Subway, Elevated, Trolley & Traction Lines photos

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Some of the steel mills used cars similar to that to transport ore to the furnace area. They had a name that I cannot recall.

The car above is a PRT Coal Motor

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

An interesting configuration for interurban cars, what with some sort of open corridor between the passenger compartment and what is presumably the motorman's position. I don't think I've seen that before.

A shot of Baltimore in 1916, looking west up Baltimore Street:



This would be the infamous "The Block", some 35 years before things really got going. Blaze Starr's Two O'Clock Club would eventually be a few doors down on the left. The tall building two blocks down on the right is the B&O building which housed the company's executive and administrative offices.

The cars seen here would be a pair of those belonging to the United Railways & Electric Company, which was formed in 1899 by merging most of the individual transit companies operating in Baltimore. J. M. Hood had taken over at United after leaving the Western Maryland in 1902. Hood croaked in 1906, just two years after playing a crucial role in the city's recovery following the 1904 fire. United eventually became the Baltimore Transit Company, which I remember riding with my grandmother back in the early 1960s (but never to Baltimore Street).

[rogruth]

Cities and towns don't seem to have streets named for them in that same city or town.
After thinking a few seconds I can't really think of one. But other than Baltimore there must be more.

I also like that there are people in the above photo.
I also remember riding street cars with my grandmother and other family members.
Unfortunately all the street cars were gone by 1945 or 1946.
I liked them. They were quiet and had a much better smell than buses.

[J. S. Bach]

The B&O building (fireproof) was built before the fire but went up like a torch. The shell survived and the interior was was rebuilt. The building still stands today although the B&O (Chessie System, CSX) no longer occupy it:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2895214 ... 384!8i8192

Note the red brick building on the far right, I worked in it on the 12th floor for the Army Corps of Engineers for several years.

[healey36]

The original B&O HQ was on the corner of Calvert and Baltimore (approximately the point where the photographer was standing when he took the photo). That building was destroyed in the 1904 fire. The B&O built their new HQ on the corner of Charles and Baltimore, completed in 1906.

At some point the B&O, and the Western Maryland whose offices had been in the Standard Oil Building, moved to Charles Center after that project was completed. I remember interviewing with CSX there in the late 1980s.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Atlantic City and Shore RR

[healey36]

Sixth Avenue, New York, 1903:



And a 1916 video of the Sixth Avenue elevated line:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_3F32mPZvY

From the Library of Congress and the National Archives respectively.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

Memphis, 1906:



Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

Probably a silly question, but what's the cage-like contraption up front? Is this the trolley version of the "cow-catcher", a device intended to keep animals, small children, and old ladies from being drug underneath? Or perhaps it has another purpose?

[rogruth]

I think it is but Rufus or Dave can tell us better.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Probably a silly question, but what's the cage-like contraption up front? Is this the trolley version of the "cow-catcher", a device intended to keep animals, small children, and old ladies from being drug underneath? Or perhaps it has another purpose?

It is the one of the trolley versions of the "cow-catcher", a device intended to keep animals, small children, and old ladies from being drug underneath?

Scoop & catch them in a basket, sort of.......

[healey36]

Sort of a catch-and-release system, makes sense. Vaguely similar to the clam-rake-and-basket my uncle used down at the shore.