At least one of the line's affiliates was famous for piggyback operations, and the other one also had them. Freight operations on all of them lasted until well after WW II.
Happy holidays to all of you guys!
Well, the North Shore was famous for its piggyback operations, and the South Shore also had them, so the one with the trailers and no operations must be the Roarin Elgin, the CA&E. The three Insull Interurbans, an affiliation of sorts.
CA&E trailers were loaded regularly at the Laramie Ave. Freight house and driven to the CNS&M ramp at Montrose Avenue. Other than the lettering, they were identical to the CNS&M trailers. Their use declined after CNS&M changed the tie down system in the early 1930s.
Your question, Dave!
Prior to WWII, which was the first Major elevated rapid transit line abandonment in New York City, not just a small shuttle, but an abandonment that impacted many riders. What year, or be even more specific as to date if you can. What routes were effected. On what basis was the abandonment forced, what kind of transportation initially replaced it, where did its passengers go, and what eventually and when replaced it and is operating today. Just whose idea was this abandonment?
The line was mostly replaced (but not entirely) bay the sixth avenue subway (todays's A,C,E) at the south end, and B,D,F and M from 53d to 4th. One of the reasons given for condemnation was that the truss frames designed for steam operation in the 1880s had sagged and were in danger of collapse. During the last few years of operation the third rail had to be raised or lowered to account for cross-level problems. Unlike almost all other NY el structures, Sixth Avenue was made up of longitudinal trusses instead of girders. The only similar truss structure elsewhere in the US was the Jackson Park line of Chicago's South Ride Rapid Transit. Unlike 6th Aves through trusses with cross girders. SSRT's was set up as the more normal deck construction.
By alll means ask the next question. Basically, since the IRT was in receivership, they had not paid taxes for some time, and the State and City took the value of the scrap steel as payment of back and current taxes. The IRT hoped most passengers would use 9th Avenue service, did increase it, but soon restored older headways, with only a slight increase in 9th Aveue serivce remaining. Some passnegers apparently did use the Broadway - 7th Avenue susbway with the interchage to the Woodlawn trains at 149th & the Concourse. Many Bronx passengers switched to the Concourse - 8th Avenue line, fulfilling the city's hopes. In the two years between the 6th Avenue elevated closing and the opening of the 6th Avenue subway, the M7 and M6 bus routes showed very high ridership and close headways for Manhattan passengers, including my parents and me. These were part of the GM-owned NY Omnibus system.
New York is way out of my info zone, but I'm learning more...
New question:
This large transit system and its successors operated many articulated cars in both city and interurban service. The system's shops built the articulated interurbans from heavy cars bought used, and used both homebuilt and purchased articulateds in city service. Some of the city cars replaced the interurban cars in the last years of interurban service and were in turn replaced in part by cars that had replaced the cars the interurbans were contructed from!
Name the system and any successors. Bonus points for naming the source of the interurban cars.
Was the Shaker Heights system originally part of Cleveland Railways before Cleveland Transit's forxmation? I know Cleveland ran articulated new cars on Euclid, then went back to regular Peter Witts, and then back to the new articulateds. And they did rebuild some old cars into quasi-articulateds, basically motors and trailers permenantly close coupled with a passege between them, but not with a truck under the joint as is typical, if I remember correctly. And I did not know of Shaker running articulatids. Perhaps Cleveland Railways had interurban lines to other points and ran the artics there? I do remember Shaker with a good mixture of cars, ex-Cleveland ceneter-doors and Peter Witts running in trains, mu, PCC's mu, and some lightwieght single cars, Cincinnati curve-sides if my memory is correct. Then it became alll PCC when the second-hands from the Twin Cities arrived.
The Milwaukee Electric may be another system, and I think it had articulateds homemade from standard heavyweights, some medium weight artics from WB&A, and at the end lightweight Cincinnati curvesides that had replaced heavyweights elsewhere, those also ending up in Milwaukee, replaced articulateds on Speedrail, which had taken over the interurbans, separated from local transit, although still using some local transit tracks downtown.
When I rode the Milwaukee streetcars in 1952, the only interurban left there was the North Shore, and the only articulated cars were the Electroliners. The system was still interesting to ride, with the huge trestle on the West Allis line, and the single track through countryside on the North Avenue line. The PRW and catenary towers of the interurban to the west was still visible.
Shaker Heights never ran articulateds, except for one trial run with a CTS 5000 series car that didn't work on the loop.
TMER&L (Milwaukee) had both city and interurban articulateds. In the 1920s they rebuilt cars of both TMER&L and Milwaukee Northern heritage int articulated pairs. The 1031-1040 series of city cars (St. Louis Car) replaced the 1181-90 series cars rebuilt from Indianapolis and Southeastern cars at Cold Spring shops. They were in turn replaced by lightweight cars bought from Shaker Heights, including some ex-I&SE Cincinnati curved-side lightweights and a couple of ex-Aurora Elgin and Fox River cars, which are probably the ones you remember from Cleveland. An oddity of Milwaukee articulateds is that each half car was assigned its own number.
Sadly the WB&A articulated were scrapped. The only WB&A cars resold for further operation went to the CA&E, though some remained in B&A service until 1950. The Shaker Heights lightweights did come after Speedrail assumed operations, having been replaced by SHRTs first orders of PCCs. The heavy articulateds were actually owned by Kenosha Motorcoach Lines after 1944 when the KRM (Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee) line was spun off, even though they were used in both KRM and TMER&L/Speedrail service until 1949 or so.
On "Union Station" you must be talking about the NYW&B's Harlem River Terminal, served by two IRT lines and the NYW&B. The other option would be 180th St, served by NYW&B, parent NYNH&H and IRT.
This famous showman's show ended its run in 1916 far from the region it was named for, in a wreck on a carrier known for one commodity. Name the showman, the show and the railroad.
Probablly not what you want, but Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was put out of business near Lexington, North Carolina by one of its three trains being run into by a freight, destroying over 100 horses and injuring Anne Oakley, but this was in 1901. And William (Bill) Frederick Cody lived to 1917.
Close. The show went back into business some time after the North Carolina wreck as a series of "farewell tours".
so---- do I have the right show? Just check further on the additional history?
I checked around to see what was available about this before accepting your answer. You do have the right show. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was virtually destroyed in the North Carolina wreck, but he managed to rebuild it enough so that it ran until going bankrupt in 1913. After the bankruptcy he cobbled together one last version of the show.
The show was sheduled to go from Roanoake VA to Norfolk VA over the N&W. N&W rejected the equipment. Virginian agreed to move Cody's show, but during the move an end sill pulled out of one of the cars, derailing several others and killing some performers and animals. Cody never did another show, and died in Denver the following spring.
hint: in the Detroit case, transit service was not full time, but there were periods when it saw the heaviest patronage on the system.
hint: in the Washington case, a wye was involved.
Detroit's Mt. Elliot line was weekdays only and replicated part of a route known as the "Rapid".
DC Transit's private ROW operation to Laurel, later cut back to Branchville (82) was built for interurban purposes by a line affiliated with the WB&A, and operated part way on the New York Avenue route used by WB&A. The postwar DC transit operations with wyes were the Soldiers' Home (74) and Takoma (72).
You are write about Mt. Eliot, although I was referring to the extension of the Michigan Avenue lines (PCC's ran through s Gratiot-Michigan, but the WWII extension was gone at that time)over what had been Easterb Michigan's interurban just as far as the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn. Detroit Dept. of Street Railways already one line to the plant, the Baker line, but it was not sufficient for WWII worker traffic. I not sure if the was a gap in service between the end of Eastern Michigan service and the start of Michigan Avenue DSR service. In addition these tracks during WWII saw shift-change service on one other E-W line (Kerchiavalle(Sp?)). Eastern Michigan had provided short-turn service to the plant by reversing with a simple crossover and one siding, but DSR had a series of loops to handle all service with their typical large Peter-Witt single-end cars.
The wyes you mentioned in Washington were with counduit and unrelated to WB&A. The Roslyn - Benning line ran only to Benning. Service to Seat Pleasant and the single-track branch with a wye (Kenilworth) was by WB&A until they stopped operation, and the wye was installed by Capitol Transit (not right away, double-end cars were run for a while), and ditto the loops at Seat Pleasant, and I believe the branch was doubled, but my memor is not clear, even though I rode it several times. The power plant electric frieght (coal) business of Capitol Transit was inhereted from WB&A. I suppose the tracck from the interchange then was taken over by the PRR after CT left, but for a while it was operated as an isolated short rail line with their steeple-cap still in use. Possibly owned by the power company at the time.
The Branchville line and the Branchville-Beltsvillel shuttle were not related to the WB&A but a different interurban, and that service stated much earlier. I believe the lines used by CT were always with one or the other of the former street railways, and the interurban to Laural used the tracks, not the other way around.
Still, I look forward to your next questionl.
I believe the power plant coal delivery was handled by the Chesapeake Beach Railway, later the East Washington Railway, using Capital Transit trackage. The East Washington employed a pair of ex ACL 4-4-0s until 1946, when they dieselized with a GE 45 ton unit and a second hand Witcomb. Capital Transit used their steeplecabs to switch the Bennings plant.
but it had been WB&A, not CT, earlier. Does this power plant still exist? What fuel doesit use today, and how is it delivered?
Meanwhile, we await rc's question.
Yes, Dave. The power plant still exists. It converted to natural gas(?) during the early 70s, which led to the demise of the East Washington Railway. Coal traffic from the B&O interchange to the power plant was 90% of their traffic. The former PRR also served the same plant and the track is still there, crossing I295 on an overpass. You are correct in stating that the trackage in question had been part of the WB&A.
John Merriken's "Every Hour on the Hour (CERA B-130) explains the rather complex relationship between the Laurel interurban and the WB&A. The East Washington was part of the former Chesapeake Beach Ry. which met Capitol Transit at the sme location the WB&A did, but wasn't the WB&A.
A late morning NewYork Central train departed Chicago for New York on a 20 hour schedule in 1957, carrying sleeping cars between no less than 9 city pairs (not all at the same time). There was no westbound counterpart with the same name, the unmatched westbound train only carrying sleepers between 6 city pairs.
Name the eastbound train and at least 7 of the city pairs.
You are interested in #6, the Fifth Avenue Special.
According to the 7/1/58 public timetable, there were 12 city pairs: Chicago-New York, Chicago-Lake Placid (Fri only), Toledo-New York (x Sat), Cleveland-New York (Sat only), Cleveland-Boston (2), Rochester-New York (2), Ogdensburg-New York, Niagara Falls-NY (Sat only), Buffalo-NewYork (Sat only), Syracuse-New York (Sat only), Massena-New York (Sat only), and Lake Placid-New York (4 cars; one daily, one ex Sat, and 2 Sun only).
Eight pairs Mon-Thur; nine Friday, nine Saturday, and six Sunday.
Lv Chicago 11:10 in the morning, and arrive in New York City at 7:30 the next morning.
Johnny
yes,rc. I understand that, but the plant tracks were switched first by the WB&A and then by CT, with at least one electric steeplecab retained by CT after the WB&A shrunk to the B&A. Never did ride the WB&A, although did visit Washington as a small child when it ran, but did ride the Baltimore and Annapolis after WWII.
You asked a great question. I look forward to Deg's.
I was looking for 1957's "New York Special", which was obviously combined with the "Fifth Avenue Special" in 1958 with the big NYC exodus from Pullman. The only one in the New York Special that was gone in Johnny's answer was a Plattsburgh NY - GCT car off D&H #8, which was also discontinued in 1958.
Well done, Johnny! The reverse train (in 1957) was the Iroquois #35, which carried GCT-Rochester, GCT-Ogdensburgh, Boston-Chicago, Boston-Buffalo and Lake Placid-Chicago (WedSat). Iroquois #36 was coach-only Buffalo-GCT.
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