Anyone remember Trolley, Traction, Electric Trains?

[RetroLounge]

Ever ride the urban rail lines in the big city? Rural trolley systems?

Looking out the front window of my bookstore, across the street, there is a large earthen berm that runs parallel to the highway. This is the old right of way of The Milwaukee Electric Rail Line (TMERL). Having grown up in Chicago, we had the 'L' and electric trolleys slill plied the streets of my chldhood, as did electric trolley buses which fascinated me with the sparks falling from the wires when they rolled thru intersections. The Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee still ran between Chicago and Milwaukee.

60 years ago, this is what I would have seen outside my bookstore window:



The Electric Trolley buses looked like this:



And the SpeedRail ran from Downtown out to several rural and suburban areas.



A portion of the line remains as the East Troy Electric Railway



An the North Shore Electroliners ran from Downtown Chicago to Milwaukee faster than you can make it today on the Freeway.



Here's a picture I took out in Mason City, Iowa of the electric railroad that still runs, services industry, and is still generating revenue.



And the irony now is that now they want to add comuter rail back to the line between Milwaukee and Chicago, The Amtrak Hiawatha running to Chicago is growing in ridership every year, and Milwaukee has been arguing about new light rail for decades while the freeways are getting clogged and the infrastructure falls apart and millions upon millions are wasted to rebuild interchanges and now they want to widen the highway and take away more neighborhoods and add to the congestion and pollution. They had it right the first time, before Standard Oil, GM and Firestone formed the NCL and conspired to destroy america's urban railway infrastructure.

Read this and have your eyes opened to one possible factor as to why we are in the transportation mess we are in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

By the time the scandal was brought to court and its perpetrators identified and penalized, its intended result had already been achieved. The judge presiding thought that the scandal was of little real consequence: GM was fined $5,000 and each executive was ordered to pay a fine of $1.00.

RL


edit for spelling..

[RetroLounge]

1. Seriously? No one ever rode a Trolley?

:shrug:

RL

[Xipe Totec]

10. I still do!

The Mattapan-Ashmont trolley

Every morning on my way to Cambridge!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashmont%E2%80%93Mattapan_High_Speed_Line

[RetroLounge]

11. Cool!!!

Vintage PCC cars!

:hi:

RL

[Xipe Totec]

12. Some of the cars need serious servicing

The line was out of service for almost two years and came back on-line in December.

Some of the cars need new variable resistors.

It's like riding on washing machines sometimes.

:puke:

[KitchenWitch]

29. When I was a kid in Philly we used to ride the trolley and the subway.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. I remember Chicago streetcars and trolleybuses....

Once, my family rode up to Milwaukee on the North Shore to pick up a new car. We were able to board in Rogers Park and I think there were other stops along the way. (It's been a long time.)

[RetroLounge]

3. Yeah, the North Shore ended in 1963...

My dad used to ride it all the time to visit him grandmother in Wauconda...

:hi:

RL

[greatauntoftriplets]

5. It was the first train I had ever been on except for the el.

I was about 10 at the time, so it was a REAL long time ago.

:hi:

[Xipe Totec]

15. Did you know that fruit shakes in Mexico are called Trolleybuses?

Or trolebus in the local parlance.

My favorite is made with Mango, crushed ice, and sugar in a blender.

Nothing else.

It's like a creamy frappe.

[TheMightyFavog]

4. Isn't the East Troy railway more of a tourist thing than a real working transportaion system?

I think another look at rail is a great idea. Hell, one of the only things I agreed with Tommy Thompson on was his idea for a High Speed Rail line linking Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, LaCrosse, and the Twin Cities.

Unfortunately, when * came to power, the Highway builders and airlines would have nothing of the sort, and poor Tommy got stuck in over his head at Health and Human Services instead of Transportation like he wanted.

[RetroLounge]

8. From what I gather, they do both...

They run over to the elegant farmer in Mukwonogo as a touristy thing.

But they also do real work in East Troy.

I was telling a friend today that the rail thing was the ONLY thing I agreed with Tommy Thompson about...

:hi:

RL

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. When in LA on business

I alsmost always use the Metro.

[trof]

7. We called the electric busses 'trackless trolleys'.

Yeah, I remember those in B'ham, AL.

[RetroLounge]

9. 'trackless trolleys'.

Yes, I heard that phrase too...

:hi:

RL

[Gormy Cuss]

14. That's what they're called in Boston too

And I rode one every day in Boston. They look like this:



on edit: The F MUNI line in San Francisco is nothing but historic streetcars, and I ride that when I'm in the city:

[RetroLounge]

17. Here I am in San Francisco on the Trolley, 1992ish

:hi:

RL

[Gormy Cuss]

19. Nice pic but that's a cable car, RL.

It's yanked up and down hills by an embedded cable. The F streetcars are new since your '92 visit and are all antiques retired by other systems. One day you'll be riding in a car from Milan, the next day Boston, etc... very cool.

MUNI has new Bombardier streetcars on the subway/surface routes too, and a few trackless trolley lines. Then there's the heavy rail like BART and the double-decker Caltrain cars. It's a fun town for transit buffs.

[RetroLounge]

20. Yes, it is, and I knew that...

oops...

:hi:

RL

[rug]

13. I rode on the trolley that ran over the 59th St Bridge from Manhattan to Long Island City.

My mother made it a point to put us on it the last day it ran.

The outer lanes of the bridge are where it once ran.

[gemdem]

16. Remember them? Hell yes!

We still have some trolley buses in Dayton, OH. They're mainly in the downtown, but lines still run out to some of the suburbs. I'm not sure that those are still in use. Most of the routes are diesel buses now.

I remember when the trolley buses outnumbers the diesel. The first time I took a bus downtown I was a small boy and went on a trolley with my grandmother. I still remember the sparks that the trolleys would through and when the drivers would have to get out and connect the trolley back to the power lines.

My former mother-in-law's father worked on the interurban rail that connected towns in Ohio and Indiana. I don't have memories of that, but I do remember the trolleys.

[HuffleClaw]

18. there is also the SLUT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332081_slut18.html


South Lake Union Trolley

[Wapsie B]

21. There used to be quite a trolley system here.

Even for a small town one could get around on a train quite nicely. Of course that was years ago. There was talk about running an Amtrak line from the cities on south through here, but nothing's gone beyond talk. I think Rochester will get the light-rail line before that happens.

[BrotherBuzz]

22. The electric train in Northern California was assassinated back in the forties

Here's my high school with an electric train stopped in front. It was already gone when I attended. Pat Paulsen, an alumni, rode it. Someone might make a remark about our clock tower not having a clock. We did get one of those, albeit, a three sided one.


I've ridden trolleys and electric buses in San Francisco and Europe but, well.....

Would have, should have, could have been.


Ironically there is a fantastic electric train museum just a dozen miles down the road from my house. Fantastic boneyard, plus the have quite a bit of equipment up and running.

http://www.wrm.org/

[Critters2]

23. There's a trolley in Mason City? I never knew that.

Illinois used to have "inter-urbans" that ran all over the state, even to tiny towns. When I was growing up in Kewanee, you could still see the inter-urban tracks running down the middle of the main streets.

[RetroLounge]

30. It's mostly a freight railroad

but they run an old Chicago CTA car for fan trips.

Here's some more info, with links to pictures.

http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/MasonCity/

RL

[mainegreen]

24. Rode them all the time in Holland: called the tram over there.

Great system. Could go anywhere on them!

[rockymountaindem]

25. I rode on a lot of those electric busses two summers ago in the Czech Republic

My friends and I speculated on what would happen if they ever became disconnected from the wires. I thought there was probably some auxiliary fuel supply so they could drive back into position. Boy was I wrong. On the second to last day in the country, two of my friends and I were riding back to our place of residence when the bus became disconnected from the wires in the middle of a busy intersection. This was in the middle of the day, so since most people were at work or in school, almost all the people on the bus were pensioners.

So, the driver got off the bus with some thing that looked like a giant nutcracker (about three feet long). Then he got back on and said something in Czech I obviously couldn't understand. All the seniors started getting off the bus. I figured we would just wait on the corner until someone towed the bus back into position. But oooooh no. All the riders start riding to the back of the bus and gestured for us to do the same. Next thing I know, me, my two friends, and three or four 70 year old men were all pushing this huge bus. Lo and behold, it actually moved far enough for the driver to reconnect us to the wires using the giant nutcracker. None of our other travel companions back at the hostel believed our story :)

I wish I had pictures.

[puerco-bellies]

26. One of my earliest memories is Los Angeles Red Car Trolleys

I was three and they used to run by my aunt Virginia's house just of the old Brooklyn Ave (Now Ceaser Chavez Ave) in East Los Angeles.

[LeftyMom]

27. They still have them in San Francisco, I use them all the time when I'm there.

We have a newer urban rail system here in Sacto, but it's slow and doesn't go much of anywhere, and the cars are stuffy and smell like incontinent bums.

[RetroLounge]

28. "stuffy and smell like incontinent bums"

yeah, that would be a downside...

:hi:

RL

[Crabby Appleton]

31. Electric Trolley buses were around when I was a kid

I thought they were really cool, Haven't seen one for for a very long time.