Electric Railways

[19&41]

I thought I'd start a separate thread on this subject. These operated in many communities. In Indiana, many people don't know that there was once an electric railway that spanned the state north to south, east to west, that started in 1894. In many areas, they were originally powered by coal fired power houses that could only cover small distances for each. It was pulled up before the end of WWII. This site has an extensive collection of photographs and histories of railways across the country. http://newdavesrailpix.com/ I happen to work for one of them down here. https://itsmarta.com/

[William]

So, you work for a company that has trains. Are you around them all day long? The site you provided states there are 28,000 photos to look at. I know what my evenings will be like for some time.

Bill

[19&41]

I'm a journeyman electronic technician. I've worked in and around the trains on their communication and intercom systems and the system that gives the station announcements.

[Firedome]

So you work for a municipal public transit Co. that has light rail?
When I was a kid almost every big town or city had light rail... it was called trolleys. lol.
Modern light rail is just a faster & fancier version on dedicated track, trolley tracks were right in the streets.
At least Baltimore's MTA did build light rail in the '80s (pic 1) but it serves just limited areas, as does Denver's.

It's well known that GM and the Big Oil companies colluded to get rid of them starting in the '40s, continuing to the '60s.
Baltimore had an excellent trolley/transit system, one of which came from downtown to within 1 mile of my home.
By the time I was in high-school all the tracks had been ripped up and it was replaced by GM "New Look" busses (pic 2) with their smelly 2 stroke Detroit Diesels...marvelous engines but far from clean! I can still hear that loud WOOOOSH-ing sound they made. Now BAE Systems here is making hybrid, fuel cell, and electric busses just 2 mi from my house. The old IBM and E-J factories are being re-purposed for electric and battery technology.

https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/series-ev

I like the new-tech busses but in populated places light rail and intra-city rail makes sense and they should have left the
electric trolleys, they went everywhere in Baltimore when I was little!

[19&41]

Atlanta operated a trolley system long before the current authority was established. It was taken up and now it is a combo of buses and light rail.

[TC Chris]

In Bay City where I grew up, the electric light rail system was built by an amusement park operator to haul customers to his Bay shore park. There was a big "casino" (auditorium), a roller coaster (the Jackrabbit), games, and smaller rides. Pre-radio, pre-TV, it was what people did to while away their nonworking hours.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

My paternal great-grandfather was the mayor of the town that was the county seat for a time in the early 1900's. He lost his left arm in a trolley accident. I remember those trolleys running still when I was a little kid. Grandpa Sam died in 1957. He gave me a silver dollar each time I would visit him. I still have some of them.

The engines in those GM buses like Roger posted ran backwards. The crankshaft turned clockwise, viewed from the flywheel end. That was because the engine and transmission were behind the drive axle. They would lay the 6-71N Detroits or the NH250 Cummins six-cylinder diesels flat on their sides, with the oil pan hanging down below, really on the side of the engine. If you almost killed a Detroit Diesel then suddenly pushed in the clutch, the drivetrain would snap back hard enough to start the engine and make it run backwards. You didn't know it until you found you have 13 gears in reverse....

[TC Chris]

My paternal great-grandfather got a job with the railroad after a variety of other enterprises. He worked for the Pere Marquette and the Manistee & Northeastern, can't recall in which order. He was a station agent and worked in several places around Michigan--Flint and Bay City and Manistee. Family lore has it that he came home one day in Manistee and told great-grandma that he had wonderful news--he was being transferred to Sault Sainte Marie (in Michigan,"the Soo"). Great-grandma had enough of moving by that time, so she advised hm that she was very happy for him, but she would be staying right there in Manistee, thank you. So they did. We have great-grandma's scrapbook with newspaper clippings about his jobs and moves, but also her "railroad passes." Working for the RR was the path to middle class security in those days. And one perk was free passes to ride where you wanted to go. They were blank cards that some official filled in, using longhand/cursive, identifying the holder, the destination, and the authorizing official. Their daughter, my great-aunt Edna, also worked for the M&NE for a while, later becoming a title examiner (land titles). The sport coat that I have always kept behind my office door for emergencies, and in the last 4 years for video hearings via Zoom, belonged to the M&NE's last general manager (CEO), a friend of my grandfather. He died the year I was born and his widow gave a bunch of his nice clothes to my Dad, who passed the coat on to me. The fact that I can wear a 1940s garment without being ridiculed is a testament to the virtues of non-faddish design. I've also got the guy's custom-tailored tuxedo. One leg is longer than the other since he only had one leg and they never hemmed the unused one.

Chris Campbell

[TC Chris]

If you almost killed a Detroit Diesel then suddenly pushed in the clutch, the drivetrain would snap back hard enough to start the engine and make it run backwards. You didn't know it until you found you have 13 gears in reverse....

Great story. I will put that in the memory bank, just in case. We have a Detroit Diesel 4-71 marine engine on the local schooner. It just goes forever. It has never been tempted to run backwards, as far as I know.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

My paternal grandfather was an electrical engineer with the Union Traction company, one of the Indiana electric railways.

[electra225]

When I was a little kid, we'd go to Noblesville and ride on the trolley cars. IIRC, there were three trolley cars in the entire town of about 5,000 people in the 1950's. There was a haberdashery on the east side of the courthouse square that was the stop for the trolley car. You had to mind your manners on the trolley car. Gentlemen would stand, the ladies were seated, along with old people and those with disabilities. There was no accomodation for disabilities in those days, everybody helped those in need. You didn't cuss on the trolley car, lest there be kids or ladies aboard. You could smoke, as that was considered fashionable in those days. Trolley cars were hot in the summer and cold in the winter. They had the right-of-way over cars, but there was always an accident between cars and the trolley cars. There was a trainman aboard who tossed the drunks and troublemakers off the trolley cars, usually by the collar of their shirt. Much of the parking in town was parallel parking, so you could park at the city park, then ride the trolley car into town to do "the tradin'", then take it back to your car. It was a social event for us, something for grandma to get on the party line a gossip about. "That Castor girl was on the trolley car this afternoon with her skirt hiked up half way to her knees! Where was her mother......"

[19&41]

These days, that Castor girl could ride with her skirt hiked up over her head with nary a comment.

[electra225]

Anything I could point out that might actually be worse than that, might be a touch political, so we will leave it at that.....

Like most of the other boys in our immediate community, I had a major crush on the Castor girl. She was a redhead, "filled out her dungarees right smartly" yet was the epitome of decorum and righteous living. She was not "that kind" of girl at all. She was just cute as a bug and every female in the county was consumed with jealousy. The Good Lord merely built her with all the "A" parts. Grandma had to have something to gossip about. The Castor girl went to our church, my grandparents were friendly with her folks, but that didn't stop the wagging tongues on a party line.....

[19&41]

Those were better days, with care all around.

[electra225]

The haberdashery that hosted the trolley car stop gave bubble gum and lollipops to all the kids. Just what society needed, sticky handles in the trolley car from kids eating candy. It was a gentler time, though not without its warts. I witnessed events I'd have been as well off not seeing. People could be incredibly cruel to others. Gossip on a party line was no different nor less vicious at times than what we see on Facebook. There was "silliness" going on in the 1950's and 1960's just like there is silliness going on today.