[PRCo] Cleveland trolley timetline article

[Bob Rathke]

Herb,

The online article is below.  A friend in Cleveland also send me the
1-1/2-page newspaper clipping which includes six old photos, an illustration
of a Cleveland PCC and a large cutaway illustration of a 4000 series Peter
Witt car that depicts the enter/exit/fare procedure.  If you'd like to have
a Xerox copy of the article, give me your mailing address.

Bob 1/31/04

-----------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <LeviGuyCleveland at aol.com>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 12:43 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Cleveland trolley timetline article



> I am very interested. I seldom read the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I settle
for
> CNN, Ohio News Network, and the Cleveland Free Times (the REAL WORLD
newspaper
> in Cleveland). Contact me off-list and I will give you my address.
>
> HrB

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When streetcars owned the road

01/23/04

Rich Exner
Plain Dealer Reporter


The No. 4051 streetcar rolled west from Public Square
in the wee hours of the morning, dipping to the lower
level of the Detroit-Superior Bridge.

It emerged from Cleveland's old subway at West 25th
Street and Franklin Boulevard, headed west and reached
the end of the line at Madison and Spring Garden
avenues in Lakewood at 1:35 a.m.

It was the end of an era.

Fifty years ago Saturday Jan. 24, 1954 the last
streetcar line in Ohio ceased operation.

For nearly 100 years, the streetcars first powered by
horses and then by overhead electrical lines traveled
over rails to carry Clevelanders to work and play.

Euclid Beach Park was served until 1951. Streetcars
ran on the city's main street, Euclid Avenue, until
1952. Longtime residents harbor fond memories of
riding downtown to shop at Halle's, Higbee's,
Sterling-Lindner, the May Co. and other popular
stores.

Newspaper accounts from 1954 said the first bus on the
Madison Line, which left Public Square five minutes
before the last streetcar, was greeted along the way
by boos.

A sign posted in front of People's Methodist Church on
West 65th Street said: "Madison Streetcars: Thank you!
You have brought many people to this church! Goodbye!"
The Plain Dealer identified Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B.
Edwards, who boarded at Bunts Road in Lakewood, as the
last paying customers. The fare: 15 cents.

An estimated 10,000 people took free rides between
Public Square and West 65th Street later that day in a
farewell promotion. The free rides were supposed to
end at 3:30 p.m., but the throng kept the streetcars
filled until near dark.

"It was quite an event," Jack Ainsley, a former
Clevelander who now lives in Parma, said during a
recent interview. "A lot of trolley car buffs like
myself, we hated to see it go. The trolley still has
quite a role to play in the development of our cities.
And it was just scrapped to junk."

Ainsley chose to follow by car instead of ride in a
streetcar on that final day. But his essay published
in the book "Cleveland's Transit Vehicles" re-creates
a typical ride on the lower level of the
Detroit-Superior (now Veterans Memorial) Bridge.

"The clatter of steel in the narrow confines of the
entrances, particularly on the West Side, was almost
deafening when the car windows were open. . . .
Conversations had to be interrupted entirely whenever
two cars passed on the ramp. Even a blind and deaf
person would know that he or she was on the West
25th-Detroit subway by feeling its dampness and
smelling the burnt electricity."

The Cleveland Transit System waxed nostalgic about
streetcar history in a souvenir program distributed
that final day, but it also promoted modernization.

Since the public transit system took over for the
private Cleveland Railway Co. in 1942, the system had
modernized 28 main lines from "antiquated streetcar to
bus or trackless trolley." Trackless trolleys were
buses with rubber tires but still powered by overhead
electrical lines.

The new off-street rapid rail line from East Cleveland
to West 117th Street would open soon. In addition, a
long-talked-about downtown subway would "finally
become a reality because residents of Cuyahoga County
voted overwhelmingly for it at the 1953 election." The
rapid line did open in 1955. The more extensive subway
never did.

"It was just another example of out with the old and
in with the new," local transit historian Blaine Hays
of Parma said of the streetcar's demise. The retired
Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority
maintenance worker has co-authored six transit books,
including "Cleveland's Transit Vehicles" and "Horse
Trails to Regional Rails."

"I think most people regarded it as a sad occasion,
but I think the people in power wanted to move on to a
new, better thing," Hays said.

The last streetcars used in 1954 were scrapped. In
1952, 75 newer streetcars originally intended for use
on what is now RTA's Red Line rapid, were sold to the
city of Toronto. Some of those cars were used as late
as 1982 on Toronto's busy trolley system.

There are, however, plenty of efforts to keep the
streetcar history alive locally.

The Northern Ohio Railway Museum, which has about 40
old trolleys in storage and one mile of track in
Medina County near Chippewa Lake, is attempting to
raise money to open a museum to the public "as soon as
we can," said Hays, the museum's spokesman. There is
no timetable.

Trolleyville U.S.A., which formerly operated a museum
and provided rides in Olmsted Township, hopes to move
its collection of about 40 cars to the Flats and
operate limited runs on RTA's Waterfront Line. The
goal is to move within two years, though money is
needed, Director Mark Brookins said.

The special collections department at the Cleveland
State University Library is sorting through a recent
gift of thousands of streetcar-related photographs,
adding to a wide collection at the university,
librarian William Barrow said. Many of the pictures
can be viewed at www.clevelandmemory.org.

RTA this year plans to buy 11 buses that look like
trolleys to run downtown Loop routes in an effort to
stir up interest in response to requests from downtown
businesses.

The lure of streetcar memories is a natural, Brookins
said.

"A lot of people like to reminisce about things from
the past, not only streetcars, but antique cars, old
boats, old buildings," Brookins said. "It's just
something from Cleveland's past."

The streetcar was a way of life for many people right
to the end.

"I want to cry," Clevelander James Shikner, 65, one of
the last fare-paying customers, was quoted in The
Plain Dealer at the time.

"I ride the streetcars since I came here from Praha
[Czechoslovakia] in 1907," Shikner continued. "The
streetcar takes a little time. I read the paper. I
always get there."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

rexner at plaind.com, 216-999-3505