You City's Demolished Streetcars/Rail Lines

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Xing

This is the East St Louis area:

Brown and Red = streetcars

nice, yeah, i knew alton hooked into the eastside system somehow. wouldnt be surprised if there was a cable car in the mix.

when my mom lived in belleville she took some kind of express line to downtown st louis.

[Centropolis]

blogspot.com

new orleans

[ColDayMan]

Cincinnati


http://www.cincinnativiews.net/


Columbus




Dayton

[LMich]

Most detailed map I've been able to find (streetcar lines in red), though unfortunately from 1950's when the last of the lines were well on their way out.



Full size

A map from 1941, though a bit harder to make out:



I don't believe either of these show interurbans connecting the city and suburbs, which may have already been out by then.

Seems like even if the city was decided buses were the future that they'd have been better off keeping the streetcar lines on the main spokes leaving cross-town and secondary routes to buses. BTW, interesting shot of some autoworkers on their way home from the plant. For a long time, the two modes weren't seen as incompatible with one another.


Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

1934 for Tiger Stadium moving fans around:


The Detroit News archives

Another from an auto plant in 1930:


Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Massive DSR carhouse up in Highland Park in 1934:


The Detroit News archives

Holiday shoppers in 1949 down outside Hudson's and Kern's:


The Detroit News archives

[Centropolis]

this reminds me of this from the '44 "streetcar series" when the st. louis browns played the st. louis cardinals in the world series at the old northside stadium.

[Centropolis]

it blows my mind neither st. louis nor detroit built a real rapid transit system considering that the streetcar system appeared to be completely maxed out in both cities.

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by LMich

Most detailed map I've been able to find (streetcar lines in red), though unfortunately from 1950's when the last of the lines were well on their way out.

Great pictures, thanks for posting.

[mrnyc]

cleveland map -- 1900




on the superior viaduct



streetcar strike -- 1899

[mr1138]

Cool thread!

Surprised nobody has posted Denver's yet



Our local urbanist blog has a great article about it too, including an interactive map: https://denverurbanism.com/denvers-h...reetcar-legacy

[dubu]

how nice would it be to ride a streetcar around? instead of almost getting hit by a car and falling off my scooter like yesterday those happend to me.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by dubu

how nice would it be to ride a streetcar around? instead of almost getting hit by a car and falling off my scooter like yesterday those happend to me.

Come visit SF and have a ball (I do):

• Video Link

[Centropolis]

KANSAS CITY

davidrumsey.com

[Centropolis]

kansas city also had cable cars due to the hilly topography:


kansasmemory.org


historickansascity.org

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by dubu

how nice would it be to ride a streetcar around? instead of almost getting hit by a car and falling off my scooter like yesterday those happend to me.

streetcar rails are no friend to cyclists, either, as we are finding out again in st. louis.

[LMich]

I think people forget that streetcars were often considered major noise nuisances, particularly when poorly maintained, and could be moderately dangerous for pedestrians and users of other modes. I know there is a nostalgia for them now, and that it was stupid to rip up entire systems whole cloth, but there were definitely a lot of lines that functioned better as (motor)bus routes. Oh, and the whole thing about cyclists? Yeah, the cycling community was not happy about the installation of the line on Woodward, recently. There was a whole piece about the speed of the new line so they had a person take a bus, a person drive, a person walk, and a person cycle. The cyclist end up wiping out early in his trip, if I remember it correctly, while trying to navigate the rails in the street. lol

[Pedestrian]

^^As someone who has "wiped out" a scooter (Vespa type) on streetcar tracks, all I can say is, "You learn to take them at an acute angle." And by the way, they aren't as dangerous as those big metal plates construction crews put over holes they've dug in the street when they go home for the day (or weekend).

[PhilliesPhan]

Here is what Philadelphia's trolley system looked like in 1944. This doesn't even include all of the trolley routes in North, West, Southwest, Northwest, and Northeast Philly, as well as the routes that went to our suburban counties:


Smartsync.me

Ripping out our trolley system was one of the most foolish things to ever occur in my city, aside from not building out our proposed subway system.

[Centropolis]

dang-a-lang..thats a real streetcar system. some of these others are surprisingly small.

[PhilliesPhan]

For those interested, I found an even more extensive map of Philadelphia's trolley system from 1934-1935! This map displays the trolley routes in all sections of the city, as well as some in Delaware and Montgomery Counties:

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/zoom/51796

[Cirrus]

Here's DC. This map shows all streetcar lines that existed between 1890 and 1962, regardless of who operated it or when it ran. It's the most extensive DC map I've seen. Click here to open a bigger version.