Subway, Elevated, Trolley & Traction Lines photos

[rogruth]

Maybe temporary trucks?

[healey36]

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.

Streetcars hung on in Baltimore until the early 1960s (at least the line out to Catonsville where my grandparents lived). By the mid-1960s, they were all gone and the buses had taken over. Besides an occasional ride with my grandmother, I can remember riding with The Old Man in his car while following a streetcar. Drafting a streetcar on a still, humid day, one could get a healthy whiff of ozone. I don't remember them being particularly quiet, especially on any significant curve in the line where the screeching was loud. We're fortunate to have a nice streetcar museum here in Baltimore that runs over part of the old Ma & Pa line. The sound of the streetcars gives me flashbacks of my grandparents (that and the sound of an old oscillating table fan).

[healey36]

"Birmingham, Birmingham,
The greatest city in Alabam'.
You can travel across this entire land,
There ain't no place like Birmingham."

Randy Newman, Birmingham, from Good Old Boys, 1974

Passed through Birmingham in the grand tour of 1976. One doesn't think of steel mills being part of the south, but that's one of the legacies of this town. Back in the day they had streetcars, too, like most of the larger cities in this country:



Must get hot in Birmingham, can't imagine what it must have been like in the smelter. My mate Eric's mother, a resident of Atlanta in her later years, used to say it got "hotter than hell and half of Georgia".

Second Avenue, Birmingham, Alabama, 1906, Detroit Publishing Company, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[J. S. Bach]

Nice, a Brill semi-converted to a work car; and with shoes instead of wheels on the poles. Where was it taken?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Nice, a Brill semi-converted to a work car; and with shoes instead of wheels on the poles. Where was it taken?

Indiana.

[healey36]

A bit off topic, a McKeen Motor Car built for the Southern Utah Railroad and delivered in 1917:



Apparently, this was one of the last cars built by McKeen, the company falling into insolvency and being acquired by the Union Pacific in 1920. No. 100 was built to operate over the steep grades of the SURR, a railroad originally constructed to service the mines of the Consolidated Fuel Company which had a connection with the Denver & Rio Grande at Price, Utah. The car was intended as a replacement for the company's steam passenger equipment.

A history of motor car no. 100 can be found here:

https://utahrails.net/utahrails/surr-mckeen.php

According to Railway Age Gazette, the car was equipped with McKeen's "standard 300hp motor unit mounted on a six-wheel driving truck, of which the two forward axles do the driving and the rear axle acts as a trailer. The forward axle is connected to the main axle by rods." By most accounts, the motor car was an operating failure.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Neat! 6 wheel truck is one I've not seen before........open up all sorts of silliness to be pursued!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

The tall bowler, otherwise known as the derby hat...those were in style for what, twenty minutes? My grandfather was a bowler man, but never a derby. I wonder what the year is on that card...probably predates him.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The tall bowler, otherwise known as the derby hat...those were in style for what, twenty minutes?

Curly Howard was a fan of them,

I wonder what the year is on that card...probably predates him.

Was described as being in the "1900's"

[healey36]

Well, my grandfather was born in 1895, so probably right in his wheelhouse.

Little Rock, Arkansas, 1910:



I zoomed in to get a glimpse of that jeweler's sign...looks like a good project for Rufus.

Reminds me, we used to have a place around Baltimore called Polock Johnny's...their specialty was polish sausage sandwiches. Greatest thing ever. Tasted wonderful loaded with grilled onions and peppers. You just needed to get home before the cramping started, lol.

Healey

[rogruth]

So many of the photos from that time seem to me that they could have been taken in almost anypart of the country.
They are not but many look like my home town area of eastern Ohio. Most make me rather nostalgic.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[rogruth]

What's going on here? Man on the roof of the near car and looks like some activity in the background.
The message written on the card might tell but I can't read it.