Some old Trolley pictures from New York State.

[JCitron]

Here are some pictures of trolley cars in action along the major lines in the Hudson Valley. Among them are those on the SRC, and Saratoga Springs lines. The latter company was a subsidiary of the Delaware and Hudson and they would share trackage in a few places.

These companies are all sadly gone. They were replaced by GM buses during the 1940s.

http://gino.cdfw.net/ginostrolleypage/index.html

John

 

[rjhowie]

Goodly bits of history there John. As a life long lover of trams found this interesting. Now I feel guilty again as i have a 250+ board tramway on a pc here that I still haven't uploaded!

Bobby

 

[JCitron]

Thank you Bobby. I'm glad you enjoyed the link. I too love trams (trolleys) and would love to drive your route some day.

The US had a ton of local transit and street railway companies. Many of these companies came and went and were eventually consolidated into larger regionals. The Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway, for example, purchased the Middlesex and Lowell, and the Haverhill and Amesbury during their life. There were many factors that put these companies out including the Great Depression in 1929, but the worst was General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone Tire. These companies conspired to put these systems out of business. They paid off city officials, put their own henchmen into place, and manipulated deals to get the trolleys replaced with rubber tired buses. Sadly, St. Louis, San Francisco, Cambridge MA, Boston, Brooklyn, and even Los Angeles lost either a big portion of their systems, or lost them totally to buses. The Laurel Line in Scranton, which was quite profitable, and would still be in existence today, is another one. I'm sure the Albany regional systems mentioned in the links would still be here today if it wasn't for this corporate greed. Today we have only a fraction of the active system in Boston, having lost the Cambridge to Watertown, the Tremont Street to South Boston, Dudley Square and Blue Hill Avenue sections, among the many other great lines we wish were here today.

John

 

[BobCass]

John: You really nailed on it the head with your statement..The greed of the oil companies and the rubber companies really did the job..Its to bad that the people were takin in by this..All the great Trams we lost is unbelieveable..I remember as a kid the streetcar went in front of our house and there was switch right there..Great sound Clacky clack..

 

[JCitron]

Bob,

That must've been quite a site too with the switch and street cars going by. I vaguely remember the Dorchester line in Boston and the South Boston lines. They disappeared when I was young. I took one ride once to South Boston for some reason. The trolleys rode on the street right in traffic and no one cared. Today this is all gone. I wish I could go back in time and see these systems in full swing. The photos and videos only scratch the surface.

I think no one saw this happening because cars and the world of rubber-tired vehicles was the up and coming thing. The new highways were subsidized by the government, along with the paving of the back roads, and everyone just went along with it without realizing that the biggest corporations were along for the ride too. Just think too, the railroads and trolley companies were subsidizing their demise through their property taxes.

What's interesting is there is an interest in bringing some of the systems back. Los Angeles is building their lines again, albeit in a different form. I think of all the money wasted because we have to start all over again.

http://www.urbanrail.net/index.html

John

 

[rjhowie]

John.

Back a couple of months ago a regular Trainzer here got in touch when I said I had a whole list of errors showing in my tramway. Although my NI Railway is in TRS10 my Glasgow tramway is still TRS09 which is wb
hat he is on. If some help is forthcoming then it means that my long resting tram system can get used by everyone. It is based on what used to actually be in Glasgow up until 1962 and it covers just over 255 boards if my memory serves me right. £very line is where it once was before motorways and such and I walked every former line. There were around 120 miles in the 1920's but extended beyond that in the thirties and even a few years before closure was extensive. So if i get assistance with the tehcy stuff people will have something that was factual and has literally hours od tram driving in all directions. My website has the system split into West-City Centre-North-East-Southeast-South-Southwest.

Anyone interested in trams should have a look at my site as there are over 130 pictures with rough sketch maps in slideshows for each of those segments. In addition all the Glasgow trams are on the DLS by Silversmith (Standard, Kilmarnock Bogie, Single-Decker, Coronation, Cunarder)
www.glasgowtramsim.moonfruit.com

Bobby