Trolley Tuesday 10/12/21 - New York City's BRT Malbone Street Wreck

When it comes to any disaster, it is almost always caused by a small mistake way before it even happens instead of a singular freak event that affects an entire industry. Planes, ships, and even trains are not immune from what can crassly be called a "cock-up cascade", and history is sadly littered with the remnants of these events. Hidden among these infamous incidents is what is considered to be the deadliest train crash on the New York City subway system, as well as one of the deadliest train crashes in America. What started as an attempt to circumvent striking workers led to an error of mismanagement, inexperience, and ultimately an unnecessary loss of human life. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit's Malbone Street Wreck is certainly an evening to remember, and one we're looking back at on today's Trolley Tuesday.

Trolley Thursday 12/16/20 - The IND and NYCTA R-Type Subway Cars

If you are an upstart street railroad in America, you'd think the way to pack your rosters is to approach a company like J.G. Brill or G.C. Kuhlman and offer to buy one of their standard, cataloged designs out of a pamphlet. Often times, street railways in Philadelphia or Cincinnati would actually collaborate with their local carmakers to design products to fit their own needs, like the famous Peter Witt Car. For a city as big and as varied as New York, however, they decided to do things a little differently. Starting in the Electric Railway Journal, the city's Board of Transportation advertised that it would "soon advertise for bids for the construction of 300 steel cars for service on the Eighth Avenue-Central Park West-Washington Heights line of the new subway system." Little did the Board and their operating division, the Independent Subway Service, know that over 90 years later, these contract bids would still be going with the car numbers types rising to almost 200 by this year! (2020) How did all of this happen? Hop on board today's Trolley Thursday to find out, as we take a ride on board New York's R-Type Fleet!

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).