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 3/10/2022 - The Southern Railway's "Brighton Belle"

Over the last three years or so of this blog, we've never avoided mentioning the Pullman Company's effect on electric traction. After all, their proximity to some of the largest transit networks in the United States led a lot of companies to depend on them for top-quality suburban and interurban cars. However, while Pullman's own streetcars were legendary in their own right, we've never touched upon the more well-known side of George Pullman's grand sleeping car empire, that being their luxury train services. Well, fret no more dear riders, as despite a relative lack of Pullman luxury electric trains in the United States, it seems the idea took off across the pond in Britain. On today's Trolley Thursday, we're looking at how the Pullman Company flourished in England and its role in making one of the most famous electric luxury passenger trains... in the world.

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 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 9/9/21 - 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 9/7/21 - Trolley Parks

Everybody likes a good amusement park, which is basically the coldest take ever uttered on this blog, but often the journey to an amusement park is the hell before the heaven. Gridlock traffic on the freeway, gridlock getting into the parking structures, having to pay $25 just to park, it all feels so stressful without factoring in a day's itinerary! What if there was a way to get to an amusement park without having to worry about getting there? Well, before the dominance of the automobile, streetcar and interurban companies had that business easily handled. On today's Trolley Tuesday, we'll look at one of the lesser-known yet very-much-fun aspects of electric railroading: the passenger-pleasing and profit-generating Trolley Park!

Trolley Thursday 9/2/21 - Frank J. Sprague, Father of the Streetcar

Welcome to another brand new month of trolley-posting here at Twice-Weekly Trolley History! For the month of September, we have no real theme this time, but we hope the variety can keep you riders and readers interested!

The electric motor. The trolley pole. Air brakes. We all seem to take these things for granted when we stand back and examine what a streetcar is. After all, hindsight breeds common sense: it makes sense to us to have a stick reaching up and gathering electricity, which feeds a traction motor attached directly to an axle to move the car. But how did these elements come together in the first place? Why did this process work and not a rolling troller on a wire? And who, above all, profited from these patents? Well, dear riders, we have the answer to those queries on today's Trolley Tuesday and his name is Frank J. Sprague, inventor.

Trolley Tuesday 5/25/21 - The San Francisco Transbay Terminal

Hello, dear readers and passengers! If you are reading this post, chances are I'm suffering the side-effects of my second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. As always, I want to tell you all to please remain healthy and safe as the country returns to normal, and be smart with your health.

Now with that out of the way... San Francisco's Salesforce Transit Center is a rather polarizing building in the city's history. Despite being designed as an ultramodern multi-modal hub for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Muni's bus system, and the northern terminal of the eventual California High Speed Rail (CAHSR), the building has had a shaky construction and opening as it spent most of its first year in operation closed due to structural concerns. While many new transit advocates both support the Salesforce Transit Center, or denigrate its organic architecture, almost all old San Franciscan souls lament the loss of what was there before, the original San Francisco Transbay Terminal. Despite being one of the most modern buildings in the city when it opened in 1939, the loss of its three major commuter rail tenants rendered the building redundant in only 20 years and limping into the 21st Century. On today's Trolley Tuesday, let's look at the history of a building way ahead of its time, but quickly left behind once the trolleys stopped running.

Trolley Thursday 5/13/21 - The Battle of Sebastopol Avenue

Just like most of its national and international history, America's electric railroad history is not free from the spoils and sins of war. Most wars in electric railway circles, like the quiet Cold War of the United Railroads vs. San Francisco or the intense bureaucratic battles of Chicago's Cable Car wars, are fought rather bloodlessly, usually coming down to bidding for street franchises. However, in a quiet corner of Sonoma County just 30 miles North of San Francisco, one notable clash between interurbans and steam railroads tuned swiftly violent with mud, rocks, and pre-heated boiler water as the weapons of choice. And now, dear passengers, don your helmets, lace up your boots, and grab a ballast rock to sling because, on today's Trolley Thursday, we're going to war over a frog!

Trolley Tuesday 4-6-21 - Andrew Smith Hallidie and the Creation of the San Francisco Cable Car

Every time we start a new month here on Trolley Tuesdays and Trolley Thursdays, my editor Nakkune and I ensure to deliver unto you (the reader) a complete history of what we're talking about so you can get the proper historical context for everything we're going to talk about. Most of the time, trying to find the specific history of a streetcar system is quite difficult as almost all streetcar systems grew out quite organically, and with often faceless individuals helming the mighty companies that shaped city life forever. However, this month can deliver a face, a date, and a place: Andrew Smith Hallidie; August 2, 1873; San Francisco, CA. Despite being such an iconic part of the City by the Bay, few know or are aware of the man who invented one of America's few unique moving museums, so on today's Trolley Tuesday let's rectify that as we look back on the life and inventions of Mr. Andrew Smith Hallidie, the Father of the Cable Car!

Trolley Thursday 3/3/21 - The Los Angeles Railway Offices, Shops, and Facilities

We talk so much about the different kinds of streetcars in Los Angeles, both on this month and last month, but we never find the time to talk about the facilities where these streetcars get serviced, or even built. Thankfully, due to their resourcefulness (and unwillingness to spend money thanks to Mr. Huntington's financial strategies), the Los Angeles Railway's South Park Shops filled the demand for an all-in-one car maintenance and construction facility, and were able to birth some of the railway's most iconic passenger and maintenance-of-way cars. The Division Carhouses are also ones to not overlook, as without them who would even give these innocent trolleys a home? On today's Trolley Thursday, let's take a peek into the facilities that made the LARy's operations possible!

Trolley Thursday 1-21-21 - The Pacific Electric Building and Subway Terminal

Whenever the topic of historical Los Angeles comes up in casual conversation, the first thing that always gets brought up is the historic architecture. After all, it's why the City of Angels can keep playing older versions of itself in movies and tv shows. From the Beaux Arts curves of the Broadway Arcade building, to the wrought iron lines of the Bradbury Building's elevators, in addition to the Eastern Building's gorgeous green Art Deco façade, you'd be hard-pressed to find an ugly historic building in Los Angeles. Two of those historic buildings that have stood the test of time continue to thrive under the Los Angeles Conservancy's patronage and care, despite being so far removed from their original purposes, and they are the Pacific Electric Building on 6th and Main Street, and the Subway Terminal Building at 4th and Hill. These were the transit hubs of the Pacific Electric, and thus today's Trolley Thursday is dedicated to appreciating their importance in the system's history.

Trolley Tuesday 12/28/20 - The New York, Westchester & Boston Railway

Up the Hudson River from New York City is Westchester County, which borders the Bronx to the south and the state of Connecticut in the North. The area slowly developed into one of New York's suburban counties, with towns such as Yonkers and Peekskill being served by New York Central & Hudson River steam trains ferrying commuters into the Big Apple. In order to better serve prospective commuters, one of the richest men in the world invested in the area's only significant electric railway that, for a brief period between 1912 and 1937, was quite simply the most expensive passenger railroad in America. Though it is now a mere memory that only exists in photographs and firsthand accounts, today's Trolley Tuesday aims to uncover the history and legacy of the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway.

Trolley Tuesday 12/08/20 - A Brief History of New York's Subways and Elevateds, Part 1

Peek into any children's book about trains, and you'll find a simple question posited to the reader: "Why does New York City have a subway or an elevated railroad?" The answer is, of course, "because there was plenty of traffic." However, read more into the real history of New York City and you'll find the first elevated railroad went up way before the first commercial motorcar was ever produced. Despite being only a pioneer in elevated railways (as Boston already claimed the first subway in America), the New York rapid transit systems under the Interborough Rapid Transit and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit companies remain one of the largest and most historic in the United States, and even the world. In today's Trolley Tuesday, we'll see how these systems got Gotham on the move.

Also if you haven't noticed, the title of my blog does involve "Trolleys", but it's my blog so I can cover whatever I want. This includes significant rapid transit lines like New York. With that out of the way...

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.