STORY OF THE STREETCAR
STORY OF THE STREETCARS
Having grown up in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1940's and 1950's, I was always amazed by the streetcars all around me as a little boy! I thought the whole world had streetcars! I had no idea what a trolley bus was, or a subway, overhead train, tram, and such; all I knew was the good old reliable streetcar, rumbling along, seemingly everywhere my family and I wanted to go! I remember sitting in the second-story window of my grandparents’ apartment building, looking out at the various streetcars, both large and small, going along beneath me, as the main streetcar tracks leading into downtown Little Rock at the time (“where everything was at, that was of any importance” before the oncoming shopping-center age), went right in front of their apartment building! Fascinating to a little boy of about 8 years of age! Also an interesting pass-time! The switches at Fifth and Main, the central point and business focus of the city, where most routes ended, where the business owned by my grandfather, my father, and my uncle, was located, were of even more fascination to me!
My parents had owned an automobile when I was very small, but they sold it to my uncle, who was a used-car dealer, supposedly because a war (World War II) came along, and we didn’t seem to need an automobile for a number of years, as we had the reliable streetcar system. If we wanted to go to another town, which we rarely did, we took a steam train. These had their own fascination for a small boy, but the main subject of this article (which may become an E-Book) is the streetcar. Perhaps the steam train will be taken up another day! In a different E-Book!
As a boy going to elementary school, I used to ride the streetcars every school day, going into downtown Little Rock on the first streetcar with my father, who got off and went to work, leaving me free to roam around inside their business for a few minutes until “my streetcar” came along, where I would use my transfer (which was FREE in those days) to go on to the school I attended. Often, some of my classmates would be on this second streetcar, and they thought my family was RICH, owning a business at Fifth and Main in Downtown Little Rock! Little did we realize that the world was going to change in a few years, bringing in competition from overseas, which would eventually cause the closing of this as well as a NUMBER of other businesses.
One day, the wind took my transfer out of my hand, and I went behind and beneath a sitting streetcar to retrieve it. A wise old man standing and watching, handed me his transfer instead, insisting that I not go underneath a sitting streetcar, as it could start up and hurt or kill me! These were pretty good-sized conveyances, holding roughly 30-50 people seated, and about 2-3 times as many standing up. Those standing were in for a rougher ride, so they held onto straps that hung from the ceiling, or rails that were scattered throughout the interior, as well as “rings” on the ends of all seats for that purpose. It was also fascinating to ride to the “end of the line” and watch the motorman reverse the overhead trolleys, taking down the one that we had been using, putting up the one on the other end of the long streetcar, go through the whole streetcar and reverse the seat backs so that all faced in the opposite direction, pick up his “controls” and take them to the other end of the streetcar, set everything up where it went, start up the motor, and go off in the opposite direction. Amazing!
As a man in his 70's, I find that my computer is FILLED with information and pictures of streetcars and steam locomotives! In researching streetcars on the Internet recently, I was amazed to find that a fairly good-sized number of cities NOW have streetcars, especially larger cities where the problem of moving large numbers of people is much greater than it is here in rural Arkansas. In this article, and those to follow, I propose to at least list these cities and show some examples of different streetcars of the present and the past.
As a man in his 50's, I spent 8 days in Germany visiting relatives back in 1990 or 1991 or so, one entire day of which was devoted to visiting Munich and “riding everything we could find that moves.” I was not aware at that time, that very many cities in the U. S. had streetcar systems, but Munich had “the works,” including streetcars, subways (a very extensive system of subways covering most of the city at that time), overhead trains, trolley busses, regular busses without trolleys (probably running on diesel), and providing a very memorable day for this “little boy grown up,” who still likes to ride streetcars and similar conveyances.
A couple of visits to New Orleans over the past 10-12 years or so, also reinforced my desire to ride streetcars, as this city was smart enough to keep it’s wonderful streetcar system, in spite of pressures from outside and from within. Having lived in New Orleans less than a year, as a young man in his early 20's, I saw the wonderful streetcar system that New Orleans had, but my spouse at that time had absolutely no interest in riding streetcars (and perhaps even a fear of this large noisy conveyance, having never been exposed to one while growing up in a small Arkansas town that had no streetcars), so I only got to ride one time in about a year of living there. Hurricane Katrina changed the situation somewhat, but not before New Orleans itself had made some changes by taking streetcars off one main route, which has since been re-instituted. I’ll try to explore this story later on, probably on down the line in about Chapter Twelve or so! There are other parts of “The Streetcar Story” that need to be told first, however.
No story about streetcars would be complete without the story of the “Great American Streetcar Scandal,” however. As a young man, I remember hearing a few references to the fact that General Motors had set up subsidiary companies to go into many American cities, including Little Rock, to buy up their streetcar systems, tearing them up, taking up the tracks or paving over them (and many of those tracks are still there in Little Rock, if one knows where to look), and replacing them with either trolley busses or regular busses without trolleys, made by General Motors, of course! I even remember talking to a few family members about this, but most of them knew very little about the true situation. All of them, however, made mention of the fact that it was a shame that such a cheap and reliable system of transportation was torn up and replaced by “those smelly old busses!” It just didn’t make any sense to the older generation, and it didn’t make any sense to me, either. As a result of the destruction of the streetcar system in Little Rock, my parents bought a (used) car when I was in my early teens, which is just what General Motors wanted EVERYBODY to do, in time for me to learn to drive and get my license when I was 14 (it sure beat a bicycle on those hills that Little Rock had, too). Later, when the steam locomotives went in the same direction as the streetcar, I wasn’t as concerned, because my car would take me wherever I wanted to go, which is also what General Motors wanted EVERYBODY to think. With gasoline at 15¢ a gallon, we could seemingly go EVERYWHERE we wanted, without regards to rails, schedules, rainy weather, and such. I remember driving around to every gasoline station in my neighborhood, when gas went to 16¢ a gallon, in an effort to try to “save a penny!” Little did I think that gasoline would EVER rise to $1.00 or higher per gallon! My grandfather would think that it was literally “highway robbery!” He wouldn’t believe most other prices of today, either!
Not until I began researching the streetcar story on the Internet, did I realize the extent of the General Motors part of the story! I found, mostly in Wikipedia, the complete story, fully documented, which I’ll try to relate here. There were court cases, of which I was not aware (which makes me wonder if any of my family knew about these, but it’s too late to ask them, as they departed this world a number of years ago). The issue went about as far as it could go in our great court system here in the U.S., it was discussed in Congress, and of course, the media had a “real circus!” In reading all this material, and I’m only about halfway through it at this point, it is very plain to see that “General Motors became a fourth branch of the government, wielding as much political and financial clout as a big, rich company could, even to the extent of having one of it’s highest executives appointed to a Cabinet-level position!” I don’t remember where I saw this thought quoted, but I’ll try to remember to note it, when I run across it again.
It would be easy to turn this discourse into a story of JUST the General Motors part, as it’s plenty fascinating on it’s own (so much so that at least ONE full-length movie was made based on it), but there is EVEN MORE to the story. There is the history of the streetcar, starting out as a horse-drawn vehicle. There are various manufacturers of streetcars that thrived in the United States before and during World War II, who manufactured streetcars and (in some cases) similar conveyances, including railroad cars. Each manufacturer had it’s own designs, and I’ll try to show some of these to you, as we go along. Each large city that had a real good streetcar system, has it’s own story, many of them telling how their streetcar system “went broke,” the reasons, and whether or not General Motors or some of it’s companies had an impact on this (and in some instances, it didn’t)!
In addition, there are MANY variations of the original streetcar design, some with doors in different places, which made changes to the habits of the motorman and his (yep, it was a HE, as women weren’t allowed to operate streetcars back then) passengers!
There were streetcars that were built for different purposes, including funerals! Having never seen a funeral streetcar, I was really amazed to see an actual photo of one, complete with description. I really had never given much thought to this. I do remember seeing special coaches that were added onto trains for a funeral situation, especially that of a past departed President, but I had not thought that there were enough funerals OF ANY IMPORTANCE, to warrant a special “funeral car” being built! Little did I know!
But there is an even bigger story here: the fact that the streetcar is making\has made a “comeback!” There have been many opinions expressed at all levels of government, but those at the local level seem to have “trickled up” to the Federal level, as we now have Federal $$$ being spent to SUPPORT the efforts of a local area (in some cases a group of cities) to re-establish a viable streetcar system, as a way to move large numbers of people, and as a way to stop (or at least reduce) the SMOG and AIR POLLUTION of the automobile. Where, in the past, Federal $$$ were used to promote the automobile as a competitor to the streetcar and the railroad, by building roads and highways (yes, even the Interstate Highway System), now Federal money is being used to rebuild mass transit systems, from streetcars to short-line rail systems, and including subways, trolley busses, and the “whole nine yards!”
A high-level General Motors executive once made the statement that “What is good for General Motors is good for the country, and the other way around!” From the standpoint of employing people, this may be true. But time has shown us that this statement has a fallacy in it: the pollutants emitted by the gasoline and diesel engines, IN QUANTITY, are NOT GOOD for our great country, nor is the reliance on foreign oil that has resulted! Perhaps the good old reliable streetcar is seeing a revival! At this point, this author thinks so, as I have found a list (on the Internet) of most of the streetcar systems in the U.S. and Canada, beginning with Little Rock, Arkansas with it’s 1.7 (?) mile streetcar system that goes NOWHERE, but caters mostly to tourists and “nostalgia freaks,” to Toronto, Canada, which shows a map of streetcar routes that reminds me of the maps I saw at EVERY STATION in Munich, with a total of 48 (?) miles of streetcar tracks!
Then there is the story of the streetcar in other countries, mainly Europe, but also Asia, Australia, and elsewhere. Many of their streetcar systems survived World War II and still operate as a very vital part of their over-all transportation system. Many of their streetcars are made in their own countries or a neighboring country, thus cutting down on transportation costs for a VERY HEAVY VEHICLE! Many of their manufacturers have their own designs, which makes the story even more interesting to this Arkansas country boy! I’ll try to show you some photos of these various designs, too, but this will also have to show up in about Chapter Eleven or beyond! There is so much to tell in between!
And then there is the story of the first new streetcar to be MADE IN THE U.S.A. - yep, that’s right, folks, we now have at least ONE streetcar manufacturer here in the good old U.S. of A.! And we will probably have more later on, as this industry rebuilds from Ground Zero! Right now, this manufacturer is operating under a license from a foreign country, kind of like the situation where Honda automobiles are being built here in the U.S. by a subsidiary of the Japanese Honda Company. But, eventually, I look for someone to come out with an American-designed and built streetcar! I may not live long enough to see it, but it looks like it’s coming, so be sure to watch for it. And CHEER IT, when it happens!
Next: Chapter 2. Some Basic Streetcar History (Horse-drawn Vehicle, later operated by Steam), followed by:
Chapter 3. Various Manufacturers and their Designs.
Chapter 4. “The Great American Streetcar Scandal.”
Chapter 5. Many Large City Streetcar Systems that “went broke,” the Reasons, and the “General Motors (or some of it’s Companies) Impact” on this.
Chapter 6. Variations of the Original Streetcar Design, some with Doors in different places.
Chapter 7. Streetcars that were Built for Different Purposes, including Funerals.
Chapter 8. The Streetcar is making\has made a “Comeback.”
Chapter 9. List of Most of the (Larger) Streetcar Systems in the U.S. and Canada (List of North American Cities with Examples of Different Streetcars of the Present and the Past).
Chapter 10. The Streetcar in Other Countries, mainly Europe, but also Asia, Australia, and elsewhere.
Chapter 11. Various Foreign Manufacturers and their Own Designs.
Chapter 12. Munich and Other Large Streetcar Systems in Europe.
Chapter 13. New Orleans (Pre-Katrina, Closing One Line, Later Expansion),
Chapter 14. Toronto (Large Enough for it’s own Chapter, too).
Chapter 15. The First New Streetcar to be MADE IN THE U.S.A. And the First Streetcar Manufacturing Company in the U.S. since the 1950's or so.
Chapter 16. Prologue: The Politics of it all; Political and Economic Decisions at all Levels of Government that did impact the Streetcar in the past and that will impact it in the future. Where are we headed? Do we have the Good Sense to Re-develop a Cheap and Reliable Ground Transportation System that will Move People in Large Quantities both Into and Out Of Our Downtown Areas, Without Having to Continue to Rely on Foreign Oil and Without Having To Build More Freeways? Is This Proposition Affordable? Or Do We Have Any Other Choice? (Stay tuned for the weather at 6 and 10, but first, here’s a message from our sponsors)!
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Copyright 2011 by Preston Smith,
Silver Dollar Press,
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Silver Dollar Press,
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Labels: Arkansas, automobile, General Motors, Great American Streetcar Scandal, Little Rock, Munich, New Orleans, steam train, streetcar, subway, Toronto, tram, trolley
posted by PRESTON at 12:17 AM
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