Conestoga Traction, later Conestoga Transportation Company, was a classic American regional interurban trolley that operated seven routes 1899 to 1946 radiating spoke-like from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to numerous neighboring farm villages and towns. It ran side-of-road trolleys through Amish farm country to Coatesville, Strasburg/Quarryville, Pequea, Columbia/Marietta, Elizabethtown, Manheim/Lititz, and Ephrata/Adamstown/Terre Hill. [1] [2]
Conestoga Traction, later Conestoga Transportation Company, was a classic country interurban that operated seven routes radiating spoke-like from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to numerous neighboring towns and farm villages. It ran side-of-road trolleys through Amish farm country east to Coatesville and Strasburg/Quarryville, south to Pequea, west to Columbia/Marietta and Elizabethtown, north to Manheim/Lititz, and northeast to Ephrata/Adamstown/Terre Hill. CT also transported farm freight, such as milk and produce, in its little cars.
Conestoga Traction began operations in 1899. CTs rural trolley system provided reliable and relatively fast transportation between many southeastern Pennsylvania farm towns in the days when people traveled in horse drawn buggies and freight traveled in horse-drawn wagons on narrow wandering dusty roads in summer or rutted deep mud roads in winter. In 1924, when business and profits were still good, Conestoga Traction updated its aging wood trolleys with a purchase of all steel small interurban trolley cars from Cincinnati Car Company. Farm freight and dairy pickups would occur with stops at farm gates using trolleys called "combines" designed to carry passengers in one section and freight in another. With its connections with neighboring Hershey Transit, CT shipped fresh uncooled Amish farm milk to the Hershey Company for immediate use in chocolate production. Hershey Transit permitted trolleys from the neighboring connecting lines, including Conestoga Traction, onto its rails to carry summer crowds to the Hershey Park for the amusement rides and to picnic. Picnic specials ran into the 1930s.
Conestoga Traction's connections to adjacent interurban trolley companies such as Philadelphia and West Chester (later Red Arrow; now today's operating Media–Sharon Hill Line), West Chester Street Railway, West Chester and Coatesville Traction, Schuylkill Valley Traction, Reading Transit, Hershey Transit, and Harrisburg Railways, one could ride trolleys from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, although the trip would have been long and slow and impractical. This could be accomplished by two circuitous routes. The southern route was via West Chester-Coatesville-Lancaster-Hershey and the northern route was via Norristown-Pottstown-Reading-Ephrata-Lebanon-Hershey. From Hershey to Harrisburg was by connections. [3]
Most interurbans like Conestoga Traction did not survive improved highways with the related increased purchase and use of automobiles, or the negative business impact of the Great Depression. Conestoga Traction abandoned most of its lines in 1932. The Lancaster-Ephrata line was still running in 1946 having been ordered by the Federal Government to do so because of World War II transportation needs. Lancaster's Birney Car street car operation continued until 1947. Neighbor Hershey Transit survived until 1946.
A popular and long running national newspaper cartoon strip was "Toonerville Folks." It began in 1908 and ran to 1955 with the inscription "The Toonerville Trolley That Met All The Trains." Central to the strip was a very short and bouncy trolley (often shown running above the track) operated by a grizzled old conductor and his cheerful motorman. The strip was modeled after Conestoga Traction and similar hill-and-dale rural interurban trolley lines in Pennsylvania such as [73] West Penn Railways, which operated a very extensive (130 mile) trolley system throughout western Pennsylvania centered around McKeesport-Greensburg-Connellsville and Uniontown until 1955.
Lancaster County, sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 552,984, making it Pennsylvania's sixth-most populous county. Its county seat is also Lancaster. Lancaster County comprises the Lancaster metropolitan statistical area. The county is part of the South Central region of the state.
Ephrata is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located 42 miles (68 km) east of Harrisburg and about 60 miles (97 km) west-northwest of Philadelphia and is named after Ephrath, the former name for current-day Bethlehem. In its early history, Ephrata was a pleasure resort and an agricultural community.
Lititz is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, 9 miles (14 km) north of Lancaster. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 9,370.
The interurban is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of the world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution, when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts.
Conestoga originally referred to the Conestoga people, an English name for the Susquehannock people of Pennsylvania.
The Media–Sharon Hill Line (MSHL), currently rebranding as the D, is a light rail line in the SEPTA Metro network serving portions of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Service is operated by the Suburban Transit Division of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. The line's eastern terminus is 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania. After Drexel Hill Junction station, the line splits into two branches: D1/Route 101 runs to Media, while D2/Route 102 goes to Sharon Hill. Altogether, the two services operate on approximately 11.9 miles (19.2 km) of route. The line is one of the few remaining interurban systems in the United States, along with the South Shore Line in Illinois and Indiana, the River Line in New Jersey, and the Norristown High Speed Line, also in the Philadelphia area.
The SEPTA subway–surface trolley lines are a collection of five SEPTA trolley lines that operate on street-level tracks in West Philadelphia and Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and also underneath Market Street in Philadelphia's Center City. The lines, Routes 10, 11, 13, 34, and 36, collectively operate on about 39.6 miles (63.7 km) of route.
Pequea Creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna River that runs for 49.2 miles (79.2 km) from the eastern border of Lancaster County and Chester County, Pennsylvania to the village of Pequea, about 5 miles (8 km) above the hydroelectric dam at Holtwood along the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County.
The Indiana Railroad (IR) was the last of the typical Midwestern United States interurban lines. It was formed in 1930–31 by combining the operations of the five major interurban systems in central Indiana into one entity. The predecessor companies came under the control of Midland Utilities, owned by Samuel Insull. His plan was to modernize the profitable routes and abandon the unprofitable ones. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Insull empire collapsed and the Indiana Railroad was left with a decaying infrastructure and little hope of overcoming the growing competition of the automobile for passenger business and the truck for freight business. The IR faced bankruptcy in 1933, and Bowman Elder was designated as the receiver to run the company. Payments on bonded debt were suspended. Elder was able to keep the system virtually intact for four years, and IR operated about 600 miles (970 km) of interurban lines throughout Indiana during this period. During the late 1930s, the routes were abandoned one by one until a 1941 wreck with fatalities south of Indianapolis put an abrupt end to the Indiana Railroad's last passenger operations.
Transportation in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has a long and variegated history. An early-settled part of the United States, and lying on the route between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, it has been the site of early experiments in canals, railroads, and highways. Before all these, at least ten Native American paths crossed parts of the county, many connecting with the Susquehannock village of Conestoga.
Pennsylvania Route 372 is an east–west highway in York, Lancaster, and Chester counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Its western terminus is at PA 74 in Lower Chanceford Township north of Delta and west of Holtwood, and its eastern terminus is at PA 82 in Coatesville. PA 372 heads east from PA 74 in York County and crosses the Susquehanna River on the Norman Wood Bridge. The route continues through Lancaster County, intersecting PA 272 in Buck, U.S. Route 222 and PA 472 in Quarryville, and PA 896 in Georgetown. PA 372 crosses into Chester County and intersects PA 41 in Atglen and PA 10 in Parkesburg before continuing to Coatesville. PA 372 is a two-lane undivided road throughout its length.
Pennsylvania Route 272 is a 54.7-mile-long (88.0 km) highway in southeastern Pennsylvania, in the Lancaster area. The southern terminus of the route is at the Mason–Dixon line southeast of Nottingham, where the road continues into Maryland as Maryland Route 272. The northern terminus is at an interchange with U.S. Route 222 and PA 568 near Adamstown, where PA 568 continues east. The route heads from the Maryland border northwest through the southwestern corner of Chester County, intersecting US 1 in Nottingham. PA 272 continues west into Lancaster County and intersects US 222 in Wakefield, where it turns north and passes through Buck before widening into a divided highway as it comes to another junction with US 222 in Willow Street. Here, the route becomes unsigned and follows US 222 north through Lancaster along a one-way pair of city streets. North of Lancaster, US 222 splits at an interchange with US 30 and PA 272 becomes signed again, heading northeast parallel to the freeway alignment of US 222 and passing through Akron, Ephrata, and Adamstown. The route enters Berks County and comes to its northern terminus.
Pennsylvania Route 340 (PA 340) is a 30-mile-long (48 km) state highway located in Lancaster and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. The western terminus is at PA 462 in Lancaster. The eastern terminus is at U.S. Route 30 Business in Thorndale. The route is a two-lane road passing through rural areas, heading through the Pennsylvania Dutch Country in eastern Lancaster County that is home to several Amish families and rural areas in western Chester County, serving the communities of Bird-in-Hand, Intercourse, White Horse, Compass, and Wagontown. PA 340 intersects US 30 near Lancaster, PA 772 in Intercourse, PA 897 in White Horse, PA 10 in Compass, PA 82 near Coatesville, and US 30 again near Thorndale.
Pennsylvania Route 741 is a 26.3-mile-long (42.3 km) state highway that runs through western and southern Lancaster County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The western terminus is along Rohrerstown Road north of an intersection with Commercial Avenue near East Petersburg. The eastern terminus is at PA 41 in Gap. PA 741 heads south from East Petersburg and runs through the western suburbs of Lancaster. The route turns southeast and passes through Millersville before it turns east at New Danville. PA 741 forms a concurrency with U.S. Route 222 between Willow Street and Lampeter before it continues east through farmland in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country that is home to several Amish families, passing through Strasburg before reaching Gap.
The Lehigh Valley Transit Company (LVT) was a regional transport company that was headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company began operations in 1901, as an urban trolley and interurban rail transport company. It operated successfully into the 1930s, but struggled financially during the Great Depression, and was saved from abandonment by a dramatic ridership increase during and following World War II.
The Atglen and Susquehanna Branch is an abandoned branch line of the Pennsylvania Railroad that ran between Lemoyne and Atglen, Pennsylvania. A portion of the line is now the Enola Low Grade Trail.
The Paoli/Thorndale Line, commonly known as the Main Line, is a SEPTA Regional Rail service running from Center City Philadelphia through Montgomery County and Delaware County to Thorndale in Chester County. It operates along the far eastern leg of Amtrak's Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line, which in turn was once the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad and is now part of the Keystone Corridor, a federally-designated high-speed rail corridor.
The Conestoga Trail is a 65.8-mile (105.9 km) linear hiking trail in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The trail connects several relatively short and discontinuous footpaths with walks on paved roads. About 53% of the network's distance is made up of road walking, and those segments are intended to showcase the rural scenery of Lancaster County, utilizing three covered bridges and passing numerous Amish and Mennonite farms, as well as some urban and suburban neighborhoods in and around Lancaster. The footpath segments offer wilderness scenery of the type that can be found in many of Pennsylvania's forested areas, plus some walks alongside farm fields.
Oregon is an unincorporated community that is located in Manheim Township, Lancaster County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is situated near the intersection of PA 722 and the Oregon Pike, between Lancaster and Ephrata.