Short Streetcar Story

[daveklepper]

At about age 14, my parents decided by social skills needed the improvement of dancing lessons, and arranged for me to be instructed at Arthur Murrey;a around 43rd St. and Madison Avenue. From shool I would usually use the subway to 42nd and 6th and walk over. I would return home on the Broadway and 42nd Street streetcar. During evening rush hours, about one out of every four "B": (for Broadway")cars coming across 42nd Street would turn back at 5th Avenue, taking the spring switch crossover after reversing ends. To save time and not delay the close-headway following Broadway and Crosstown cars, the now-rear motorman's seat would usually be left in position and not folded against the wall. So that was my usual seat on the return, enmjoying the equivalent of an observation car streetcar ride, through times square, columbus circle and lincoln square.

[Anonymous]

But hey, Dave, did you learn to dance??? I took piano lessons thru high school and played piano in a dance orchestra the one year I attended college so I NEVER learned to dance.

But I dropped out just to work as a telegrapher for a railroad. Greatest job I ever had and it was really hard to call it work I enjoyed it so much.

When I was 50, almost 30 years ago and after the wife left, I tried Arthur Murray and could see it was a thing that you couldn't quit easily so found another teacher and - boom - again, I found something really enjoyable. Swing, foxtrot, rhumba, cha-cha.

But even that doesn't hold a candle to riding an el, anywhere, looking out the front window or even the rear, or sitting in a dome car at night watching the signals turn from green to red as we speed along.

Nice post.

Art

[daveklepper]

Slow learner, signed up for foxtrot linde(jitterbug) aqnd walse. Got the walse and foxtrot but didn't make it to linde. In Israel I am good at folk dancing, local variety and USA Square dance, also popular.

Highschool buddy Mark Steele, now retired doctor in Pittsburgh, and I went by streetcar and hiking to our popular math teacher in Tarrytown, after saving up carfare, 15 cents total (three five-cent fares) to the Yonkers-Hastings line, using the "B" with transfer to the "K", then the "C" to the 262st. NY-Yonkers line, then wait for a "1" to come from the end of the subway at 242nd Street and ride for the final five cents to the Hastings line. We cooked lunch in a clearing at the side of route 1, got to our teachers home about five in the afternoon. Then he drove us to the New York Central Tarrytown station and we rode the front of an mu back to 125th or Grand Central, for the 25-cent half fare, and then another nickle for the subway home.

I attempted several times afterward to go all the way from Coney Island to the Hastings line by streetcar, and finally made it but with some bus conversions, this required a walk in Long Ilsand City from the terminal of the lines from Brooklyn up to the Queensboro Bridge, and then another walk from 2nd Avenue and 59th-60th Street to 65th and Third for boarding a "K" pull-out, since the "T" down to City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge streetcar terminal had already been bussed.

[Anonymous]

Don't care much for the waltz, Dave, especially the Viennese - way too fast for me anymore, but I can cope with a fast Lindy.

Never got to NYC while street cars were in action and I can sure get lost on their Subways. Chicago only had one back in the late 40's and the street cars were disappearing fast. While in the Navy, 45-46, there a street car that started out at Navy Pier on the near North side and worked its way down Wabash on the East side of the loop past the USO and then down Cottage Grove past the Michael Reese Hospital which had a Student Nurse program . The girls would hang out at the USO and guess were the Navy hung out? The girls had to be back in by 10pm and the trip back to Navy Pier during the winter in one of those drafty street cars was sure not the best way to end an evening. .

[daveklepper]

I rode the Chicago and also the Milwaukee streetcars in the summer of 1952 when I was a student engineer working at EMD in La Grange.  By the time I returned to Chicago and lived in Westmont in 1967, all streetcars were gone and so were two of the three Insull Interurbans, but I did get to ride the North Avenue trolleybus line before it quit, and I rode Chicago streetcars, and a Milwaukee one too for that matter, at IRM in Union, IL.

 

The Chicago streetcar system at its maximum was the larges in North America, since there was one system, Chicago Surface Lines.   In 1952 it was already CTA, but there was everything from PCC's down to deck roof "red rockets."  Also in 1952 there were still plenty of wood open-platform elevated cars still running around!    And, ah yes, the Elerctroliner.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Chicago Surface Lines had a corporate structure straight out of railroading.  CSL itself was the operating entity and franchiseholder for the four underlying companies:  Chicago Railways (mostly North and West Sides), Chicago City Railway Co. (most of South Side), Southern Street Railway (22nd Street line) and Calumet & South Chicago Railway Co. (mostly South Chicago, East Side and Hegewisch).  The underlying companies were the actual owners of the cars and buses.

CSL operated all of the streetcars and most of the feeder buses but was not the only transit operator in Chicago.  Chicago Rapid Transit Co. operated all of the various rapid transit lines and Chicago Motor Coach Co. operated a bus system that operated primarily radial routes on the city's boulevards, mostly on the North and West Sides.

[tpatrick]

Here I am looking for a story about a short streetcar...am I missing something? Beside my brain?

Quote: In Israel I am good at folk dancing, local variety and USA Square dance, also popular.

Seriously, Dave, are you in Israel now? If so, I hope you are out of the line of fire. In any event, my best to you, and if you are in Israel, take care of yourself.  

 

[Jetrock]

My streetcar experience was slightly later and dance lessons were not in the picture--in 1987, I used to cut school ( I was 18 and in high school) to go ride the new RT Metro "light rail" system (1980s speak for streetcar) to downtown Sacramento. It went through some pretty cool old neighborhoods with sorts of buildings and people I didn't see in the suburbs, and got off on the K Street Mall to shop at the various comic shops and record shops and secondhand clothing shops that festooned downtown in those days.

 

Of course, the 1987 system wasn't the original Sacramento streetcar system:

 

http://tinyurl.com/kmqr6

http://tinyurl.com/fauc2

[trolleyboy]

Hey Dave nice story, I enjoyed it. I still take every chance I can get and ride the TTC surface routes in Toronto. Love the Harbour front line and the Carleton line ( I always take the Yonge subway up to carleton and get on the streetcar in front of the old maple Leaf Gardens. The new CLRV's are not as much fun as an old Witt or PCC but hey a streetcar ride is a streetcar ride. And since I operate Witt's and PCC's at the museum, I can still get the best of both worlds.

 

Rob

 

[daveklepper]

I am familiar with the Toronto streetcar system, but the great book did not make it with me to Israel.  I donated it to the Sprague Library at the ERA Hq. in NY.  I rode the Toronto streetcar system when in Toronto on business, on CERA and ERA fantrips and conventions, and on stopovers between trains or between train and plane.  It was the one true modern streetcar system that survived the plague.   Other North American trolleycar operations had special reasons for survival:  New Orleans because of landmark status and history and an operating museum, San Francisco because of relatively cheap hydro power and the Twin Peaks and Sunset Tunnels, Boston, Newark, and Philadelphia because of downtown subways + PRW on the Red Arrow Div., and in Boston and Newark lots of reservation and/or PRW, Cleveland-Shaker, PRW and reservation, Pittsburgh the South Hills Tunnel and lots of PRW.  But Toronto was a streetcar system.   I loved the place.

My first visit to Israel was in 1960, and I visited often enough and stayed long enough before moving here in 1996 to be a naturalized citizen several years before moving here.   People would ask me

"David, what is your favorite American City?"

I could have answered my real home town, New York, or where I spent possibly my most enjoyable years, the Boston area (Cambridge), but I would say:

"My favorite American city happens to be in Canada, Toronto"

And I would tell them why.

I have written a short Hebrew book, the translation of the title is "Blue and White Papers"  Maybe someday I will find a publisher or publish it myself.

And one point I make is that wires over head or tracks in the street or both together tell a visitor:

"This city believes people are more important that automobiles."

I just hope I live long enough to see our starter light rail line actually built and in operation!

The problems people are facing in the North of Israel are real, spending all the time in hot sweltering non-airconditioned shelters or risking bombardment or evacuatring.  But the population is united that the Hezbola threat must be eliminated and the suffering and displacement is endured.  Israel is a free country and there are demonstrations, but the people the represent are a very tiny minority.   The local Arab population in Jerusalem, among whom are friends of mine, is as dedicated to keeping peace in our city as we are.  So far we have not even been warned, as Tel Aviv has been warned.

[trolleyboy]

Evening folks.

Dave-I just want to add a be carefull and keep your head down as well. It's nice to know that troonto has it's boosters half a world away.It's still quite the cosmoplitan city, it's had a couple rough years the last couple with gangs and etc, but as any city grows these plagues do seem to follow.i've noticed and read that several other Ontario cities are concidering and in some cases planning for new modernized "lite rail". time will tell how many make it beyond the drawing board stage. when I think of how much of Ontario and indeed the rest of Canada was electrified at one point, both city and radial systems. It makes one think what were they thinking when cars and roads became the defacto lets spend government money on type of transportation system. Lets hope that it all comes full circle.

Rob

[FullParallel]

Great story Dave, I assume being the Broadway line that these are the "Huffliners" you are referring to? Must have been a great ride!!!

 

Steve Loitsch

[daveklepper]

Correct:   The Broadway Huffliners were TARS then TATS 551-625.   They were built from the end of 1935 through the end of 1936.  They were double-end 4-motored cars like all Third Avnue lightwieghts, but they were the only Peter Witt (Front entrance, center exit) cars.   The first, 551, was an odd ball in that the center exit doors were opposite each other.   The other cars had them staggered one window bay to the rear on both sides for better structural integrety.   551-600 were largely aluminum, and one, 555, ran unpainted with just a coat of protective transparent varnish and red strip for several months as an experiment.  Possibly, the traditional red and cream-yellow was considered safer as more visible.   I think the weight was unusually low.   But 601-625 reverted to Cor-Ten steel construction, with lightness achieved by inserting corrigations in the side panels to allow them to be much thinner and still have structural strength.   The previous lightweights constructed in 1934 and 1935, 101-200 and 301-400 were all enddoor cars.  Motomen' seats were a wood stool on  a post that was inserted into the floor and which could be carried from one end of the car to the other.   But the Broadway cars had a wood seat on a metal braket that swung out from a post against the end wall near the left front cornet on both ends, and in the stored position, the seat could pivot to be nearly flat against the wall.  This was the seat that was left in position for me to enjoy when the operator changed ends as quickly as possible (fortunately no trolley poles to contend with, the plow dangling from one truck worked eqaully well both ways).

Karl Grow informs me that after 625 was put into service, the question arose as to weather future lightweights should be Peter Witts or revert to end-door configuration.  They foudn end-door cars were less expensive to build.  626 and 627 were intended for 59th Street Crosstown, to be eventually placed on special rubber spring trucks to deaden sound when passing several hospitals, but initially they were equipped with the standard Brill 77E and run in Broadway service.  It was found they could keep schedules and not delay the other cars, so 628 - 685 were all completed as end-door cars, and then production was stopped when TATS was forced by the city to adopt a bus convesion future, a future postponed by WWII.   626-645 were conduit cars, regulars on 59th Street Crosstown and occasional service on 42nd Street and Broadway and later Third and Amsterdam ("T") and Broadway -25th Street (Kingsbridge-"K"), going to the Bronx with torlley poles in 1947, then someto Vienna in the Autumn of 948.  646-685 weere trolley poler cars for Southern Boulevard and Treemon Avenue in the Bronx, also most going to Vienna..