the B&QT.

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 8/24/20 - Cleveland Railway, Shaker Heights Rapid Transit, and the Cleveland RTA

CLEVELAND! Long a major center of railroad and canal traffic, the Forest City now stakes its claim on its historic architecture, long-suffering sports teams, and hastily-made tourism videos proclaiming it to be "not Detroit". But among the misspellings (originally "Cleaveland", after land surveyor Moses Cleaveland, but shortened to fit the Cleveland Advertiser's masthead), railroad history (a major city on the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads), and cultural institutions (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), Cleveland holds a place in the realm of electric railroads as one of the longest-running interurban systems in America (since 1913!). Today, we take a look back at the "Progress and Prosperity" that built up the Forest City and see if Cleveland still Rocks.  

Trolley Thursday 6/4/20 - El Paso International Streetcar

Today's Trolley Thursday continues a theme began on Tuesday when we started our journey deep into the heart of the Lone Star State, or at least its borders. Laredo's small-town system, while being the first electric streetcar west of the Mississippi River, was not the only international streetcar. Just 600 miles to the Northwest, the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez also contained its own Tex-Mex streetcar. The story of the El Paso International Streetcar, later the El Paso City Lines, is one that's both tragic and hopeful; a streetcar line driven to destruction by National City Lines was able to defy expectations and return to run in the modern day. This, and more, after the break. (A fancy new break!)