[PRCo] Fwd: On This Day in History: October 31: A Farewell Clang, Clang, Clang

[James B. Holland]

--- In PCC_Cars at yahos.com, "Peter Folger" <transitman at ...> wrote:

On This Day in History: October 31: A Farewell Clang, Clang, Clang.

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=23&id=1\
6404

BROOKLYN - When Brooklyn's original horsecar operation began in 1854,
the fare was four cents on one of the dark brown-painted cars. Four
horses were required to pull cars on the Myrtle Avenue line and each was
adorned with rows of bells to alert Brooklynites of their presence.
Pedestrians heard the bells and they dodged (the ones that didn't might
have wound up with a broken leg or worse).

When the electric streetcars came in the late 1800s, it was Brooklyn
that embraced the clang-clangers with great enthusiasm. There were so
many electric vehicles that Brooklynites became commonly known as
"Trolley Dodgers." That is how the borough's baseball team came to be
named the "Dodgers" when the "Trolley" part was dropped.

The Myrtle Avenue line was one of the four original horsecar rail lines
owned and operated by the Brooklyn City Railroad, which had been
incorporated on Dec. 17, 1853. By the early 1900s, the electric
streetcar was the primary means of transportation in Brooklyn and the
golden age of trolleys lasted for the next four decades through World
War II. Through these golden years, the trolley became an integral and
vital part of Brooklyn culture and provided generation after generation
with fond memories. The morning and evening rides became a ritual for
business commuters who traveled the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges
on their daily runs to and from Manhattan. And there were those
wonderful lines which delivered fans to Ebbets Field. And there were
those which carried millions to America's favorite amusement park, Coney
Island. The streetcars became streamlined and modernized in many ways
over the years of mergers and consolidation of the companies that
operated them. Eventually there was a vast 3000-car, 500-mile track
trolley system that New York City inherited under its "Transit
Unification" plan of June 1, 1940, which included the subway systems.
The city was considering replacing the streetcars with motor buses.

A reprieve from that plan came along with World War II. Wartime gasoline
restrictions limited automobile and bus use enabling streetcars to
remain a necessary and successful aspect of the city's transit system.
The period between 1941 and 1945 was a second golden age of trolleys in
Brooklyn as virtually every usable piece of rolling stock was trotted
out of the car barns to fill the demand.

With the end of WW II, trolley line after trolley line was replaced by
buses, and sometimes electric coaches. The burial site of the trolleys
as they were replaced was a sad experience to many trolley "fans."

Finally, only three trolley lines remained in operation on the streets
of Brooklyn - the McDonald Avenue route, Coney Island Avenue and the
Church Avenue runs. Oct. 31, 1956 was the last day of trolley service in
Brooklyn.

Historian Edward B. Watson (author of "One Hundred Years of Street
Railways in Brooklyn") described the end: "Trolley passenger service
ended in Brooklyn forever in the small hours of the morning and a gray
and sad morning it was! The last McDonald Avenue Car #1042, left 9th
Avenue deport at 2:27 AM (Run 13) and from Coney Island Terminal at 3:04
AM. The McDonald Avenue line became a shuttle from the 16th Avenue Loop
on Run 145. The last full McDonald Avenue run (#13) ended at 9th Avenue
at 3:34 AM. The last 16th Avenue run (#14) ended at 9th Avenue at 5:20
AM, the finale!

"On the Church Avenue Line the last car to run in regular passenger
service in Brooklyn, thus ending 102 years of surface rail
transportation, was #1039. The last run was #63 which left the Bristol
St.

Loop at 4:50 AM amidst newspaper photographers . Car #1039 left the 39th
St. Ferry Loop at 5:36 AM and finally ended the last run at McDonald
Avenue and Church at 5:52 AM. Hail and Farewell!" Brooklyn's lovely age
of the trolley clanged to a close.


© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007

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