The Great American Streetcar Scandal

[hauntedclipp]

I always liked the older interurban lines. It's too bad the communities here around San Diego and Los Angeles didn't step up to save parts of the San Diego Electric Railway and Pacific Electric. Those two were pretty much obliterated when they were replaced by buses.
At least in Chicago they still had several heavyweight suburban rail services. San Diego and LA were left to rely on buses and cars to get from the suburbs to downtown until around the '80s - '90s.

Both the PE and SDERy systems were pretty expansive pre-conspiracy and seemed to spread like wildfire, radiating out in all directions from their hubs. I believe at least Pacific Electric would've been profitable enough -what with their streetcars, interurban, and freight services- to survive much longer if it were left to operate.

 

[Blutorse4792]

How much of the current light rail in L.A. utilizes the Pacific Electric right-of-way?

 

[wholbr]

Hi John and everybody.

Hi Bill,You might find this article interesting regarding this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Streetcar_Conspiracy

It was obvious when they went after the big companies. I could see this as a bonus for smaller, more rural systems.

John

John, thank you for the informative article which cleverly gives both sides of the conspiracy argument which obviously we Europeans will not be fully aware of. However, if we stand back and take a look at what was the “cauldron” of transport change throughout the western world in the 1950s -60s perhaps a better overview can be obtained regarding the tram systems as they were known in Europe and streetcars in the US.

The problem with tram systems was the fact that they relied on rails to run on and overhead power lines as their source of motivation which all had to be accommodated on the road system. These roads were increasingly being used by cars and trucks to an extent that no one had thought possible prior to the Second World War. Therefore following 1945 virtually all the tram systems (which were all operated by the local councils throughout Europe) were either not rebuilt following their destruction in the war or where they were still running just consigned to the dustbin in favour of the diesel powered and very versatile bus.

Those councils were under no pressure from the likes of GM motors of America or Leyland, Scammell and the giant British motor Corporation here in the Uk. Their demise was decided by those local authorities simply on the grounds of operational efficiency and maintenance costs. By the time we got to the 1960s it was very much that the car was king and there was no room for anything else but the car and truck. Railways in all forms were very much seen as transport of the past.

I believe that the foregoing atmosphere regarding transport and its future was even more prevalent in the United States in the mid twentieth century. Therefore, with or without any conspiracy could the streetcars of the American cities have survived the wholesale changes that were being carried out in that timeframe? The answer to the foregoing in the minds of many people witnessed those changes must certainly be no.

Therefore, did firestone, General Motors and others who bought out the streetcar companies merely bring forward the inevitable. Most certainly there was profit involved, but has not the development of Western economies since the start of the twentieth century been based on the survival of the fittest, the most forward thinking and profitable companies. It is on the foregoing which the Western world has based its standard of living on since the first companies were formed.

Bill

 

[mchawkman]

How much of the current light rail in L.A. utilizes the Pacific Electric right-of-way?

Very little. After the PE was dismantled most of the ROW was converted / bought up / re-purposed for streets, business use, etc. There are still traces of it that can be found, but most of the current Metro system was built from the ground up (literally, in some cases). The folks out at OERM could speak volumes about this subject in far greater detail than I can.

Regards,
MSP

 

[JCitron]

Hi John and everybody.


John, thank you for the informative article which cleverly gives both sides of the conspiracy argument which obviously we Europeans will not be fully aware of. However, if we stand back and take a look at what was the “cauldron” of transport change throughout the western world in the 1950s -60s perhaps a better overview can be obtained regarding the tram systems as they were known in Europe and streetcars in the US.

The problem with tram systems was the fact that they relied on rails to run on and overhead power lines as their source of motivation which all had to be accommodated on the road system. These roads were increasingly being used by cars and trucks to an extent that no one had thought possible prior to the Second World War. Therefore following 1945 virtually all the tram systems (which were all operated by the local councils throughout Europe) were either not rebuilt following their destruction in the war or where they were still running just consigned to the dustbin in favour of the diesel powered and very versatile bus.

Those councils were under no pressure from the likes of GM motors of America or Leyland, Scammell and the giant British motor Corporation here in the Uk. Their demise was decided by those local authorities simply on the grounds of operational efficiency and maintenance costs. By the time we got to the 1960s it was very much that the car was king and there was no room for anything else but the car and truck. Railways in all forms were very much seen as transport of the past.

I believe that the foregoing atmosphere regarding transport and its future was even more prevalent in the United States in the mid twentieth century. Therefore, with or without any conspiracy could the streetcars of the American cities have survived the wholesale changes that were being carried out in that timeframe? The answer to the foregoing in the minds of many people witnessed those changes must certainly be no.

Therefore, did firestone, General Motors and others who bought out the streetcar companies merely bring forward the inevitable. Most certainly there was profit involved, but has not the development of Western economies since the start of the twentieth century been based on the survival of the fittest, the most forward thinking and profitable companies. It is on the foregoing which the Western world has based its standard of living on since the first companies were formed.

Bill

I agree. Sure GM, et al, helped move things along at a faster rate, but in the large metropolitan areas, these systems probably would have survived to some extent. The reason I'm saying this is where they did resist the complete destruction, they have survived and done fairly well with ridership. Boston, Philadelphia, and even New York with the EL. Without this, we'd have even more clogged roads than we do now. Smaller, but good-sized cities such as Springfield, Worcester, Albany, and Providence had extensive systems which were completely bought up by the National City lines and wholesaled right into Mack buses running diesel power. Would these systems have survived today? In some form probably, in Albany and Providence, but not in Springfield or Worcester. Both Albany and Providence are the largest cities outside of Boston and New York. Springfield like Worcester has actually collapsed due to loss of manufacturing, and the population is a lot less than it was many decades before.

Would the even smaller city transit systems survived? I doubt it. Many, many of these systems barely made it through the Great Depression and with the automobile coming into play, this only helped their systems collapse further with lower ridership. Like the systems, which were damaged during the war in Europe and the UK, these were operating on very thin margins to begin with. These events just helped them along a bit in the wrong direction.

John

 

[Blutorse4792]

One also must remember that there was a populist movement against "streetcar barons" before the Great Depression.
Most of the lines were owned by electrical utility companies who afforded subsidizing them by raising rates on their power customers.
Automobile ownership was initially promoted as freedom from the perceived injustices of the interurban and streetcar lines.
In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that all of those electric traction lines had to be spun off into independent companies.
This allowed those companies to be purchased by the perpetrators of the alleged streetcar scandal and "busified".

 

[JCitron]

One also must remember that there was a populist movement against "streetcar barons" before the Great Depression.
Most of the lines were owned by electrical utility companies who afforded subsidizing them by raising rates on their power customers.
Automobile ownership was initially promoted as freedom from the perceived injustices of the interurban and streetcar lines.
In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that all of those electric traction lines had to be spun off into independent companies.
This allowed those companies to be purchased by the alleged perpetrators of the streetcar scandal and "busified".

Indeed and it shows how a decision made years before can have an impact much later on. Overall, this article illustrates the precarious nature these companies existed in though.

http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/history/trolleys/1951eha.htm

This is a company that was located not too far from where I live and parts of the ROW are still seen here and there today. The company was closed in 1927 due to lack of ridership and rising costs in part due to the seasonal nature of their use. This company ran to the east coast beaches in New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts. When the weather was poor, they lost a lot of money. 1923 wasn't kind to the company with bad snow in January, which shut the system down then only to be followed by a rainy summer. When the company went under, the Boston and Maine Transportation Co., a bus company operated by the B&M Railroad, took over the trolley routes. I'm sure they didn't help the matters much during the more profitable times.

In the 1890s, the main company formed a subsidiary to sell electricity to its namesake town. This was because their original charter prevented it. Today, the power substation in Exeter, NH is the old trolley company power substation.

This would make an interesting route to build in Trainz. Perhaps modernizing it with the system running LRVs and restored old trolleys.



John

 

[Blutorse4792]

The North Shore was owned by Samuel Insull, an electricity mogul who also owned the Chicago "L" and two other Chicago area interurban lines. His corporate empire collapsed in the Great Depression, and all of his holdings were broken apart. After WWII, the North Shore's parent company reorganized itself into a new company - "Susquehanna Corporation" - of which North Shore Line operations were only one investment. After the Kennedy and Edens Expressways had taken most of the passengers, they decided that uranium mining had a better future than commuter railroads and they filed for abandonment in 1958. There was a big backlash from the suburbs affected, so they were forced to continue service for an additional five years while they battled the commuters in court.

However, the suburbs were out of operating area for the CTA to take over, and there was no public agency for commuter rail in Chicago in the early '60s. Furthermore, those suburbs were also served by the Chicago & Northwestern and Milwaukee Road, who had recently modernized their commuter services. The C&NW in particular was aggressive in pushing their commuter operations as the public face of the agency. While the diesel roads also lost money on commuter operations, they could afford to subsidize it with their freight service.

In the end, North Shore Line was abandoned in January 1963 and dismantled over the next 2-3 years. I do suppose we're lucky in Chicago to still have the vast commuter rail infrastructure we still do, but as much as I appreciate Metra, I do sometimes wonder if we in the north suburbs were ultimately left with the inferior service.

 

[JCitron]

The North Shore was owned by Samuel Insull, an electricity mogul who also owned the Chicago "L" and two other Chicago area interurban lines. His corporate empire collapsed in the Great Depression, and all of his holdings were broken apart. After WWII, the North Shore's parent company reorganized itself into a new company - "Susquehanna Corporation" - of which North Shore Line operations were only one investment. After the Kennedy and Edens Expressways had taken most of the passengers, they decided that uranium mining had a better future than commuter railroads and they filed for abandonment in 1958. There was a big backlash from the suburbs affected, so they were forced to continue service for an additional five years while they battled the commuters in court.

However, the suburbs were out of operating area for the CTA to take over, and there was no public agency for commuter rail in Chicago in the early '60s. Furthermore, those suburbs were also served by the Chicago & Northwestern and Milwaukee Road, who had recently modernized their commuter services. The C&NW in particular was aggressive in pushing their commuter operations as the public face of the agency. While the diesel roads also lost money on commuter operations, they could afford to subsidize it with their freight service.

In the end, North Shore Line was abandoned in January 1963 and dismantled over the next 2-3 years. I do suppose we're lucky in Chicago to still have the vast commuter rail infrastructure we still do, but as much as I appreciate Metra, I do sometimes wonder if we in the north suburbs were ultimately left with the inferior service.

Interesting bit of history and I've wondered that too from what I've seen on the maps. I was a bit lucky in the Boston area. The MBTA, or Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority was formed in the late 1960s to take over the commuter and electric operations within the greater Boston area. This was then spread outside the initial Boston area and now includes commuter service as far west as Worcester and Fitchburg, south to Providence via license with RIDOT, south west to Franklin, and as far north as Newburyport and Haverhill. The "T" also owns all the ROW and tracks in the Boston area and other tracks up to the state line that are not used for commuter service, and these rail banked lines are being reopened especially on the South Shore down to Cape Cod, and in that vicinity. They are currently expanding the commuter lines back to Fall River which hasn't seen service since the early 1960s.

The MBTA has pretty much preserved what is left of the trolley system, however, they did remove the Forrest Hills street car and Watertown from Brookline lines recently The Jamaica Plain line from Heath Street to Forrest Hills was all set to be restored when the MBTA refused to restore the service. The judge sided with the transit authority and the swarms of NIMBYs that came out against the project even though the sentiment was stronger for service restoration. Instead the residents are stuck with the Orange Line heavy rail system which isn't nearby and buses. What gets me on this issue is the NIMBYs came in from surrounding towns that aren't even served by line!

If the old North Shore had come under Metra control before its demise, I'm sure it would still be used today. It made sense as a route because it served as a fast commuter line into downtown Chicago and would have worked in conjunction with the commuter rail lines as well. Sadly what is left is little traces here and there and bike trails which will never see service again.

John

 

[rjhowie]

Many people in my home city of Glasgow were saddened by the loss of our extensive tramway system back in 1962. The attiutde of those in authority was that it was a dated system of transport yet it was still widespread in nearby Europe. What a different attitude passes in many places now as several cities have tramways back. Sometime using the old name or the fancy new "light rail." Regarding America can I add that there is a monthly tram magazine here in Gt Britain and I tend to glance through it (well I'm Scots and we are notorious on being thrify) and there is a section with news from all around the world. There is a list of US cities with trams again - okay, okay, streetcars! This is good and although not as wide systems as in yesteryear a goodly sign. They were great people movers and like JC, I find them greatly missed.

 

[505657j]

In my current knowledge of Los Angeles light rail, some of the rails are in locations that they were but most are in areas that I would have never thought they'd put them based on street traffic. Streets that did have street cars in LA were built for them and as such were wider than those that weren't such as Venice blvd, but now in some parts of LA, they are putting the light rail in areas that had streets that did not have enough space for them, such as Crenshaw blvd

 

[jrcrawford4]

I don't know if there was what I'd call a "conspiracy" (though I wouldn't rule it out, either) by Firestone and GM so much as they simply exploited things to their advantage and this coincided with shifts in technology and "progress." First the trolley was a new invention and people were skeptical. Then it became industry-standard and for a brief period "trolleying" became a popular pastime. By the 50s, though, it was technology that represented a bygone era and was seen as antiquated. Cute at best. Sort of like my flip phone. If you lived in the South (U.S.) in the 1950s and 60s, you lived in not only the era of civil rights, but also the era of "new South" industrialization and business recruitment. Before companies shipped labor overseas, a lot of them shipped it South. For the same reasons it goes overseas now. People would work for nothing, unions were weak, etc. Charlotte not only got rid of trolleys, they stripped public transit down to its barest bones and even today there are few attractive alternatives to the car. Southern cities literally grew around the car. Why is riding Amtrak in the South a nightmare? Because inevitably the station is in the worst part of town and because there's no way to get from it to anywhere else without riding >eek!< the BUS.

So I think that saying "it's a conspiracy" ignores some important socio-economic points. All the cool kids were ditching trolleys and historic landmarks for shiny, modernist progress. In the process, our society came to say something about itself and about having vs. not having. There aren't a lot of mass transit systems in the South because, at least in part, the car has been marketed for 60+ years as a status symbol of your independence and material success. You know, MARTA is something for those who can't do any better. Of course GM, Firestone, and all the rest were going to exploit that mentality in the 50s and 60s.

Only my opinion and not worth more than 5 cents at best.

 

[hauntedclipp]

In many places around the US, like the South, it seems the streetcar was already dying out and the conspiracy probably only hastened their end.
But in other places, like New England and California, the conspiracy totally shut down systems where streetcars were thriving. And it wasn't only busification that ended them, it was the advent of the interstate highways as well. Which were of course pushed by the same people who pushed busification, seeing as it meant more people would be buying cars or taking the bus, all in the name of "progress".

In places like Los Angeles, the highways and the traffic it created at off-ramps that fed into city streets were a nightmare to navigate through for cars, buses and streetcars. One of the worst places this happened was the street right in front of Pacific Electric's downtown hub, where their trains did some street-running for decades with no problem prior to the highways and buses. The traffic jam there prevented any trains from running on schedule, though I expect such a jam would prevent the buses from running on schedule too. Either way, to place an off-ramp in such a location to spill heaps of auto traffic onto a street that had trains running on it is too foolish to believe that those designing the highway didn't expect such horrible jams to happen. Seemed as if they purposely blocked an artery to further drive people toward taking the bus.

 

[wholbr]

Hi everybody.
Statistics and documents can give people an overview of why past events happened but what they can never give is the public atmosphere and mood of the time. In Britain in the late 1950s and throughout the 60s it was a time of rising expectations and aspirations as it was in the rest of Europe and I believe the United States. Gone where the days of austerity which so characterised the fifties as countries recovered and rebuilt after six years of the Second World War. It was a new era where suddenly ownership of a car came within the financial bounds of the average working person.

Ownership of a car promised an end to standing on cold wet tram or bus stops, or waiting on dirty smoke filled railway stations at the start and finish of each working day. The car also promised the average person “personal transport” which could get them to places they had only dreamt of seeing when everyone was forced to use public transport with its limited destinations as far as families were concerned. Throughout the late 1950s and through the entire 1960s it was the ownership of a car that virtually all average persons aspired to.

It was the above aspiration and its fulfilment that brought an end to the tram systems and many railway lines throughout the Western world. Everyone wanted that “personal transport” and to hell with public transport which they felt had constricted them for so many years. The car and the truck was king and the demand was for motorways, interstates, and autobahns to be built to support them. No politician who stated any opposition to the above could expect to be elected or re-elected in the cauldron of change that was transport in the mid-20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

It was not conspiracies by companies that brought an end to the tramways and streetcars. It was simple public demand for car ownership and the infrastructure to support it that brought about their demise as a widespread form of transport. The mainline railways also suffered the same fate. Luckily here in Britain a person named Doctor Beeching stepped in and in making his famous cuts to a limited amount of the mainline rail network saved the railways for what we have today.

The public mood with regard to transport has now changed. The atmosphere is now in favour of railways and other public transport. The railways in Britain in two thousand and thirteen carried over carried over one and a half billion passengers to their destinations which is something that was undreamt of even by those Victorians that built Britain’s railways.

However, those of us who can remember the 1950s – 60s know that there was a very different public mood regarding the railways, tramways and all public transport throughout that era and several others to follow.

Bill

 

[Blutorse4792]

Well put, Wholbr. The real kicker is that about 10-15 years after the last major interurbans and streetcars were ripped up in the United States, the emergence of highway gridlock and the oil crises revitalized the desire for mass transit amongst the public. It's just a pity that there hadn't been more foresight. Now it takes government agencies decades to re-build and re-open pale imitations of the infrastructure that the people once had and let slip away.

 

[hauntedclipp]

Hi everybody.
Statistics and documents can give people an overview of why past events happened but what they can never give is the public atmosphere and mood of the time. In Britain in the late 1950s and throughout the 60s it was a time of rising expectations and aspirations as it was in the rest of Europe and I believe the United States. Gone where the days of austerity which so characterised the fifties as countries recovered and rebuilt after six years of the Second World War. It was a new era where suddenly ownership of a car came within the financial bounds of the average working person.

Ownership of a car promised an end to standing on cold wet tram or bus stops, or waiting on dirty smoke filled railway stations at the start and finish of each working day. The car also promised the average person “personal transport” which could get them to places they had only dreamt of seeing when everyone was forced to use public transport with its limited destinations as far as families were concerned. Throughout the late 1950s and through the entire 1960s it was the ownership of a car that virtually all average persons aspired to.

It was the above aspiration and its fulfilment that brought an end to the tram systems and many railway lines throughout the Western world. Everyone wanted that “personal transport” and to hell with public transport which they felt had constricted them for so many years. The car and the truck was king and the demand was for motorways, interstates, and autobahns to be built to support them. No politician who stated any opposition to the above could expect to be elected or re-elected in the cauldron of change that was transport in the mid-20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

It was not conspiracies by companies that brought an end to the tramways and streetcars. It was simple public demand for car ownership and the infrastructure to support it that brought about their demise as a widespread form of transport. The mainline railways also suffered the same fate. Luckily here in Britain a person named Doctor Beeching stepped in and in making his famous cuts to a limited amount of the mainline rail network saved the railways for what we have today.

The public mood with regard to transport has now changed. The atmosphere is now in favour of railways and other public transport. The railways in Britain in two thousand and thirteen carried over carried over one and a half billion passengers to their destinations which is something that was undreamt of even by those Victorians that built Britain’s railways.

However, those of us who can remember the 1950s – 60s know that there was a very different public mood regarding the railways, tramways and all public transport throughout that era and several others to follow.

Bill

Yes, but here in the US, things were a bit different concerning these changes.
It's a known fact that General Motors, Firestone Tires, Standard Oil of California, and other companies banded together to create a holding company in order to buy up streetcar lines that were, in their opinions, "inadequate" and replace them with buses. Many streetcar companies were doing just fine before they were taken over. Of course, there were also many truly inadequate streetcar companies that were better off being converted to bus operations, such as those found in smaller cities. But other companies, like San Francisco's Key System, attempted to resist hostile takeovers from the same holding company that converted countless other streetcar systems. When they did end up taking over the Key System, there was public outcry.
I'm not saying the conspiracy was 100% responsible for the decline of public rail transit in the US, but it certainly seemed that way.

Either way, the steadily increasing use of public transit and the restoration or construction of light rail and heavy rail lines today does leave me hopeful. For example; a whole new light rail network is being built in the Denver - Aurora metropolitan area to decrease the population's dependency on buses. And Florida will someday be reinstating private passenger services between its major cities.

 

[BobCass]

It was the greed of the oil industry that killed the streetcar systems, no doubt..Now we are spending Millions of Dollars trying to recover what we had..Its too bad our Leaders of yesterday had too think this way..History always repeats itself in one form or the other..Our leaders did not have the foresight that they should have had..The Almighty Dollar Reins..

 

[jrcrawford4]

Yes, but here in the US, things were a bit different concerning these changes.
It's a known fact that General Motors, Firestone Tires, Standard Oil of California, and other companies banded together to create a holding company in order to buy up streetcar lines that were, in their opinions, "inadequate" and replace them with buses. ...

Not unlike Southern Pacific, which famously (or infamously) offered to subsidize tickets for people who elected to fly rather than take SP trains in the 1950s and 60s.

I read an article in a magazine today that talked about the history of road development in North Carolina. "Today," it said, "the state is covered by an efficient network of highways that slingshots you across the state at 70 mph...." Or words to that effect. A short time later, I tried to leave Charlotte at 5:00 and our wonderful interstate system was locked up like it always is; it took 45 minutes to go 3 miles. I definitely did not feel shot out of a sling!

 

[Blutorse4792]

I believe that an Interstate Highway System (and to an extent, car ownership) is necessary in a country like the United States, but it's good to have some public transportation infrastructure to supplement car ownership. It's just unfortunate that so much of it was lost. It would've been cheaper to subsidize those systems back before they were ripped up, instead of taking decades and billions of dollars to rebuild it, then try and get people to ride it again after decades of automobile dominance.

 

[hauntedclipp]

Oh, owning a car definitely does have plenty of advantages here in the US. Everthing is so spread out as compared to other countries.
A friend of mine recently returned from a semester of studying abroad in Italy. Whenever she said that she drove everywhere, her new Italian friends believed that all Americans exaggerate the distances between places. She had to explain that it would take nearly two hours to walk to work from her home, as opposed to a ten minute drive. When they found out she was from San Diego, they assumed she often spent her weekends in Texas or Oregon, as they thought they were close to southern California. She had to nearly pound into their skulls the fact that it would literally take the WHOLE weekend just to drive out to either place.

Seeing as most European countries are small enough where you could drive for a few hours in any direction and end up in another nation, I can see how their knowledge on US geography can be a bit... warped.
My friend told me how in Florence, where she stayed, everything was within walking distance. So with that, I can also see how tram systems in Europe seemed to die out on their own as opposed to the Streetcar Conspiracy here in the US.