The Lost Streetcars of Cleveland, Ohio
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- Streetcars were once prevalent in downtown Cleveland and most other major U.S. cities. This convenient and cheap form of public transportation made it easy for people to get around to places in downtown areas. At their peak, there were 293 miles of track operated on Cleveland city streets. And combined with the interurban railways that ran into the countryside, there were over 700 miles of track in the Greater Cleveland area. But how did they go from this, to now, just a distant memory? In this video, we'll take a look at the rise and fall of Cleveland's Streetcars.
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Works Cited/Further Reading
Hopkins, William Rowland. The Street Railway Problem in Cleveland. American economic association, 1896. books.google.c...
McGraw Pub. Co. The Street Railway Journal. 1884-1906. library.si.edu...
"The Cable System. Incorporation of the Company Which Will Operate the St. Clair Street, Payne." Plain Dealer, 28 Feb. 1889, p. 6. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-1259A22817A6CB95%402411062-12594F837A541F9A%405- 1382F4B634F70E38%40The%2BCable%2BSystem.%2BIncorporation%2Bof%2Bthe%2BCompany%2BWhich%2BWill%2BOperate%2Bthe%2BSt.%2BClair%2BStreet%252C%2BPayne. Accessed 5 May 2022.
"The Cable Road. Progress in the Plans for the Big Enterprise. Earnings of Street Railways." Plain Dealer, 10 Aug. 1889, p. 5. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-125AE19FD053B94A%402411225-12594F8932BCDD68%404- 138329A3E1C7B8E5%40The%2BCable%2BRoad.%2BProgress%2Bin%2Bthe%2BPlans%2Bfor%2Bthe%2BBig%2BEnterprise.%2BEarnings%2Bof%2BStreet%2BRailways. Accessed 5 May 2022.
"Consolidation. The Mayor Objects to the Coalition of the West Side and Woodland." Plain Dealer, vol. XLII, no. 40, 17 Feb. 1885, p. [1]. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-126084EAF0305817%402409590-1259E2AEB908A241%400- 138E144A484F8A63%40Consolidation.%2BThe%2BMayor%2BObjects%2Bto%2Bthe%2BCoalition%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWest%2BSide%2Band%2BWoodland. Accessed 5 May 2022.
"The Horses Must Go. Meeting Yesterday of the Woodland Avenue & West Side Street Railway." Plain Dealer, no. 128, 8 May 1891, p. 2. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-1259D8FFCCE7C86A%402411861-1258F10B395D0B48%401- 138DEFF09C65EE33%40The%2BHorses%2BMust%2BGo.%2BMeeting%2BYesterday%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWoodland%2BAvenue%2B%2BWest%2BSide%2BStreet%2BRailway. Accessed 5 May 2022.
"Mr. Robison Explains. His Version of Pending Litigation Against the Little Consolidated." Plain Dealer, 3 May 1897, p. 2. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-125BD028E276BC04%402414048-1259E4AEE0444E9E%401- 138442305EFD10FA%40Mr.%2BRobison%2BExplains.%2BHis%2BVersion%2Bof%2BPending%2BLitigation%2BAgainst%2Bthe%2BLittle%2BConsolidated. Accessed 5 May 2022.
"By Land And Sea. Splendid Transportation Facilities Promote Trade. No Inland City More Favorably Situated--A." Plain Dealer, 14 July 1892, p. 25. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-1259EE5F6E7CA2B2%402412294-1258F11DE9664F30%4024- 13849927F93156FA%40By%2BLand%2BAnd%2BSea.%2BSplendid%2BTransportation%2BFacilities%2BPromote%2BTrade.%2BNo%2BInland%2BCity%2BMore%2BFavorably%2BSituated--A. Accessed 4 May 2022.
"Cleveland's Street Railway War. History of the Effort to Secure Lower Fare on City Lines." Plain Dealer, 18 June 1907, p. 4. NewsBank: America's News - Historical and Current, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-125D83939B7926CB%402417745-125C243D8BF34EC2%403- 1389BAF184DCA2F8%40Cleveland%2527s%2BStreet%2BRailway%2BWar.%2BHistory%2Bof%2Bthe%2BEffort%2Bto%2BSecure%2BLower%2BFare%2Bon%2BCity%2BLines. Accessed 6 Feb. 2022.
#Streetcars #ClevelandStreetcars #NorthernOhioRailwayMuseum
First class job on the narration. It's sad to think of the demise of the streetcar around the country. My grandfather was a 3rd generation operator in Washington D.C. He told me in 1962 when they switched to dirty gas power gm buses. Some operators didn't make the switch cause they didn't have a drivers license.
You're correct I lived in Cleveland Ohio back in the 1960's It was .15 cents to ride All day ,
I used to ride with my dad on the DC Transit Barney Circle line. Went down just to the Sousa Bridge & turned around. We lived in Congress Heights then. Thanks for jarring a great memory!
I am born in raised in Cleveland Heights. In my 20 years of driving along the Shaker Heights Blvd RTA line ived only ridden it once. Its crazy to think of all the massive public infrastucture works that joined the distant suburbs of the greater cleveland which now are only silently evidenced by the large grass dividers that seperate many of the 2 lane blvds in the city. Euclid Heights, Fairmount are two example near me, Cedar Hill. Always loved Cleveland and its history and geography so Thanks for the enlightening video
Great video! People can still ride on an old Cleveland streetcar today in Nelson, British Columbia at their streetcar museum which has a beautiful track that runs along the waterfront there. It was build for the Forest City Railway in 1906 as car #3333, a sister-car to the one shown at 20:15 in your video (car #3331 with the mayor posing in the window). The car was retired in Cleveland and sold to Nelson in 1924 where it ran as a reserve / backup car until the late '40s, as part of their small 3 car fleet. The reason car #3333 was selected by Nelson was because it had a small coke stove in the front vestibule to provide heat in the winter - and that was also the reason it survived. After the streetcars were retired in Nelson, the old Cleveland car was kept for use as a changing room for an outdoor skating / hockey rink and the stove was used to warm up people and hot chocolate. The streetcar has now been restored and has been operating as a heritage museum along the waterfront in Nelson for about 30 years - still proud of its Cleveland heritage even a century later.
Thanks! Woah, how cool! I had no idea one of the Forest City Railway streetcars still survived. Thanks for letting me know.
Wonderful and well documented video. I loved the old rail cars and trackless buses.
I lived in Cleveland twice and would ride the rapid from terminal tower west toward the airport.
I can remember hearing the old Shaker Rapid cars arriving at Terminal Tower while I awaited the west side train to arrive. They made a distinctive sound compared to the newer RTA cars.
I think that Cleveland was he first city to connect from downtown to the airport.
Anybody care to correct my memories please feel free to do so. My memory is not as good as it used to be.
Great memories, thanks for sharing! You are correct, when the Red Line was fully completed, it was the first rapid transit connection between a downtown city and airport in the Western Hemisphere.
@@RailroadStreet Unfortunately, their rapid transit system, especially the red line, is sorely old and needs to be replaced. They're constantly doing single tracking or replacing trains with shuttle buses to do patchwork repair.
In the late 70’s I regularly rode the red line between Triskett and Downtown but many times I’d stay on it on my way home, to the airport and then back to Triskett just for fun. Many times they’d really pick up the pace and be overtaking I71 traffic quite handily (55mph speed limit at the time) particularly if they were running the shiny new ones (Italian built if I’m remembering correctly).
I liked the feel of the relatively massive machine traveling at speed
The Cincy street car was $41.1 million per mile. 293 x 41.1 = $12 Billion ... that's how much it would cost if you wanted to build all that track today. Or, put another way: We demolished $12 billion of infrastructure.
Thank you GM.
We didn't demolish it, we just paved over it. They just now pulled up the tracks from Buckeye Road as part of a street resurfacing project.
@@ktoth29 I feel that's a bit of a technicality. Portions of it have been ripped up over the years. And the parts that are just paved over are probably not usable anymore. Being driven over for so long probably warped the steel beyond safe use. Either way, it's functionally demolished.
@@SlickArmor Don't forget the oil companies and the tyre companies.
@@kiwitrainguy that's right big involvement there for sure.
Ahh, nostalgia. I rode many hundreds of miles on former Cleveland PCC cars here in Toronto, with my favourite All-Electrics being the 25 former Louisville examples.
I was always disappointed riding on the Bloor Danforth lines MU trains when one of the fifty built new for Cleveland was the car we got in when I was a youngster. You see, those Pullmans had no armrests like the St. Louis built cars and I thought even then, how cheap!!!
I recall one impressionable, very fast ride though on one of the ex Cleveland Pullmans on King Street in the early, post rush evening not long before they all came off. Zippy!!!
And one last memory was riding aboard and in one instance actually being allowed to operate the surface rail grinding train, W-30/31.
Thanx Matt.
You're most welcome! Great memories, thanks for sharing them.
Thanks for the documentaries. These are gems of history documentations of Cleveland Ohio. Keep up the good work.
My father took me for a ride on a remaining stretch of railcar service in Cleveland back in the early 1960's. I want to say Euclid or Akron, but my memory is fuzzy due to my young age, but I remember riding it. My father had a passion for street cars because he used to ride them in California during WW2 when he was building USAAF bombers. I inherited his collection of monthly passes for the California Street cars he rode back in the 1940's, amazing stuff. When I was in Elementary school in Ohio, we went on a ride of the new electric "Metro" system that was built and visited the Zoo.
I used to ride the San Diego electric streetcar system back in the 1980's when I was in the U.S.N. and it was a great way to get around town, I think the max fee back then was $1.20-$2.00 depending on the distance traveled.
Major cities need to go back to old school like this and get more cars off the streets, remove parking problems and give city populations more mobility.
I lived in Shaker Heights from about 1965 to 1969/70 and rode the Rapid Transit quite a bit. My most vivid memories are of the approach to the entrance to the Terminal Tower (as it was then known) and seeing all of the tracks and other infrastructure that led into it.
Thanks for this video. Born (1950) and raised in Cleveland I appreciate it very much.
That brought back memories of when Cleveland wa in its heyday and downtown was the place be for commerce, retail shopping, and entertainment. I rode on the trackless trolleys, the old blue CTS rapid cars, and the old style Shaker line cars when I was kid.
I was born and raised in Cleveland. We rode the electric buses to go shopping downtown from Fleet Ave area. I remember the long metal rod connecting to overhead power lines. In 1959, 1960 it was free for kids under five. The bus driver always made me cry because he grilled me about my age. I was very tall for my age. I told the ruth about my age but they would never believe I was so tall. Mom refused to pay on the principle.
My father would speak of riding the streetcars from Rocky River to Case Western Reserve University where he attended dental school. It was fun watching this documentary to help visualize his daily commute as a young dental student.
It's so depressing seeing how prosperous Cleveland was and knowing it will never return to it.
It would take a miracle at this point to bring the city back to what it once was
It will return when the east coast start moving Midwest
Actually the suburbs in Cleveland are thriving rather well right now
@@TheDaexiled1 Oh, well that's the same thing as Cleveland returning to its former glory.
Thanks for the correction.
I’m from New Orleans, where we still have an old streetcar line, the st Charles streetcar line. In fact the city just rebuilt a few, canal and rampart st Claude. I didn’t know other cities had them. Such a shame most of them got torn up.
Remember back in 60. Or so getting on a train a train from Ashtabula Ohio to Cleveland with Grandma n Mom went shopping then we rode back on home
Thanks for doing this. I was doing some looking around about this a few weeks ago. It's a damn shame. And a damn shame they didn't just bury the lines! Instead building lines to completely different areas!
Great content my Friend. I’m looking forward to that deeper dive into the “subway” running on the underside of the Detroit Shoreway Bridge.
Thanks for including me in your project!
I lived in Cleveland from July of 1953 to June of 1959; it was a great city then. On about July the 6th of 1953, I rode a streetcar to the then Jones Home for Children at 3518 West 25th St, where I lived for those six years; that was the only time I ever rode a Cleveland streetcar - the 25th St line disappeared the following month. I was 6 years old on that streetcar trip, I don't remember getting on, but I know my father & I started from Brecksville, we did not go downtown first, so it wasn't on the Brecksville Rd Transit bus - we came from the opposite direction going north toward downtown.
19:00 damn, this Johnson guy sounds badass. Wish we had politicians like him around!
Tom Johnson also built the Johnson Steel Works in Lorain, which later became National Tube/US Steel, along with the Lorain Street Railway between Elyria and downtown Lorain. He was a busy guy for sure.
The Lorain steel mill originally produced...what else?...streetcar rail.
Still amazed by the production quality you’re achieving, thanks for posting!
Great video! My late grandpa worked for CTS, which would later become the RTA. The streetcars were all but done by the time he came on, but he made a good living working as an accountant for 30+ years.
Well done. I enjoy seeing the old photos and trying to identify "where" I am seeing.
Amazing video as always! I’m loving the inclusion of the first hand accounts!
Thanks so much! Glad you like the first-hand accounts.
@@RailroadStreet yeah, they really add a great touch!
🔴 I grew up in Cleveland Ohio, in the 1960's many of them were still working , Great memories of better days gone by , for .15 cents you could ride all day ♦️♦️♦️‼️
Great video and narration about Cleveland streetcars. I was born after the streetcar era but remember riding the Blue Birds on the Red Line. It's sad now seeing the poor conditions of the RTA rail system. I believe the current cars on the Red Line came out in 1984-1986. I was excited to leave school to ride those new cars to Terminal Tower. Now the cars are almost 40 years old and are outdated. It's sad but majority of the stops on the Red Line are in poor neighborhoods. It will not shock me if they disband it and just run the Shaker Line.
Great video, great photos. Superior Viaduct is just a place for cars to park these days, but I think it would be so cool if it were turned into a park. Amazing views up there.
Something that may be of intrested is the Rochester "Subway" system. Very similar to Clevelnad. Both were trolley line and both ended service in the late 50s. May be something to look into :D
We still have streetcars in Pittsburgh. By the time I lived in Cleveland the streetcars were gone. I do remember the trackless trolleys.
There were “Rumors” for years that someone in the Cuyahoga County Civil Engineers office was on the take with a particular bus manufacturer and a large tire manufacturer to get rid of streetcars after WW II. Whether or not it’s true, it at least made for good conversation.
Fascinating history lesson. Despite having a father that was a Railroad nut, never knew the whole story.
Fantastic old pictures
Fond memories of riding the Rapid Transit and the Shaker RR lines
Thanks for sharing
JT: Orlando FLA
I printed out an issue of the Norwood Times from January 1891 in Minnesota.
They mentioned a man named Jacob Kahn. Kahn, a shoe maker, claimed to invent a compressed air motor for street cars in Cleveland Ohio. Khan proposed a fare of 3¢
This was awesome! Very enlightening. Great work
Great video. Well documented. Thanks for all your hard work and research.
great info. thanks from Down under. Australia, really enjoyed your this.
I’m very much enjoyed watching this video thank you for making it I know it was a very long endeavor
Thank You! Indeed, I started working on this video back in early May.
I live here in Cleveland and they need to get rid of buses and bring these old gals back. They are clean and do a wonderful job. We can thank the car manufacture, tire manufacture and coal producers of that time period who made these street cars and others like them disappear and it's pretty sad.
We had what we called "Trams" (StreetCars) in Brisbane Queensland Australia. Being old I do remember riding on our white trams in the 1960's. I'm told we followed the then America model of using buses for a cheaper & more flexible model. Nowadays we are srsly considering of returning to a tram & bus integration system.
Australia, like America is huge. People tend to spread out, for that you need cars.
Love this channel and seeing all these old photos!
It would be interesting to know how many "experts" that recommended modernization in the form of bus transportation, had stock in GM!
Super job doing the research on this.
Great effort on researching this documentary.
This video is fantastic! Thank you for making it!
10/26/2023
I'm old enough to have ridden on the W25th Str,/State Road route (the 20/ 20A) as a kid. I kind of remember taking the trolley to downtown at Christmas time (to shop at the deportment stores). and was surprised at there being a BUS to take us home that night.
As a side note, I still can smell the aroma coming from "The Nut House" (nut store) just off public square.
Nice history story. ;-)
good stuff, keep it up!
Appreciate it, thanks for watching!
I remember riding the Mayfield car that wyed near Noble Rd. It took forever to get to Public Square, even with private right of way on Euclid Hts. and Cedar Glen. And it wasn’t terribly comfortable-not a PCC.
My Grandfather ran the line from Berea to Kamns Corner and several others back in the 30,s 40's and 50's
Nice video. I was watching it in a Brookville streetcar.
My mother grew up around Buckeye Rd. and rode the street cars in the 30s and 40s
Excellent video.
17:15 one heck of a strike! Woo wee... We could use some of that these days methinks
What happened to all the street cars that a collector had in North Olmsted, Ohio?
They were sold to various museums around the country. A few of them went to the Northern Ohio Railway Museum (featured in this video).
Enjoyable video! Thanks! Fondly recall as a kid taking railfan excursions, several on a working SHRT G. C. Kuhlman car (maybe the one in this video!) along the SHRT tracks.. Once, apparently for grins and giggles, was aboard an excursion taking an SHRT PCC to Windermere! Probably blew the minds of everyone waiting for the Rapid! Also, I was under the impression that the Cleveland subway project was nixed by Cuyahoga County engineer Albert S Porter.. Can anyone confirm this?
Yes. Porter was the villain in the story. His opposition flew in the face of a 2 to 1 public referendum approval of building a downtown subway.
Porter also wanted to pave the Shaker Lakes for a freeway bypass!
@@famousutopias I remember that!!
The highest IQ in human history has many identified people - William Siddis was claimed to have one close to 200 he became a child prodigy and Harvard Professor in his early teen, or adolescent years . A bad choice Society just laughed at him alienated him and in the end he turned to the study of street car mechanics and transformers and decided humanity wasn’t worth the trouble and bruising one’s self over . Theodore Katzinski also had one of the worlds highest IQs and was one of the US greatest mathematicians- but he unfortunately was “socially awkward “ and removed himself from people altogether.
good content
Why does Darren Criss use an alias in this video? Excellent content, learned a lot.
I Remember ...
29:12- the City of Buffalo self destructed and destroyed so many houses and businesses with the billions it took to build the “rapid transit “ subway by the time it finished with countless budget overruns and delays NOBODY WAS WILLING to ride it and all of downtown retail moved to the suburbs in Cheektowaga and Amherst- Downtown Buffalo is a dead zone today . European cities never had this problem .
We need streetcars/tram to come back
Are you planning anything on the Lake Erie Electric?
Do you mean the Lake Shore Electric Railway?
@@RailroadStreet yes!
@@karenihms9413 It's on my ever-growing list of topics to cover! The Cleveland & Eastern Railway is another one I'd like to make a video on too.
Almost all of your old videos are gone? If you don’t mind me asking why are they all unlisted or deleted?
They have all been unlisted or made private. I no longer railfan anymore, and those videos don't fit in with the theme of my existing content.
@@RailroadStreet I completely understand! You should put most of them in public playlists that viewers can watch whenever they want cause those videos are super cool regardless if they fit or not. Wish ya the best!
Thanks! A good portion of the unlisted videos are already in playlists. You can view them through the playlist tab on my channel.
25:00 - PIGGLY WIGGLY!
awesome， can you do a video on the Ohio Erie canal?
My Grandfather was hit by a streetcar in Cleveland. He died a couple weeks later.
Well that's embarrassing. I'd keep that to myself.
It wasn't that uncommon for someone to be hit by a street car back then many didn't survive much like what happen to your grandfather.
Sorry for your loss, but an important point that streetcars weren't the panacea a lot of urbanists like to pretend they were.
It was my Great Grandfather,sorry I failed to make the point that they made him sign papers saying he was OK and did not blame the Streetcar Co. then he died 3 days later. 1927
The old days of market completion forcing people to innovate and create better and/or cheaper products... As opposed to today with corperate monopoly and government control leading to a stagnated, rundown, expensive services and products...
Against monopoly but wants to join 2 consolidations under 1 governent control... That just makes the government have monopoly...
The next step is self-driving taxis that would combine the best things from both public transport and personal cars.
Greed and politics! Never goes away
i was born on Broadway E55th.
They worked horses so hard they only had a 2yr lifespan!?!?!?! Or is that their work lifespan? I hate humans but this has opened a new door in my hatred if they killed horses that fast just so people could get around faster.
Shaker Rapid transit car
Oh. Tom Johnson was a Democrat/progressive. Interesting history
I remember riding on the streetcars in downtown Cleveland as a young boy. Everytime we crossed an intersection, sparks flew overhead from the rod connecting to the wires. That left quite an impression. I also was facinated because my great grandfather had been a streetcar conductor in Cleveland.
You must be my age (1952). As a toddler I distinctly remember riding the Shaker rapid to Higbees , watching the trackless trolleys sparking their way down Miles and Van Aken Aves, and riding to and from Erie on the nickel plate (terminal tower was bustling).
I’m so glad we got most of streetcar network here in Toronto. Amazing video
the people of Toronto had sense enough to keep their streetcar lines. back in the '70s I used to visit relatives in Hamilton. I would always drive over to Toronto and park my car and ride the street car up and down Queen Street a few times. that was the PCC cars. the main reason I like Toronto so much is because of the street cars. 👍👍👍
I believe some of the Shaker Rapid street cars were sold to the transit system in Toronto.
Pittsburgh was the same way…Port Authority Transit (now Pittsburgh Regional Transit) could hardly wait to scrap the entire system, and almost did, as the residents of the South Hills opposed it strongly enough to save the South Hills routes, for which we are extremely grateful. 🚃