Baltimore Streetcars

Baltimore Streetcars

Author: Herbert H. Harwood

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2003-09-26

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780801871900

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Herbert H. Harwood here gives us a glorious picture of Baltimore in the heyday of the streetcar, combining the story of lines and equipment with a nostalgic view of Baltimore when so many of her people relied on street railways. From the late 1800s through World War II, streetcars transported Baltimore's population to and from work, play, and just about everything else. Bankers and clerks, factory workers and managers, domestics, schoolchildren, shoppers, all rode side-by-side on the streetcars regardless of economic status, level of education, or ethnic background. In a city where residences and schools were segregated, streetcar passengers sat wherever they could. In addition to being a truly democratic institution, streetcars considerably influenced Baltimore's physical growth, enabling families to live farther than ever before from workplaces and thus encouraging early suburbs. Despite rising competition from the private automobile, streetcars remained the mainstay of Baltimore's public transportation system until after World War II, when gas rationing ended and family cars multiplied. Environmentally friendly and for the most part comfortable and reliable, streetcars also had their peculiar charm. Today some people in Baltimore miss them.


Baltimore's Streetcars and Buses

Baltimore's Streetcars and Buses

Author: Gary Helton

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738553696

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In the 1850s, Baltimore's 170,000 residents had few options when it came to getting around town. Before the decade's end, however, the omnibus--an urban version of the stagecoach--emerged as Baltimore's first mass-transit vehicle. Horsecars followed, then cable cars, and ultimately electrically powered streetcars. Recognizing the need for cohesion, the city's myriad transit providers merged into a single operator. United Railways and Electric Company, incorporated in 1899, faced the unenviable task of integrating routes being served by inadequate, incompatible, and often obsolete equipment. Over the next seven decades, privately run mass transit in Baltimore survived bankruptcy, a name change, two world wars, the proliferation of private automobiles, a takeover by out-of-town interests, and a plethora of new vehicles. Arguably a unified system of privately operated mass transit was no closer to being a reality in 1970, when it reached the end of the line and was taken over by the state.


Baltimore Streetcar Memories

Baltimore Streetcar Memories

Author: Kenneth C. Springirth

Publisher: America Through Time

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781634990349

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"Baltimore was the first United States city to begin regularly scheduled electric railway service in 1885. However, because of technical problems the line had to go back to horse car operation. After Frank J. Sprague developed an electric streetcar powered by an overhead wire for Richmond, Virginia; Baltimore adopted the new system and in 1893 opened the first electric line in the United States to operate on an elevated structure. By 1899, Baltimore streetcar lines, with their unique 5 foot 4.5 inch track gauge, were unified by the United Railways and Electric Company which purchased 885 semi-convertible cars with windows that could be raised up for summer operation and lowered for winter operation. Baltimore Transit Company was the third United States system to introduce modern Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) cars and at its peak operated the eighth largest fleet of these cars. A combination of factors including a ridership decline and making many downtown streets one way contributed to conversion to an all bus system. Baltimore Streetcar Memories is a photographic essay of history of the Baltimore, Maryland streetcar system up to its closure in 1963 and the return of a modern streetcar/light rail system 29 years later in 1992."--Amazon.com


Insiders' Guide® to Baltimore

Insiders' Guide® to Baltimore

Author: Judy Colbert

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2010-05-18

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0762763353

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Insiders' Guide to Baltimore is the essential source for in-depth travel and relocation information to the Maryland's largest city. Written by a local (and true insider), this guide offers a personal and practical perspective of Baltimore and its surrounding environs.


New Haven Streetcars

New Haven Streetcars

Author:

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780738512273

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The first street railway began operating in New York City in 1832. New Orleans inaugurated a street railway system in 1835, and most of the large American cities-Boston, Brooklyn, and Baltimore-were served by the end of the 1950s. In May 1861, more than a year before the nation's capital introduced this new mode of transit, the forty thousand residents of New Haven were furnished with local rail transportation. New Haven's population more than quadrupled between 1861 and 1948, and the city became Connecticut's largest manufacturing center. Street railways made it possible to reach both residential and manufacturing areas. New Haven Streetcars illustrates the essential role played by streetcars in the transformation of the city, with images from each of the six groups of lines that served the New Haven area, including the Yale Bowl open cars, the universal dump cars, the safety cars, and the horse-drawn cars.


Transforming Race and Class in Suburbia

Transforming Race and Class in Suburbia

Author: T. Vicino

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-06-09

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0230612725

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Just as the nation witnessed the widespread decay of urban centers, there is a mounting suburban crisis in first-tier suburbs - the early suburbs to develop in metropolitan America. These places, once the bastion of a large middle class, have matured and experienced three decades of social and economic decline. In the first comprehensive analysis of suburban decline for an entire region, Vicino uses Baltimore as an illustrative case to chronicle how first-tier suburbs experienced widespread decline while outer suburbs flourished since the 1970s. At the brink of the twenty-first century, Vicino illustrates how the processes of deindustrialization, racial diversity, and class segregation have shaped the evolution of suburban decline.


The Streetcars of New Orleans

The Streetcars of New Orleans

Author: Elbridge Harper Charlton

Publisher: Pelican Publishing

Published:

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781455612598

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This extensively illustrated, 240-page volume documents the long and colorful history of streetcar transportation in the city of New Orleans. This reprint of a 1965 volume, written by the two leading authorities on the subject, represents the complete work on the subject of New Orleans traction and urban railways. Featured are sections on early city transportation, and the golden era of electric traction (1893-1926), along with technical aspects, trackage, and mileage routes. A series of maps pinpoints, for traction enthusiasts, the locations of tracks no longer extant and provides information on companies that once operated the network of rails. Also included is a special section on the types of cars that were used throughout the traction era. Authors Hennick and Charlton also have collaborated on a companion volume to this work, Street Railways of Louisiana , also published by Pelican.


Tourist Trains Guidebook

Tourist Trains Guidebook

Author:

Publisher: Kalmbach Publishing, Co.

Published: 2009-04

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0871162733

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Provides reviews and listings for a variety of railroad museums in the United States and Canada.


Baltimore’s Historic Oakenshawe: From Colonial Land Grant to Streetcar Suburb

Baltimore’s Historic Oakenshawe: From Colonial Land Grant to Streetcar Suburb

Author: D.J. Wilson

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1467136239

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The story of Baltimore's historic Oakenshawe neighborhood is a tale of two families and a dream to create an idyllic place. The powerful Wilson family made fortunes in colonial shipping and established a summer estate for more than one hundred years. The Mueller families were prominent Baltimore builders, and Phillip C. Mueller envisioned an upscale community of terraced townhomes on the Wilson estate. After purchasing the property, he died suddenly, and his family banded together to create a vibrant streetcar suburb providing affordable homes along newly accessible streetcar routes. Join author D.J. Wilson as he takes readers through the history of Baltimore's Oakenshawe.