I have hundreds of feet of color movie film of the CTA Marmon-Herrington trolley coaches in their last days of operation. I worked long and hard to try to convince the CTA to retain the trolley coaches, but my efforts failed. But my efforts were successful in Dayton, Ohio, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Seattle. For my efforts and hard work in Chicago, a local group back then presented me with a gorgeous, framed water-color painting of a CTA Marmon. That painting hangs proudly on the wall of my computer room 51 years later here in New Jersey where I live. Speaking of Marmon trolley coaches, I have three of them from Philadelphia {called trackless trolleys there} in my vintage transit vehicle collection. Also in my vehicle collection is a Philly 1947 Brill, a 1947 Dayton Pullman and a 1939 Mack from Wilmington, Delaware.
Great memories of our mother taking us kids from Galewood down North Ave to North Ave Beach on these trolley buses. I remember the poles losing connection with the electric wire and the bus driver would have to go to the back of the bus with a long wooden pole to reconnect it.
This post really brings back memories of the many times I stayed with my grandparents near Belmont and Laramie in the 50’s and 60’s. So many times we would take the Belmont bus to what is now the “red line” to go to the loop. Chicago’s transit system was so easy to use that they never even had driver’s licenses.
I remember these when I was very little. Every now and then the bus would lose connection with the overhead wires. Driver had a big pole he’d use to get it back on track. Can’t believe they ran till ‘73 my high school graduation year. Great video!
They didn't need additional infrastructure, they just ran where existing lines were. They had the advantage of being able to detour occasional obstructions that halted rail bound trolleys.
and these didn’t need batteries. running straight from the grid. we used to try and knock off the trolley connectors with snowballs when I was a kid and make the bus driver get out and reconnect. Loved riding these busses. Heard his comment on the propane bus. did they use propane as a transition fuel for some of the electric fleet while the gas busses were deployed?
I recall a huge coal power plant on Addison and California. You could see huge piles of coal/cinders. The buses were pollution free but the plants supplying the power to the buses were not. The snow on the ground in winter would have black ash spread across it. The electric cars today still face the same issue.
124 Marmon Herrington trolleybuses from Chicago were sent to Guadalajara in 1972, I met them in 1980 and the crush was instantaneous, I was 8 years old; ...... this year I am about to finish a book about trolleybuses, in it I drew a miniature with a Marmon from Chicago, yes; the Marmon TC49 is designed in the Chicago color scheme of white and green. Thanks for sharing!!!
Awesome video!! Thanks for capturing the end of an era. I believe the turn-ins identified as Belmont and Octavia were actually at Cumberland, and the next one identified as Cumberland was actually Octavia. The first Irving Park clip after the ones at Neenah is crossing Central. You were right, 01/13/1973 was the last day of electric operation on Roosevelt also. Only two days later, Grand had its last day - a week after that we lost Fullerton too. After that only North, Pulaski and Cicero survived. North until 03/23 and Pulaski & Cicero until the overall final day, early in the morning of 03/25. Thanks again!!!
Octavia was the original end of the city limits. West o f that was Belmont Heights, until chicago acquired the suburb. The line was then extended to Cumberland
I Remember riding the Trolley Buses in "1972" for the first time I Was 13 years Old Sparks Used to fly Off Poles When it Struck the Line those Were fund Memories in Chicago Illinois!!! 👍🏾💞😎
Fantastic video. Losing those trolley buses were a crime against humanity. From your video, it appears as if everyone was speeding. January 13, 1973 must have been a cold day. Thanks for sharing your memories with us for all posterity.
I grew up in Chicago! I remember these buses and rode on some. They were the good old days. I used to take these buses on North Avenue to Lincoln Park and back! WOW! thank you for these historic pictures! Brings back a slew of memories!
Thanks for fantastic video and your style of presentation. Was born in Chicago in '57 and remember quite well the trolley buses. Shame they had to go. Were very dependable and still used in many European countries today.
Not only Europe including Russia and Ukraine, but also Turkey, Morocco, China with 13 cities and a host of trolleybus manufacturing companies, Latin America with Brazil and Mexico at the forefront
🔴🦅🇺🇸🦅, I grew up in Chicago, I used to ride the trolley back and forth to work to the bicycle shop I was employed By after school , Great footage 🎥🎞️📺 👍👍👍‼️
I remember these growing up in Chicago. Left in 1971 for college in New Mexico but returned for work during the summer and Christmas Break. Returned in May 1973 and no electric busses on Montrose or Lawrence. Dad said they were all gone. The end of an era.
Thanks Dad--love your productions. I actually don't remember the trolly buses in the 70s. Probably because by then, I was driving everywhere. I certainly remember them in the 50s though.
I grew up near Huron and Cicero Ave. in the 50's. I remember my mom taking me on the Chicago Ave bus to shop at Montgomery Wards. I went to Our Lady Help of Christians grammar school and church. We always walked unless it was really cold. Getting bus money was a real treat. Years later I took the bus everywhere, but especially to North Ave beach in the summer. The trolley buses were reasonably quiet and comfortable. I liked putting my coins in the fare box and getting a transfer. The diesel replacement buses were awful. They belched out black smoke, were very loud, and smelled awful. Thanks for reminding me of the good old days.
Going to Columbia College,1968 to 1971, was located on Lake Shore Drive, across from Navy Pier. The Grand Avenue Trolly Bus heading east was the way to get to the college from State Street. These trollies would turn around by Navy Pier to head back west on Grand avenue.
I only ever rode the trolley busses once or twice; there were street cars on the Cottage Grove line when I was a kid. This vid brings back memories. Thanks.
We had trollies in Columbus Ohio until sometime in the late1960's I think. I used to ride them all the time. We lived in Linden and rode the Cleveland Ave. line to down town when we were like 10 years old in the 1950's ! Can you imagine that happening today ? I remember riding the trollies in my freshman high school year but then I bought my first car and never rode them again. I can distinctly remember a conversation between a bus driver and a man as we rode on the Cleveland Ave. bus during the final days of their existence. The driver said that we were lucky that the Cleveland Ave line was one of the last to be converted to the diesel buses. He said the the exhaust from the diesel was just awful. I had heard that the conversion of trollies to diesel was a plan of General Motors who made the diesels. True or not I don't know. But even today at 78 years I miss those beautiful yellow trollies as they always took me to where I wanted to go. Loved your video. Thanks.
Great video! Thanks for posting. I noticed at about 5:47 at the Central Ave. stop, Portage Park on the left (my old neighborhood). Brings back great memories.
Thank you, this is awesome. To think we had zero Emission busses 50 years ago and gave it up for those stinky Diesels. I spoke to an old CTA employee who said these busses were very quick and had great heat.
absolutely nobody thought in those terms back then. they switched to diesel because it was cheaper than electricity at the time and they wanted more flexibility to change routes quickly to match the population growth. what a time we live in now.
Thanks so much. Really appreciate your efforts from 50 years ago. We had these in Toronto (just imagine the green replaced by dark red). Wish they never got rid of them. Very powerful acceleration, smooth and quiet. Moreso than the streetcars we now have (plus diesel electric busses made in China). One streetcar gets stuck for whatever reason (breakdown, security incident, etc.) and all the ones behind are also stuck. Also prevents automobiles from getting past unless you illegally and dangerously try the oncoming lane. . Major delays and gridlock. With the trolley busses they simply coasted to the curb and pulled their poles down. Busses behind simply drove past the broken bus.
In winter the best seat was in the back over the resistor bank, it was always warm. It was entertaining when a driver would forget he was driving an electric, and attempted to pass a bus at a stop. Then he would have to get out and reset the trolley poles. During ice storms the trolleys could not get good contact with the wire, and would lurch along with lots of sparks. CTA had its own DC 600V power stations. Massive cables along streets with electric busses. Expensive.
According to the book, "Transit's Stepchild, The Trolley Coach," North American, 1973 trolleybus operations came to an end not only in Chicago but Kitchner, ON as well.
VIDEO SPEED: You can slow down the speed of a RUclips video. At the bottom right corner of the video display you will see a white cog wheel. This is for the settings. Click on it and you will see "Playback Speed". Click on that and you will see several playback speeds shown, including "Normal". To slow down the playback speed for this video click on 0.75. The video will now play slower and look better. Be sure to return Playback Speed to Normal when you have finished viewing the video.
I was born in Chicago in 1969, so a bit too young to remember these, unfortunately. I do recall in the later 70s seeing remnants of streetcar tracks and assumed (in my 8 or 9 year old mind) that they had stopped running in the late 1800s not realizing that streetcars were in use until about 20 years prior.
Trolley buses never served the 126 and the last day of service for them in the city was early in the morning of 03/25/1973 on 53 Pulaski and 54 Cicero.
It is insanity that trolleybuses were removed. They are superior in regards to fuel-efficiency and pollution. It's sad in the same fashion as the removal of train lines were. I'm from Sweden and I think that it was a similar process all over the western world in the 60s and the 70s. The automobile was supposed to reign supreme in the future. It was a sad development.
The last trolley bus i was on was Roosevelt road in 1970. Those were the only viable EVs I can imagine but they complained that they were'a hazard to traffic'. They were fast and had no brakes,merely take your foot of the accelerator.
Of course they had brakes. In fact they had three types of brakes - friction, air and regenerative. The trolley buses in Milwaukee did have a unique feature in their power pedal. If you took your foot completely off the power pedal, the brakes would begin to apply.
So sad. Vancouver is now maybe the only city in N.America that has kept their trolley buses. I used to love riding on the old Brill trolleys and I think they've kept one or two for special occasion trips. Since the Brills were retired in the late 70s they were replaced with New Flyers and not sure what they've using today, some space age looking ones my guess. The other thing noticeable is that I can tell what make and model most of those cars are instantly, not like today they all look the same.
@@SMartinTX Boston discontinued their final trolley bus operations in the first part of 2022. I believe Philadelphia continues to operate trolleybuses on some routes.
The contact was a U shaped carbon shoe which resisted lateral movement. If one or both popped off the wire AND the bus had not yet drifted to far away from the overhead wires then it was relatively easy for the driver to get out and reposition the shoes back onto the wires. I know this because I used to drive this type of bus during summer of 1969 as a college student who was hired for the summer months. The full time bus drivers wanted to have summer vacations. So CTA hired college kids during then summer months. Great job and paid very well.
@@thomasomeara4705 thank you for writing. The trolley busses must have had very good starting acceleration as the video shows. Must have been a summer driver
They were until late 80's when they were finally retired and dismantled. They came to Guadalajara, were refurbished and operated from 1976 to 1989/90 as far as I remember. There was even an attempt to wholly renovate them with new bodies but only one of then was rejuvenated (it wasn't as cost-effective as they hoped). Not one of these single trolleybuses was kept, and their former depot is now a government-operated impound lot.
A stupid complaint really, trolleys are pretty cheap since they don't need engines or batteries, electric with almost no emissions, modern ones are very quiet, and the wires aren't really that bad
@@HF7-AD Plus, the technology has advanced far enough that they can be unobtrusive and less visible than power lines. The idea that diesel is cheaper is also a flat out lie.
I remember those busses.
They were quiet, and their acceleration/deceleration was smooth and even.
I liked them.
Same!
I have hundreds of feet of color movie film of the CTA Marmon-Herrington trolley coaches in their last days of operation. I worked long and hard to try to convince the CTA to retain the trolley coaches, but my efforts failed. But my efforts were successful in Dayton, Ohio, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Seattle. For my efforts and hard work in Chicago, a local group back then presented me with a gorgeous, framed water-color painting of a CTA Marmon. That painting hangs proudly on the wall of my computer room 51 years later here in New Jersey where I live.
Speaking of Marmon trolley coaches, I have three of them from Philadelphia {called trackless trolleys there} in my vintage transit vehicle collection. Also in my vehicle collection is a Philly 1947 Brill, a 1947 Dayton Pullman and a 1939 Mack from Wilmington, Delaware.
Great memories of our mother taking us kids from Galewood down North Ave to North Ave Beach on these trolley buses. I remember the poles losing connection with the electric wire and the bus driver would have to go to the back of the bus with a long wooden pole to reconnect it.
Oh, yes! The old CTA Chicago Transit Authority Trolley Buses-Gone but not forgotten-50 years ago in 1973
This post really brings back memories of the many times I stayed with my grandparents near Belmont and Laramie in the 50’s and 60’s. So many times we would take the Belmont bus to what is now the “red line” to go to the loop. Chicago’s transit system was so easy to use that they never even had driver’s licenses.
I rode those to Lane Tech, Irving Park to Western. Those electric busses were fast.
I remember these when I was very little. Every now and then the bus would lose connection with the overhead wires. Driver had a big pole he’d use to get it back on track. Can’t believe they ran till ‘73 my high school graduation year. Great video!
I guess because this is way before my time I can’t believe we had an extensive electric bus system like San Francisco still has
By that time about 300 systems around the world were exterminated
They didn't need additional infrastructure, they just ran where existing lines were. They had the advantage of being able to detour occasional obstructions that halted rail bound trolleys.
and these didn’t need batteries. running straight from the grid. we used to try and knock off the trolley connectors with snowballs when I was a kid and make the bus driver get out and reconnect. Loved riding these busses. Heard his comment on the propane bus. did they use propane as a transition fuel for some of the electric fleet while the gas busses were deployed?
My mom took me everywhere on these. And they were pollution free.
We had these buses in the Plainfield, N. J. area during the late 40's and early 50's.
Except the power plants that supplied the lines.
@@Mullikia that’s true!
fake ! they pollute more than regular Diesel buses because of coal
I recall a huge coal power plant on Addison and California. You could see huge piles of coal/cinders. The buses were pollution free but the plants supplying the power to the buses were not. The snow on the ground in winter would have black ash spread across it. The electric cars today still face the same issue.
124 Marmon Herrington trolleybuses from Chicago were sent to Guadalajara in 1972, I met them in 1980 and the crush was instantaneous, I was 8 years old; ...... this year I am about to finish a book about trolleybuses, in it I drew a miniature with a Marmon from Chicago, yes; the Marmon TC49 is designed in the Chicago color scheme of white and green. Thanks for sharing!!!
I wondered where they went when they left Chicago.
Is your book finished? I have a ton of material that I could have contributed.
Not yet, but it's weeks away, only small details are missing and it will be sent to the printer.@@Jeff-uj8xi
Awesome video!! Thanks for capturing the end of an era. I believe the turn-ins identified as Belmont and Octavia were actually at Cumberland, and the next one identified as Cumberland was actually Octavia. The first Irving Park clip after the ones at Neenah is crossing Central. You were right, 01/13/1973 was the last day of electric operation on Roosevelt also. Only two days later, Grand had its last day - a week after that we lost Fullerton too. After that only North, Pulaski and Cicero survived. North until 03/23 and Pulaski & Cicero until the overall final day, early in the morning of 03/25. Thanks again!!!
Octavia was the original end of the city limits. West o f that was Belmont Heights, until chicago acquired the suburb. The line was then extended to Cumberland
The route was extended west to Pacific on 05/30/1931. It wasn't until 01/09/1949 that it went all the way to Cumberland.
I Remember riding the Trolley Buses in "1972" for the first time I Was 13 years Old Sparks Used to fly Off Poles When it Struck the Line those Were fund Memories in Chicago Illinois!!! 👍🏾💞😎
Almost EVERYBODY liked them...except the hack politicians and bureaucratic drones in charge of our transit systems.
Fantastic video. Losing those trolley buses were a crime against humanity.
From your video, it appears as if everyone was speeding. January 13, 1973 must have been a cold day. Thanks for sharing your memories with us for all posterity.
Yes, Losing those trolley buses were a crime against humanity. By that time about 300 systems around the world were exterminated
I grew up in Chicago! I remember these buses and rode on some. They were the good old days. I used to take these buses on North Avenue to Lincoln Park and back! WOW! thank you for these historic pictures! Brings back a slew of memories!
I was young I remember riding these busses. I remember seeing sparks and being fascinated by that. Sweet memories of Childhood ❤️
Thanks for fantastic video and your style of presentation. Was born in Chicago in '57 and remember quite well the trolley buses. Shame they had to go. Were very dependable and still used in many European countries today.
Not only Europe including Russia and Ukraine, but also Turkey, Morocco, China with 13 cities and a host of trolleybus manufacturing companies, Latin America with Brazil and Mexico at the forefront
@@ASURLUIS Spacibo Jose Lewis za informatciya!
@@thomasludwig9117 Jejeje, Thanks for "Spacibo" but I'm Mexican and I speak Spanish, ...... I'm not Russian
Thank yo for the video and narration. It brings back memories of my youth riding the trolley busses in Cincinnati, Ohio
🔴🦅🇺🇸🦅, I grew up in Chicago, I used to ride the trolley back and forth to work to the bicycle shop I was employed By after school , Great footage 🎥🎞️📺 👍👍👍‼️
Thank you for preserving this history for us.
I remember these growing up in Chicago. Left in 1971 for college in New Mexico but returned for work during the summer and Christmas Break. Returned in May 1973 and no electric busses on Montrose or Lawrence. Dad said they were all gone. The end of an era.
oh! I had no idea of the existence of propane traction during my childhood...stellar recordings documenting the day's ordinariness
Thanks Dad--love your productions. I actually don't remember the trolly buses in the 70s. Probably because by then, I was driving everywhere. I certainly remember them in the 50s though.
I grew up near Huron and Cicero Ave. in the 50's. I remember my mom taking me on the Chicago Ave bus to shop at Montgomery Wards. I went to Our Lady Help of Christians grammar school and church. We always walked unless it was really cold. Getting bus money was a real treat. Years later I took the bus everywhere, but especially to North Ave beach in the summer. The trolley buses were reasonably quiet and comfortable. I liked putting my coins in the fare box and getting a transfer. The diesel replacement buses were awful. They belched out black smoke, were very loud, and smelled awful. Thanks for reminding me of the good old days.
This is great. Sad, but excellent production.
Going to Columbia College,1968 to 1971, was located on Lake Shore Drive, across from Navy Pier. The Grand Avenue Trolly Bus heading east was the way to get to the college from State Street. These trollies would turn around by Navy Pier to head back west on Grand avenue.
I only ever rode the trolley busses once or twice; there were street cars on the Cottage Grove line when I was a kid. This vid brings back memories. Thanks.
Thank you for posting this vintage video. Grew up near the 81 Lawrence Ave. which had the Trolleys.
You chicagoans were very lucky. our trolley bus service ended here in N.Y.C. thirteen years ago (1960)
We had trollies in Columbus Ohio until sometime in the late1960's I think. I used to ride them all the time.
We lived in Linden and rode the Cleveland Ave. line to down town when we were like 10 years old in the 1950's ! Can you imagine that happening today ?
I remember riding the trollies in my freshman high school year but then I bought my first car and never rode them again.
I can distinctly remember a conversation between a bus driver and a man as we rode on the Cleveland Ave. bus during the final days of their existence.
The driver said that we were lucky that the Cleveland Ave line was one of the last to be converted to the diesel buses. He said the the exhaust from the diesel was just awful.
I had heard that the conversion of trollies to diesel was a plan of General Motors who made the diesels. True or not I don't know.
But even today at 78 years I miss those beautiful yellow trollies as they always took me to where I wanted to go.
Loved your video. Thanks.
Great video! Thanks for posting. I noticed at about 5:47 at the Central Ave. stop, Portage Park on the left (my old neighborhood). Brings back great memories.
Such fond memories of riding those buses and being enthralled when the driver had to get out and put a dodad back on the cable. Thanks for this video
LOL You mean put the trolley poles back on the trolley wires.
Thank you, this is awesome. To think we had zero Emission busses 50 years ago and gave it up for those stinky Diesels. I spoke to an old CTA employee who said these busses were very quick and had great heat.
absolutely nobody thought in those terms back then. they switched to diesel because it was cheaper than electricity at the time and they wanted more flexibility to change routes quickly to match the population growth. what a time we live in now.
Portland just installed the same type of system Chicago dumped 50 years ago. That city is screwed.
@@sundogaudio851
All that electricity they used was from coal-burning generating plants.
Great video, thanks for posting
Thanks so much. Really appreciate your efforts from 50 years ago. We had these in Toronto (just imagine the green replaced by dark red). Wish they never got rid of them. Very powerful acceleration, smooth and quiet. Moreso than the streetcars we now have (plus diesel electric busses made in China). One streetcar gets stuck for whatever reason (breakdown, security incident, etc.) and all the ones behind are also stuck. Also prevents automobiles from getting past unless you illegally and dangerously try the oncoming lane. . Major delays and gridlock. With the trolley busses they simply coasted to the curb and pulled their poles down. Busses behind simply drove past the broken bus.
I was a senior at Gordon Tech. Rode the Irving Park bus everyday school day.
Excellent video. Thanks for the memories.
In winter the best seat was in the back over the resistor bank, it was always warm.
It was entertaining when a driver would forget he was driving an electric, and attempted to pass a bus at a stop. Then he would have to get out and reset the trolley poles. During ice storms the trolleys could not get good contact with the wire, and would lurch along with lots of sparks. CTA had its own DC 600V power stations. Massive cables along streets with electric busses. Expensive.
I always remember the turn around at Belmont and Halstead with a flower shop on the corner.
Two of Chicago's Marmon-Herrington trolley buses are preserved, and occasionally operate, at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL.
It's interesting that these trolley coaches stopped running just months before the energy crisis that year.
I rode one of these visiting Chicago in the 1960's
I'm on Belmont now monitoring busses. I took the Belmont bus when I was a kid, I remember those things coming off the lines and sparks.
I rode that bus to St. Ferdinands catholic school as a kid. Can you imagine a little kid riding alone on a bus today??
1973 was a year, where many places abandoned trolley bus
By that time about 300 systems around the world were exterminated
According to the book, "Transit's Stepchild, The Trolley Coach," North American, 1973 trolleybus operations came to an end not only in Chicago but Kitchner, ON as well.
VIDEO SPEED: You can slow down the speed of a RUclips video. At the bottom right corner of the video display you will see a white cog wheel. This is for the settings. Click on it and you will see "Playback Speed". Click on that and you will see several playback speeds shown, including "Normal". To slow down the playback speed for this video click on 0.75. The video will now play slower and look better. Be sure to return Playback Speed to Normal when you have finished viewing the video.
I remember those buses we had one on Roosevelt Road. They made a lot of noise, and they vibrated at a certain speed.
Looking at these electric trolly’s, I always wonder how long it took to string all the overhead wires throughout the city initially…
I was born in Chicago in 1969, so a bit too young to remember these, unfortunately. I do recall in the later 70s seeing remnants of streetcar tracks and assumed (in my 8 or 9 year old mind) that they had stopped running in the late 1800s not realizing that streetcars were in use until about 20 years prior.
we rode cousins ,relatives the CTA for long time Awsome Times!!!!
In the 1960s as a Kid My Family Took the CTA Trolley Bus on Roosevelt (12th Street) Avenue.
Wow nice shot of Dunning
The last time I remember seeing the trolly buses was in 1975 they ran on the 126 Jackson line back then
Trolley buses never served the 126 and the last day of service for them in the city was early in the morning of 03/25/1973 on 53 Pulaski and 54 Cicero.
En Valparaíso Chile todavía funcionan esto trolley bus,,,,, desde 1948 que arribaron primero a Santiago y en 1952 en Valparaiso
ruclips.net/video/ZO4hDYQIBBk/видео.html
I took a trolley bus down Irving Park Ave to Lake view HS.
It is insanity that trolleybuses were removed. They are superior in regards to fuel-efficiency and pollution. It's sad in the same fashion as the removal of train lines were. I'm from Sweden and I think that it was a similar process all over the western world in the 60s and the 70s. The automobile was supposed to reign supreme in the future. It was a sad development.
imagine what the electric cost would be today...
These look very similar to the old style GMC bus
The last trolley bus i was on was Roosevelt road in 1970. Those were the only viable EVs I can imagine but they complained that they were'a hazard to traffic'. They were fast and had no brakes,merely take your foot of the accelerator.
Of course they had brakes. In fact they had three types of brakes - friction, air and regenerative. The trolley buses in Milwaukee did have a unique feature in their power pedal. If you took your foot completely off the power pedal, the brakes would begin to apply.
I rode the grand ave electric (bus) in December of 1973
@Dad T, I was 13 years old in 1973.
Kedzie Avenue at Archer Avenue had the trolley buses.
E buses and trolleys certainly added less air pollution to the city centers.
Hell i remember the streetcars on clark street.
So sad. Vancouver is now maybe the only city in N.America that has kept their trolley buses. I used to love riding on the old Brill trolleys and I think they've kept one or two for special occasion trips. Since the Brills were retired in the late 70s they were replaced with New Flyers and not sure what they've using today, some space age looking ones my guess. The other thing noticeable is that I can tell what make and model most of those cars are instantly, not like today they all look the same.
Dayton Ohio still operates trolley busses.
San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston still have trolley buses.
@@SMartinTX Boston discontinued their final trolley bus operations in the first part of 2022. I believe Philadelphia continues to operate trolleybuses on some routes.
@@philfurrow9026 If you haven't already seen it check out my RUclips video- "Christmas trolleybus Dayton OH 1985".
When I was young, these busses were operating in Toronto in Canada
Those electric buses were a problem in snowy winters. Because buses could not pass another they had chain delays.
Does anyone remember the Kedzie barn.
I do remember the trolley busses why did they stop the service
Basically, the economics of maintaining the overhead wire infrastructure.
Why did they get rid of them?
Diesel was cheaper, and the 1967 blizzard showed busses tethered to overhead power couldn't navigate around snowbound cars and such.
Little over 2 months before I was born.
How did the keep the electric pickups on the wires with all the manuvering?
Springs that held tension of the trolley poles against the overhead wires.
The contact was a U shaped carbon shoe which resisted lateral movement. If one or both popped off the wire AND the bus had not yet drifted to far away from the overhead wires then it was relatively easy for the driver to get out and reposition the shoes back onto the wires. I know this because I used to drive this type of bus during summer of 1969 as a college student who was hired for the summer months. The full time bus drivers wanted to have summer vacations. So CTA hired college kids during then summer months. Great job and paid very well.
@@thomasomeara4705 thank you for writing. The trolley busses must have had very good starting acceleration as the video shows. Must have been a summer driver
@@thomasomeara4705 The carbon insert trolley shoes swiveled.
We got rid of these and oil went up big time
Time to bring back the trolley buses
Is this video sped up or were people really driving that fast?
Look at all those American built cars
I believe that those were Marmon Harrington buses?
Yes, but the CTA also operated trolleybuses built by Pullman into the 1960s.
The Pullmans lasted until 1969 as did the St. Louies. The Brills until 1970. The fleet was exclusively Marmons for the last 3 years, until 03/25/1973.
Fond memories, they should have kept them. But that's not the loop.
Why are all the buses and car's speeding?
Maybe the film is 18 fps and was transferred with 24 fps?
I rode on them .memphis tn
Memphis last used electric trolleybuses on April 22, 1960.
Seems like this is an idea whose time has come again??
I was told those electric buses are operating now in Mexico
They were until late 80's when they were finally retired and dismantled. They came to Guadalajara, were refurbished and operated from 1976 to 1989/90 as far as I remember. There was even an attempt to wholly renovate them with new bodies but only one of then was rejuvenated (it wasn't as cost-effective as they hoped). Not one of these single trolleybuses was kept, and their former depot is now a government-operated impound lot.
Let’s spend trillions on new trolley buses. One of the big complaints about them was all the maze of wires above the streets.
A stupid complaint really, trolleys are pretty cheap since they don't need engines or batteries, electric with almost no emissions, modern ones are very quiet, and the wires aren't really that bad
@@HF7-AD Plus, the technology has advanced far enough that they can be unobtrusive and less visible than power lines. The idea that diesel is cheaper is also a flat out lie.
One advantage of the overhead wires if one is not familiar with the area is that the wires make it easier find a bus route.
should of kept them better then them new battery buses
wow.. and today... they think EV;s are all the rage...Probably about 10 cents at that time...
They made an interesting kinda whiney sound
I don't think I can watch this
Poorly narrated, a lot of nothing.
Ur not a trolley fan....