Share of the Louisville Railway Company, issued 2. April 1896
The Louisville Railway Company (LRC) was a streetcar and interurban rail operator in Louisville, Kentucky. It began under the name Louisville City Railway in 1859 as a horsecar operator and slowly acquired other rival companies. It was renamed in 1880 following the merger of all Mule operations as the Louisville Railway Company. All tracks were 5ft (1,524mm) gauge.
1889 - First electric streetcar line in Louisville opened on Green St., now Liberty St.
1901 - Electrification of streetcar lines completed 1901. The Crescent Hill Mule Car Line the systems last.
1901 - Louisville & Eastern Railroad opens first interurban railway in area, extending northeast to Crestwood.
1904 - Louisville & Interurban Railroad opens its first interurban line, east to Jeffersontown. Louisville & Interurban Railroad was owned by Louisville Traction Co., a holding company which also owned Louisville Railway Co.
1904 - Line also opened northeast to Prospect, by electrifying a Louisville & Nashville steam railroad branch former Louisville Harrods Creek and Westport Railway. This would be the only 4ft8+1⁄2in (1,435mm) standard gauge interurban line in the Louisville area, with broad gauge on all other electric railways in area.
1905 - Louisville & Interurban Railroad opens interurban line southeast to Okolona.
1907 - Louisville & Eastern Railroad completes interurban line beyond Crestwood to La Grange. Louisville & Interurban Railroad opens interurban line southwest to Orell.
1908 - Louisville & Interurban Railroad opens interurban line southeast to Fern Creek.
1910 - Louisville & Eastern Railroad opens interurban line east to Shelbyville.
1923 - Louisville Railway Co. forms subsidiary Kentucky Carriers Inc., which operates first bus route in Louisville on 3rd St. This route was not successful, and would be discontinued within a few months. Additional bus routes were created that year, which would be more successful.
1927 - People's Transit Co. begins operating bus route on Broadway in competition with streetcars, but is soon ordered to cease operating. Additional new bus routes created, operated directly by Louisville Railway Co. In addition, Virgil Pierce begins operating bus route on Preston St. to Camp Taylor, competing with interurban railway route which operated south to Okolona.
1928 - Kentucky Carriers bus routes transferred to Louisville Railway Co., with Kentucky Carriers subsidiary remaining only as a charter bus operator.
1931 - Interurban line to Okolona abandoned, with Virgil Pierce bus route remaining to provide local service.
1932 - Interurban line to Jeffersontown abandoned. Blue Motor Coach Co. formed, providing replacement bus service.
1933 - Interurban line to Fern Creek abandoned, replaced with bus service operated by Blue Motor Coach Co. Bus service operated into downtown Louisville, not carrying local passengers within city.
1934 - Interurban line to Shelbyville abandoned, with no direct bus replacement. Southeastern Greyhound Lines already provided service along this route, on its route between Louisville and Lexington.
1935 - Interurban line to La Grange abandoned, replacement bus service operated by Chaudoin Bus Lines. Interurban line to Prospect abandoned, replaced with Paxton Bus Line route. After World War II, Paxton Bus Line would be succeeded by Goebel's Bus Line, and later Prospect Bus Line. Interurban line to Orell also abandoned, replaced with Louisville Railway Co. bus route. Virgil Pierce bus line sold to Blue Motor Coach Co.
1936 - Walnut becomes first trolleybus route in Louisville.
1938 - Newberg Bus Line begins operation, serving Newberg and Buechel areas southeast of downtown Louisville. The line would later be sold to Buechel Bus Co., which would later extend service to General Electric's appliance factory, completed in 1951.
1945 - Chaudoin Bus Lines sold to Kentucky Bus Lines.
1948 - Last streetcars replaced with buses Louisville Railway ended all streetcar service on the 4th Avenue Queen Loop route Derby Day
1948 - Blue Motor Coach Co. introduces service between Louisville and Middletown, over objections of Southeastern Greyhound Lines, already serving Middletown along its route between Louisville and Lexington.
1951 - its trolley buses ceased service on Market Street, Walnut and Fourth Street following the expiration of a power agreement with Louisville Gas and Electric and Louisville Railway Company..
1951 - Louisville Railway Co. sold to Louisville Transit Co. Blue Motor Coach Co. discontinues Middletown bus route after a court battle, leaving Southeastern Greyhound Lines as the only provider of service along this route.
1953 - Louisville Transit Co. assumes Middletown service from Southeastern Greyhound Lines, after service proved to be inadequate and unprofitable for Greyhound. The Middletown route was formed by extending its St. Matthews Express bus route.
1958 - Louisville Transit Co. acquires Buechel Bus Co.
1972 - Louisville Transit Co. acquires Kentucky Bus Lines routes.
1974 - Louisville Transit Co. becomes publicly owned Transit Authority of River City. Discontinues service to Lagrange and Shepherdsville
1976 - Transit Authority of River City acquires Blue Motor Coach Co.
1977 - Transit Authority of River City acquires Prospect Bus Line.
2014 - Louisville Railway Company reformed as a non profit to promote restoration of Market Street Streetcar Service
An F Market car painted to represent Louisville Railway Company
Fleet
100 Kuhlman Car Company 1929 Master Unit 200 St Louis Car Company 1929 Master Unit 250 Cincinnati Car Co 1929 Master Unit 345-354 Louisville Railway Company 1912 355-368 Kuhlman Car Company 1924 401-477 Brill Car Company 1922 Birney 500-537 Cincinnati Car 1922 Birney 551-553 Brill Car Co 1879 700-723 St Louis Car 1900 770-784 Kuhlman Car Company 800-889 St Louis Car 1902 930-935 St Louis Car Company 1905 936-945 St Louis Car Company 1905 980-1049 St Louis Car Company 1905 1050-1112 Cincinnati Car Company 1910
Twenty-five PCC cars numbered 501-525 were ordered from the St. Louis Car Company in 1946 but the order was cancelled before delivery was completed. The Louisville-bound cars were instead sold to the Cleveland Transit System where they became numbers 4250-4274.[1] Car 509 / 4259 was acquired in 1952 by the Toronto Transit Commission (as part of an order of 50 Pullman PCC A11 and 25 St. Louis Car Company A12 cars) and renumbered as 4684; it has since been retired and now owned by Halton County Radial Railway.
The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
Streetcars in New Orleans have been an integral part of the city's public transportation network since the first half of the 19th century. The longest of New Orleans' streetcar lines, the St. Charles Avenue line, is the oldest continuously operating street railway system in the world. Today, the streetcars are operated by the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA).
The Interurban is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 and 1925 and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. The concept spread to countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Poland. 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. Most roads between towns and many town streets were unpaved. Transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between the town and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in the United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. By 1930, most interurbans in North America were gone with a few surviving into the 1950s.
The Key System was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC) was the public transit operator in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, beginning in 1921. It operated buses, streetcars and the island ferries. The system was renamed the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in 1954.
The San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) was a mass transit system in Southern California, United States, using 600 volt DC streetcars and buses.
The J. G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars, interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and railroad cars in the United States for almost ninety years, making it the longest-lasting trolley and interurban manufacturer. At its height, Brill was the largest manufacturer of streetcars and interurban cars in the US and produced more streetcars, interurbans and gas-electric cars than any other manufacturer, building more than 45,000 streetcars alone.
New York State Railways was a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad that controlled several large city streetcar and electric interurban systems in upstate New York. It included the city transit lines in Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Oneida and Rome, plus various interurban lines connecting those cities. New York State Railways also held a 50% interest in the Schenectady Railway Company, but it remained a separate independent operation. The New York Central took control of the Rochester Railway Company, the Rochester and Eastern Rapid Railway and the Rochester and Sodus Bay Railway in 1905, and the Mohawk Valley Company was formed by the railroad to manage these new acquisitions. New York State Railways was formed in 1909 when the properties controlled by the Mohawk Valley Company were merged. In 1912 it added the Rochester and Suburban Railway, the Syracuse Rapid Transit Railway, the Oneida Railway, and the Utica and Mohawk Valley Railway. The New York Central Railroad was interested in acquiring these lines in an effort to control the competition and to gain control of the lucrative electric utility companies that were behind many of these streetcar and interurban railways. Ridership across the system dropped through the 1920s as operating costs continued to rise, coupled with competition from better highways and private automobile use. New York Central sold New York State Railways in 1928 to a consortium led by investor E. L. Phillips, who was looking to gain control of the upstate utilities. Phillips sold his stake to Associated Gas & Electric in 1929, and the new owners allowed the railway bonds to default. New York State Railways entered receivership on December 30, 1929. The company emerged from receivership in 1934, and local operations were sold off to new private operators between 1938 and 1948.
Kenosha Area Transit is a city-owned public transportation agency based in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The Chicago Surface Lines (CSL) was operator of the street railway system of Chicago, Illinois, from 1913 to 1947. The firm is a predecessor of today's publicly owned operator, the Chicago Transit Authority.
Transit Windsor provides public transportation in the city of Windsor, Ontario, Canada as well as LaSalle, Essex, Kingsville, Amherstburg and Leamington and serves more than 6 million passengers each year, covering an area of 310 km2 (120 sq mi) and a population of 218,000. They operate a cross border service between the downtown areas of Windsor and Detroit, Michigan via the Tunnel Bus, and service to events at Detroit's Comerica Park, Little Caesars Arena, TCF Center, and Ford Field. The Windsor International Transit Terminal neighbours with the Windsor International Aquatic and Training Centre.
The East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad that operated electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Beginning in 1862, the SP and its predecessors operated local steam-drawn ferry-train passenger service in the East Bay on an expanding system of lines, but in 1902 the Key System started a competing system of electric lines and ferries. The SP then drew up plans to expand and electrify its system of lines and this new service began in 1911. The trains served the cities of Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, and San Leandro transporting commuters to and from the large Oakland Pier and SP Alameda Pier. A fleet of ferry boats ran between these piers and the docks of the Ferry Building on the San Francisco Embarcadero.
The G. C. Kuhlman Car Company was a leading American manufacturer of streetcars and interurbans in the early 20th century. The company was based in Cleveland, Ohio.
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.
The International Railway Company (IRC) was a transportation company formed in a 1902 merger between several Buffalo-area interurban and street railways. The city railways that merged were the West Side Street Railway, the Crosstown Street Railway and the Buffalo Traction Company. The suburban railroads that merged included the Buffalo & Niagara Electric Street Railway, and its subsidiary the Buffalo, Lockport & Olcott Beach Railway; the Buffalo, Depew & Lancaster Railway; and the Niagara Falls Park & River Railway. Later the IRC acquired the Niagara Gorge Railroad (NGRR) as a subsidiary, which was sold in 1924 to the Niagara Falls Power Company. The NGRR also leased the Lewiston & Youngstown Frontier Railroad.
The Louisville and Interurban Railroad (L&I) was an interurban line that operated in and around Louisville, Kentucky during the first half of the 20th century.
The Lansing, St. Johns and St. Louis Railway was an electric interurban railway which briefly operated independently in central Michigan during the early 20th century. It was the site of a failed attempt to introduce alternating current to the interurban scene.
Streetcars in St. Louis, Missouri operated as part of the transportation network of St. Louis from the middle of the 19th century through the early 1960s. During the first forty years of the streetcar in the city, a variety of private companies operated several dozen lines. In 1898, the City of St. Louis passed a Central Traction Bill that required franchises for streetcar companies. United Railways quickly consolidated most St. Louis streetcar companies. Only St. Louis Suburban remained independent. It was acquired by United Railways in 1905. United Railways sank into receivership which was resolved only in 1924. It was reorganized as St. Louis Public Service Company in 1927, and became Bi-State in 1963. St. Louis Public Service Company served both the city of St. Louis and neighboring St. Louis County, Missouri. Other private companies, such as those serving the Metro East region or St. Charles, Missouri, continued separate operations. Starting in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s, St. Louis Public Service ended all streetcar service, while other regional operators also ended their services.
The Rochester Railway Company operated a streetcar transit system throughout the city of Rochester from 1890 until its acquisition by Rochester Transit Corp. in 1938. Formed by a group of Pittsburgh investors, the Rochester Railway Company purchased the Rochester City & Brighton Railroad in 1890, followed by a lease of the Rochester Electric Railway in 1894. The Rochester and Suburban Railway was leased in 1905, extending the system's reach to Irondequoit and Sea Breeze. Rochester Railways was acquired by the Mohawk Valley Company, a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad set up to take control of electric railways in its territory. In 1909 the holdings of the Mohawk Valley Company were consolidated as the New York State Railways.
Danville Mass Transit is the primary provider of mass transportation in Vermilion County, Illinois with twelve routes serving the region. As of 2019, the system provided 606,155 rides over 28,659 annual vehicle revenue hours with 11 buses.
References
↑ Carlson, Stepehen P.; Schneider, Fred W. (1980). PCC: The Car That Fought Back. Glendale, California: Interurbans Press. p.200. ISBN0-916374-41-6.
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