The Union Street Railway Company (abbreviated Union St. Ry.) was a streetcar company centered in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was formed from the New Bedford & Fairhaven Street Railway in 1887. [1] It started using electric streetcars in 1890. [1]
It operated a railway post office streetcar route connecting New Bedford and Fall River to the main railroad station in Providence, RI. [2] [1] The whaling agent and merchant Jonathan Bourne Jr. (1811—1889) directed the Union Street Railway Company in addition to other ventures. [3]
As of 1901, it owned 31 miles of track in New Bedford and its suburbs and operated 70 cars in the summer and 39 in the winter. [4]
The Union Street Railway Carbarn, Repair Shop was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. [5]
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 Twin City Rapid Transit Company (TCRT), also known as Twin City Lines (TCL), was a transportation company that operated streetcars and buses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Other types of transportation were tested including taxicabs and steamboats, along with the operation of some destination sites such as amusement parks. It existed under the TCRT name from a merger in the 1890s until it was purchased in 1962. At its height in the early 20th century, the company operated an intercity streetcar system that was believed to be one of the best in the United States. It is a predecessor of the current Metro Transit bus and light rail system that operates in the metro area.
The Chicago City Railway Company (CCRy) was an urban transit company that operated horse, cable, and electric streetcars on Chicago's South Side between 1859 and 1914, when it became merged into and part of the Chicago Surface Lines (CSL) metropolitan-wide system. After that time it owned electric streetcars, along with gasoline, diesel, and propane – fueled transit busses. Purchased by the government agency Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) in 1947, it was liquidated in 1950.
The TECO Line Streetcar is a heritage streetcar transit line in Tampa, Florida, run by the Hillsborough Area Regional Transportation Authority (HART), owned by the city of Tampa, and managed by Tampa Historic Streetcar, Inc. It connects Downtown and Channelside to the historic Ybor City district. There is also an "In-Town" trolley-replica bus system that connects Downtown, Channelside, and Harbour Island.
The San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) was a mass transit system in Southern California, United States, using 600 volt DC streetcars and buses.
The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) was a streetcar and rapid transit railroad operated on, above, and below, the streets of Boston, Massachusetts and surrounding communities. Founded in 1894, it eventually acquired the West End Street Railway via lease and merger to become the city's primary mass transit provider. Its modern successor is the state-run Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which continues to operate in part on infrastructure developed by BERy and its predecessors.
The Toronto streetcar system is a network of nine streetcar routes in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is the busiest light-rail system in North America. The network is concentrated primarily in Downtown Toronto and in proximity to the city's waterfront. Much of the streetcar route network dates from the 19th century. Most of Toronto's streetcar routes operate on street trackage shared with vehicular traffic, and streetcars stop on demand at frequent stops like buses. Since 2019, the network has used low-floor streetcars, making it fully accessible.
Streetcars in Washington, D.C. transported people across the city and region from 1862 until 1962.
The McKinney Avenue Transit Authority (MATA), a non-profit organization, operates the M-Line Trolley in Dallas, Texas. In operation since 1989, it is an example of a heritage streetcar running historic cars. The M-Line Trolley operates 7 days per week, 365 days per year. Since 2002, the M-Line Trolley is free to the public, thanks to donations and a joint operating subsidy received from Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and the Uptown Improvement District. The main stretch of the line runs along McKinney Avenue in Uptown between West Village and Klyde Warren Park / Dallas Arts District. The M-Line Trolley connects to the DART light rail system at CityPlace/Uptown on the northern end and St. Paul on the southern end.
The Shore Line Trolley Museum is a trolley museum located in East Haven, Connecticut. Incorporated in 1945, it is the oldest continuously operating trolley museum in the United States. The museum includes exhibits on trolley history in the visitors' center and offers rides on restored trolleys along its 1.5 mi (2.4 km) track as the Branford Electric Railway. In addition to trolleys, the museum also operates a small number of both trolleybuses and conventional buses.
Johnstown Traction Company (JTC) was a public transit system in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. For most of its existence it was primarily a street-railway system, but in later years also operated rubber-tired vehicles. JTC operated trolley (tram) service in Johnstown from February 23, 1910 to June 11, 1960. Johnstown was one of the last small cities to abandon trolley service in the United States. It was also the smallest city to acquire a fleet of PCC cars and acquired trackless trolleys at a late date compared to larger transit properties. Many of the 1920s-era cars went directly to museums; however, none of the 17 PCC streetcars were saved. Efforts to sell the 16 then-surviving PCC cars intact were unsuccessful, and in 1962 they were scrapped, but many of their components were salvaged and sold to the Brussels, Belgium tram system, reused in the last series of single PCC trams (7156–7171), which ran from 1970 until February 2010.
The Fort Smith Trolley Museum is a streetcar and railroad museum in Fort Smith, in the U.S. state of Arkansas, which includes an operating heritage streetcar line. The museum opened in 1985, and operation of its streetcar line began in 1991. Four vehicles in its collection, a streetcar and three steam locomotives, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The now approximately three-quarters-mile-long (1.2 km) streetcar line also passes four NRHP-listed sites, including the Fort Smith National Historic Site, the Fort Smith National Cemetery, the West Garrison Avenue Historic District and the 1907 Atkinson-Williams Warehouse Building, which now houses the Fort Smith Museum of History.
Streetcars or trolley(car)s were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail. Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation.
The Third Avenue Railway System (TARS), founded 1852, was a streetcar system serving the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx along with lower Westchester County. For a brief period of time, TARS also operated the Steinway Lines in Long Island City.
CityLink Navy is a bus route operated by the Maryland Transit Administration in Baltimore. It replaced Route 1 in 2017. The bus route is the successor to the 1 Gilmor Street, 2 Carey Street, and 2 Fort Avenue streetcar lines.
The Washington Railway and Electric Company (WRECo) was the larger of the two major streetcar companies in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs in the early decades of the 20th century.
The Jewett Car Company was an early 20th-century American industrial company that manufactured streetcars and interurban cars.
The Southern California Railway Museum, formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving to the former Pinacate Station as the "Orange Empire Trolley Museum" in 1958. It was renamed "Orange Empire Railway Museum" in 1975 after merging with a museum then known as the California Southern Railroad Museum, and adopted its current name in 2019. The museum also operates a heritage railroad on the museum grounds.