CTA From the Archives: The Final Streetcar [REMASTERED]
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- This video is a compilation of vintage streetcar footage (circa 1950) taken in Chicago leading up to the final ride-thru of the "Green Hornet" on June 22, 1958.
Music by Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie....)
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
![1930s - Chicago & New York in color [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IN1hig5dUXU/mqdefault.jpg)
Bring back the streetcars please CTA.
Bring back 1958!
I was just in Melbourne, Australia, in January and it was fantastic riding the trams around the city. They have the largest tram network in the world. Unlike nearly every city here in the USA, Melbourne kept a significant portion of its tram network rather than ripping it out and replacing it with buses. Certainly I wish Chicago had retained its tram network, but at least we still have our elevated rail network -- even though some of the lines were lost, such as the North Ave branch. Many cities would love to have the rail we have here, both from the CTA and Metra.
Such a shame. 😢 A Streetcar make the city more alive. It's a "city-building element". Greetings from Europe, Prague, a city where the electric streetcars have been running continuously since 1891! Today we have great modern, low-floor streetcars, that are used by many residents and tourists. It runs around thirty lines that complement three subway lines.
I've just been viewing the wonderful UA-cam videos of the German streetcars of Hamburg, Berlin, and Dusseldorf (and also Prague, Melbourne, Osaka, and HongKong). What strikes me is how well-coordinated trams operate, in relation to the multiple traffic conditions around them (bicycle, auto/truck, bus, pedestrians, etc). I don't think the American mindset, with its over-emphasis of the automobile, overspeeding, and the"Me-FIrst, and Over-Everybody-Else" psyche would permit tram/streetcar operations without an abundance of collisions, accidents, and road-rage drama. The USA exists in another world entirely, and not often, a better one.
if all cities kept street cars, would the roads be less clogged today?
randomrazr , unfortunately probably not. Since streetcars ran on fixed rails, and made frequent passenger stops, they caused traffic jams. They also lacked the flexibility to drive around disabled vehicles, etc. and when they broke down, ... well. Yes, there were somewhat fewer automobiles on the road then, but by 1958, when the last streetcar ran on Chicago's streets, cars were coming far more common.
Yes, I miss the streetcars. I rode them many times as a child, but unfortunately their times were outdated. By 1958, massive amounts of maintenance was necessary to keep them running. It was far too expensive to keep the system running. Sad but true.
@@jeromewysocki8809 even with dedicated lines for stret cars only, no differencE? i know toronto kept there street car system and some cities are installing NEW street car systems.
randomrazr , I think it goes deeper than this. In 1950 (exact date I can look up) there was a horrible, deadly, fiery crash in Chicago, where a streetcar ran a red light and "t-boned" a gasoline tanker truck. There was a huge, fiery explosion that killed the motorman, and maybe 30 or so passengers who were trapped within the streetcar. Supposedly, the motorman was drunk, and had several, less severe accidents, preceding this.
I think the streetcar involved was one of the newer ones (from about 600, made and delivered around 1948). The streetcar was salvaged, rebuilt, and returned to service, I read somewhere. But considering some perceived safety design flaws, and negative public opinions, I think this added to their demise, here in Chicago.
As I remembered, passengers had to walk out into the street to board the streetcar, in many locations. Some routes did have safety isles to aid in boarding, but busses had more flexibility in that they could allow boarding at the curb. All things, considered, the decision was made to phase out all streetcar service, as soon as possible. It took eight year to dismantle what was probably the worlds largest streetcar system, replacing the routes with busses.
Had it not been for that terrible accident, it is likely that the streetcar system here in Chicago could have survived. True, streetcars thrive in other cities. I rode in a PCC streetcar in Pittsburgh in the 1970s. I'm told that some routes there are active, even today. I've seen the streetcars in Toronto, and the system is alive and well. There is a UA-cam video, showing these. The new, more modern ones look really attractive. I hope to ride on one, next time I'm up there.
With proper planning, streetcars are a very viable system, as evidenced in other cities. I can see where their popularity and feasibility is possible.
Amazing that the largest streetcar system in America was destroyed in 10 years.
brushcreek42 Actually, Portland Oregon had the largest years before Chicago.
Coyote Prophet -
"By World War I, the city's trolleys (Chicago) held all the records:
The street railroads had more
miles of track, operated over more routes and kept more electric cars
running than any other city. In 1929, when the fare was 7 cents,
Chicago's streetcars carried nearly 900 million passengers."
"Chicago's lines were steadily rebuilt in the 1880s until the city had
the world's largest cable-car system.." From chicagotribune.com
At its peak Chicago had 1,000 miles of streetcar track.
Chicago at its peak around 1920 had about 500 streetcar route miles and about 1,000 miles of track.
"The Chicago Surface Lines was the world's largest street railway, with more miles of track, more cars and more passengers than any other company". (Chicago Surface Lines, An Illustrated History by Alan R. Lind, 1974).
@@brandonsterlingon6130 lmao no. Portland is too insignificant to justify such a late system so as to have been larger than Chicago's sorry
Seeing this video reminds me of my Grandma back in the 70s who would often say "car" fare instead of bus fare.
My parents and all the other adults in my family always said "car fare."
I was five at the time living in my hometown Chicago. I was quite unaware of the last street car having only ridden on CTA busses. So close to history so important not only for Chicago but all big cities. This was the shift to highways, roads and all the infrastructure needed to suport the new mode of transportation. The dark unseen force at work here was the unscrupulous means making sure the street car as a means of transportation was destroyed was the ever reaching tentacles of General Motors!
One of the great things about moving from Chicago to San Francisco in 1975 was riding the Green Hornets again. They ran on Market Street and still do today.
San Fransisco's may be green too, but they're not Chicago Green Hornets. There's only one of those left, and it runs at a museum.
@geneva... For anyone interested, that museum is the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL. They run that streetcar (not the one in this video) periodically there. Check with them when this streetcar runs. Taking a ride on it brought back many memories for me. From where this streetcar ran back in the day, it is likely that I was on this streetcar around 1958 as a kid.
@@jeromewysocki8809 Yes, I volunteer there! 4391 is probably our 2nd most used streetcar.
I rode this one (red) on Broadway just before they disappeared. I remember the wicker seats.
Same exact memories for me. Most of my memories were from the Ashland Ave. route. I lived two blocks north of the streetcar barn at 69th street and Ashland Ave. My uncle was a streetcar motorman and conductor for the CTA and was employed there until the end of the streetcar era in Chicago.
I'm so glad Philly kept theirs...though it's being nibbled to death route by route.
I thought SEPTA was growing?
jfreelan1964 well yes and no. the route 15 trolley (Girard Ave) has been cut back due to the I-95 widening project, and we still aren't sure as Philly transit fans if it will ever be a complete route again, the famous route 23 (Chestnut Hill to South Philly line) will never be a trolley again despite the remnants of the route being there.
DeaconG1959 I was there last month and I was sadden to see their streetcar slowly disappear.
Born in 48 on the southside and raised near Halsted street I remember the Trolleys. I was quite young, but I remember riding them. They were cold in winter, heat didn't work very well. I remember the drivers were always mad when they had to get out and change the rods connecting the power. As all things it seems, there is more to the story. the elimination of street cars actually started in the east in a concentrated effort by Standard Oil, Goodyear Rubber and General Motors. One by one old reliable, non polluting, easily repaired street car systems were replaced by expensive, polluting, gas guzzling buses. Why? Figure it out. GMC made the buses, Goodyear the tires and Standard the fuel. They didn't make any money on street cars.
At 2:45, the car turns onto SB Wentworth Ave. (Chinatown). The building with the pagodas is still there in the 2200 block of south Wentworth. Wentworth was an arterial street until the Dan Ryan Expressway construction in 1962 affected much of the streets' route, even cutting it off at 47th St.
Thanks. I grew up on the far North Side (Rogers Park), but I remember slowly jogging past there in the Chicago Marathon.
Always liked the look of the PCC cars.
We call them trams in Australia and Melbourne city goers use the tram service alot to get about the city.
It would be nice if Chicago brings streetcars back to the loop
I lament that I'm too young to remember streetcars in Chicago. I was a year and a half old when 7213 made the last run.
The last interurban in a USA still runs into Chicago, though more like train in city...the South Shore train runs down the streets in places like Michigan City, ind., on way to/from South Bend -Chicago. It is not part of CTA however
The P&W and former Red Arrow in Pennsylvania are also surviving interurbans.
The MTS-San Diego Trolley is growing.
@@jaminova_1969 Indeed, the Blue line extension north is due to be open to the public on November 21, 2021.
:52 Was That Lakeview High School 🤔
Thanks. That's what I thought too, Ashland and Irving Park. My Dad graduated from there way back in 1922.
It’s sad that as a country, the use of street cars in major cities has not kept the same nostalgia that it held back in the early 1900’s. I truly wish that street cars would have stayed around as a means of rapid transit. This part of historical nostalgia has been lost and that’s sad!
Put out of business, on purpose, by Shell, GM and Firestone. Not just in Chicago either, the entire country. Seriously, look it up. Its criminal.
The worst part of it is that these cars were only between ten and twelve years old. Because of their length, width, and two man configuration, they were not salable to other transit properties.
pilsudski36, all was not lost. These streetcars (nicknamed as "green hornets") were sent down to a facility in St. Louis, where they were rebuilt into rapid transit cars. They salvaged the platforms, wheels, linkages, motors, controllers, lighting, seating, and anything else that could be re-used. They replaced the exterior shells, to be more compatible with dimensions that would allow these rebuilt cars to be function as rapid transit cars, used in the Chicago subways and elevated lines, around the Loop, and throughout several routes in the city. These rebuilt units became known as the the "6000 Series" cars, that were used daily until their retirement, some 37 years later. The CTA needed to replace much of their aging equipment, and by rebuilding these streetcars into subway and "L cars" they saved two thirds of the cost of buying newly manufactured units. This was a huge cost saving for the CTA, and was probably the smartest financial move they ever made.
You can see the final run of the 6000 series cars, here on UA-cam. It's in a series of four videos, ending as the run terminated in the storage yard, next to the station at Kimball and Lawrence Ave., of the "Brown Line" (formerly called the Ravenswood line).
A few of the 6000 series cars, and the only surviving unconverted Chicago PCC streetcar (#4391) are at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL. I don't know if the 6000 series cars are functional yet, but the 4391 does operate regularly around the facility during the warm weather.
A lot of the components of the CTA PCC streetcars were used for making the CTA 6000 series L cars.
We will come back. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but some day. We will come back and see the day streetcars run through our streets once more.
You know, CTA, you guys really screwed the pooch on that one getting rid of streetcar service. Oh and not forgetting the cutbacks on "L" service either.
Overall it is a shame that private rapid transit had its competition subsidized, was over taxed, forced to deal with unions, and prevented from raising fares which led to abandonment or the "necessity" of having dumpy public agencies like CTA take them over.
CA&E, CNS&M, and CSS&SB would possibly be profitable today otherwise.
CTA always f×+%s itself
@@MilwaukeeF40C it's easy to complain but it happened for a reason. Don't forget that most cities in the US, and even globally cannot claim to have rapid transit as well established is it is here in Chicago. On the other hand, globally intercity travel trounces pretty much everywhere in the US, even the Amtrak Acela route.
@@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife The reason what I am talking about happened is populism. People wanted their lifestyles subsidized using "greater good" excuses.
@@MilwaukeeF40C okay that's fair, I got mixed up. Sorry to confuse
I could never understand how people could consider themselves free and - moreover - living in a democracy, when there are under their noses strong socio-economic forces which can so twist the public good to their own personal benefit (and greed) and noone can do nothing to stop it. nor - even wilder - question to rein them in as a prequisite of any social stability. trolley cars are a good example of this; useful, cheap, well loved by the resident, non-polluting - obviously an institution for public good. but still destroyed because of big car companies wanted YOU to spend your money on them without a choice in any alternative. in a functional society this would have never been allowed.
Cool! Though I haven't seen a Chicago streetcar personally, I have heard a lot about them. Very cool in my opinion!
go to Illinois Rail Museum, have many running
I never got to see a Chicago streetcar, the final streetcar rolled on over 23 years before I was even born.
ir10031981 , take a trip to the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL. They have the last remaining PCC Chicago streetcar fully restored and running. It's painted in the same color scheme as you see in the end of this video. In fact, that same streetcar (#4391) appears two cars to the right of #7213, that just completed its final run at the end of this video. Take a ride on it if you go there!
@@jeromewysocki8809 Sorry to disappoint you, but 4391 isn't the one in the video (that looks to be 4391). I believe 4391 was already in preservation at that point. It's also currently in the more teal color scheme, though I wish we'd repaint it into the dark green in the video.
@geneva... You might be right. The number is hard to read in this video.
I'm not sure when 4391 went into storage. I saw a picture of it stored in a barn, located, I believe, in Downers Grove, IL, for how many years, I'm not sure.
Anyway, it was later transferred to the Illinois Railway Museum. I'm not sure how it got to Downers Grove, and when it left from there.
each and every city that gave up their street cars / trams has later deplored that stupid act
wow! 60 years ago this week!
Should of kept these cars would still be running today?
Chuck Wlodarczyk , actually they do, or did, "sorta." About 600 of them (the style you see in this video), were sent down to a facility in St. Louis, that converted them into rapid transit cars that the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) ran in the subways and elevated tracks (the "L"). These were the "6000 series" cars. They ran them for at least 35 years. You can see them here on UA-cam. Someone uploaded the last run, all the way to the end of the line, just like in this video. A few of these cars now run at the Illinois Railway Museum, in Union, IL. The CTA saved several of the cars, and ran them on special occasions, for rail fans. I heard on of these special rides went on every line in the CTA rail network, all over the city. I think they did this as a special fund raising event.
Chuck Wlodarczyk , also, one of these streetcars (like in the end of this video) was saved. It now runs at the Illinois Railway Museum. That Museum also has and runs one of the red streetcars you see early in this video. It ran on the streets of Chicago for at least 50 years.
Two poles, one for each direction makes life easier.
My uncle, born in 1930 worked as tram conductor and beside selling tickets, he has at the terminus to turn the pole's direction, by going around the streetcar. Later the one too two side cars would be attached to the streetcar.
Pretty often, the sidecars would be detached and passengers requested to continue the ride in the street car.
One day he was working in the side car and wondered why so many passengers came to his car. His colleague in the motor streetcar told the passengers, that the first car will be detached and they have to change in the side car.
My uncle noticed the joke and asked the passengers, how will the side car be moved without being pulled by a motorized car.
Was in Berlin in the early 1950's, they changed the system from pole to pantograph. Later came it, that streetcars were equipped with vendors. East Berlin had a strange system, the vendor didn't respond to the amount of money. So you could insert coins, tickets you purchased before or anything else.
Pretty cool, had a Police escort for it, guess the rail fans had influence even back then.
I enjoyed the ride. Pity Chicago didn’t keep them running.
Sadie Travels , I rode in these same types of streetcars, many times as a child, here in Chicago, and I do miss them. Several others, including myself, have commented here on why, unfortunately, streetcars had to be discontinued from running here in Chicago.
We all know why most streetcar lines disappeared here in the USA, should have never happened, hope many of those cities have the streetcars make a come back..
It depends on how persuasive the special interests can be in either direction. And if approved, how good of a system can be built.
Please enlighten us. Why did they disappear?
(Cue the GM-bought-up-all-the-car-lines-to-dismantle-them-and-sell-buses conspiracy).
@@Bill-wu2lh They disappeared because they constantly ran at a loss, were a costly pain to maintain, clogged traffic, were noisy and when buses came they were wholly replaced.
Colonel Thyran , another reason is that busses have more flexibility in getting around stalled vehicles, construction problems, etc., because they don't have to rely on rigid fixed rails built into the pavement. Yes, I miss riding in Chicago streetcars, but bringing them back is probably too impractical, all things considered.
@@CThyran
Well, let's compare them to what replaced them, shall we? There's busses, which are louder and carry fewer people, and are generally considered inferior in terms of ride. Whilst maintenance of tracks is an issue, the vehicles themselves are far simpler to maintain and generally more durable than buses.
Then there's the highways, which became necessary for commuting into city centres once public transport was gone. For them dozens of city blocks in most US cities were demolished, the absolutely massive cost of which was paid for by the US government.
And speaking of "clogging up the street", what do you think takes up more space? One Streetcar carrying 70 people, two buses carrying 35 each or 60-70 individual cars and the space to park them? There's a reason why so many US city centres these days mostly consist of motorways and parking lots, and that takes way more space than any streetcar system ever could.
So very sad.
Car 4391, the sole surviving Green Hornet, is second from right in the final scene.
M1903A1 I saw it at the railway museum
ChicagoLTrain115 , I rode in these as a kid. It was fun riding in car 4391 at the Illinois Railway Museum, in Union, IL.
I think 4391 was already in preservation at that point, and the number isn't clear in the video.
ITS 2019 in Philadelphia is my home town, we still have the route 15 running on PCC cars. in this video , progress is a ugly word.
Steve Stearns , I don't know if Pittsburgh still runs them, But I rode in one of their PCC streetcars there in 1972. I'm from Chicago, rode on many of them "in the day" and am glad that they saved and restored one of them. It's from Chicago and is at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Il.
Jerome Wysocki Pittsburgh retired its last PCC cars in 1999, however most of the routes that were remaining at that point have been rebuilt and upgraded for modern light rail vehicles. The street running sections within downtown were replaced with a subway underground.
The conductor was William E Rye (1936-1990) and the motorman was Marvin H. McFall ( 1904- 1970). I couldn’t find info on Mr. Rye’s length of service with CTA but he appeared to be a graduate of DuSable High School and served in the military not long after this was filmed. Mr. McFall’s obituary said he was a retired Chicago Streetcar motorman of 32 years.
Sadie Travels , thanks for doing this research. My uncle was a Chicago CTA streetcar motorman and conductor. Story was that many of the older motormen did not want to drive busses, so they slowly retired as more and more routes were converted from streetcars to buses. I wonder if Marvin H. McFall did the same, after he finished the final streetcar run of # 7213, that day in June of 1958.
I grew up two blocks north of the "Chicago City Railway" streetcar barn, at 69th and Ashland Ave., on the southwest side of Chicago. As a little kid, I liked watching the streetcars coming into, at leaving that facility, especially the ones my uncle drove, as motorman.
Jerome Wysocki Thank you for sharing your uncle’s story and sharing more about CTA history. My family lived on 72nd and Ashland for a few years, which was not far from the depot. I remember my parents driving by that huge depot which by then only had buses.
Truly the end of an era
The building at 5:40 is Lake View High School at Ashland Ave. and Irving Park Rd. I graduated there in 1956.
I was born in '49. My family would visit Chicago from So.Bend. I do remember street cars on State St. going past Marshall Field's. Do not know when last one ran in the loop. These were not green hornets but old fashioned street cars. Seen the green hornets in surrounding areas. I also loved to hear those electric buses.
Born in '49, I don't recall riding in any of the old red cars but I do remember my Dad hustling my sister and I aboard green hornets way back when. I remember I was only about as tall as the back of a seat, maybe 5 or so. I suppose it was a few lifetimes ago now.
All the automaker corporations should get the death penalty for killing rail and rail can be reborn!
I cry myself to sleep every night because they destroyed these beautiful streetcars
Hobgoblin , they were not totally destroyed. About 600 of them were rebuilt into elevated and subway cars after their retirement. The CTA ran these converted cars for about 34 years or so, on the "L" and subways. You can see the last run of the "6000 series" cars here on UA-cam. The videos are broken up into several parts, ending with the final scene as the cars enter the storage yard, at Kimball and Lawrence Ave.
The Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL has at least one of these final cars, as well as the only surviving streetcar of that series, # 4391. Take a ride on them if you ever get a chance.
Hobgoblin. You are not the only one with a soggy pillow! In Adelaide, South Australia, our beautiful 'H' class trams built in 1929 remained in service until 2006. They were an iconic tourist attraction besides still providing a superior ride to a bus. A city that promotes tourism. Go figure!
They'll regret that
@0:44 Irving Park Rd and Ashland Ave
Dagnabit, I rode 'em. The red ones along 67th Street to beach and the green hornets on the North Side when we went to zoo. Yup, the green hornets. But it wasn't so long ago. I'm just finishing graduate school right now.
Look,the street cars are eco-friendly,and nice,but you’re replaced them with ugly,polluting buses,plz add at least the trolleys!!!
Hopefully theyll come back soon
All I clicked the video for was to see if, in fact, the streetcar was named, 'Desire..'.
Any video of streetcars passing near or in front of Hull House?
Can someone please tell me what neighborhoods these scenes were filmed.
😢
I want new streetcars, or for me, a better solution would be an automatic light rail, that would use road separation, and 750V AC overhead lines(or minimum possible with AC overhead lines) to make it incompatible with the L. People would maintain it, and the routes would be the same. If there is an existing L line, that section would be put underground(no houses would be demolished)
Most taxpayers don't want to pay for something they would rarely (or never) use. Most residents don't want those ugly catenary wires polluting their neighborhood views. Undergrounding is the most expensive construction method. Using a lower voltage means more losses due to higher currents (and the need for more copper in the feedlines); both make a system less efficient. Sounds like you have only looked at this from the rider's point of view and not considered who has to pay for, and live with, your dreams.
Ed Price The bus routes would be deleted and the steeetcars would replace them. The cars would have low floors, to make the wheelchair accessible, and will be light rail lines if the street is wide enough. In Dubai, there is a ground level power supply. And if they went off-road, we might still have them today, after all, they were just railway vehicles.
Quario: Most American cities do not have the population density of European or Asian cities, so all-rail is not efficient (mixing arterial rail with bus feeders is much better). OTOH, most cities everywhere do not have the benign climate and available space that Dubai has (actually, using Dubai as a standard for anything is bad, as Dubai is a small place atop a sea of money with a monoculture and a top-down government structure; in short, Dubai is not Dublin or Detroit). Perhaps you have never seen what happens when Chicago gets a heavy snowstorm and the garbage trucks are re-purposed as snow plows and begin to clear the priority streets first. Rescuing surface rail would create single-lane traffic following the rail lines; lower priority lines would see electric cars abandoned where they finally got stuck (you probably don't realize how vulnerable light surface rail is to being blocked by snow and ice). Indeed, this lack of flexibility was one of the strongest arguments for replacing surface rail service with buses.
Lastly, I don't understand what you are saying about railway vehicles, that could go off-road, would have ensured their presence today.
Ed Price Smaller French cities have ground level power supplies. And if the bus route only uses electric buses, it’ll stay as a bus route. What’s supposed to happen is that people will ditch their cars from seeing how slow everything is.
Quario: And the American system is to let everyone choose their own best form of transport. There will always be experts who know what's best for the people, and who suggest endless ways of coercing them to see the light. Certainly I have made poor choices in transportation, like the several years I spent driving the Kennedy expressway from the Loop to Des Plaines, or the 6 months I commuted by CTA between 6000 N Central to 79th & Kedzie (hint: 4 bus routes and 2 L lines each way; I worked a 1400 to 2400 shift). However, I now live in California, and I would never think of commuting any way other than my personal vehicle. This is primarily because I like to live in a rural area (which can barely support an infrequent rural bus and certainly not any light rail), but there is also a component of personal freedom in this decision; I enjoy driving, navigating as I see fit in the moment and not being obligated to routes and schedules. (As you might guess, I'm not very enthusiastic about driverless cars either.)
27dezembro2020.domingo, 20h46.
Assistindo primeira vez. Muito bom lembrar as idéias do passado. Hoje o ônibus elétrico faz o serviço. Ter uma linha férrea para veiculo eletrico é questão de projeto específico.
So completely unnecessary
Another appalling transit decision. How'd those buses work out for you?
Luke Albanese , well, we still have the busses here in Chicago, running on every route , today in 2020. I loved riding in the old streetcars as a child, and I still do miss them.
@@jeromewysocki8809 what's crazy is that they will shortly need to replace their entire bus fleet with....electric buses.
What's even more crazy is that they had an electric trolley bus system, that they entirely phased out in March, 1973. Eight months later came the "oil embargo" which literally doubled the price of oil. Since the CTA generated their own electricity to run the busses, I believe they would have saved a lot of money had they kept the electric busses still running.
Chicago you have no imagination
In screen 2:33 is that the catholic church on the Southside on 59th Street before you get to the dan ryan expressway.
I think it is.
Were any of these cars saved?
Only one.
The movie theater 1:54, which one is it?
Phoenix built a light rail system, the only difference is this one costs 20 zillion dollars a mile. 😆
Only ONE of the PCC cars was preserved, the others were scrapped...
All but 30 were "recycled" into L cars (the 6000 series), that served Chicago until 1992-93. A pair of them will soon be operating as part of the CTA's historic fleet.
M1903A1 it's true but bodies were scrapped. Cars don't exists anymore.
There's actually two Chicago PCC cars preserved. One being an air PCC.
Marcelo Benoit , The bodies were scrapped in a facility in St. Louis, but much of their other parts were reused in making the 6000 series of CTA rapid transit cars. Parts reused included motors, linkages, wheels, etc., and interior parts, such as seats, windows, lights, etc.
I read a newspaper article years ago that claimed that the CTA saved two thirds of the cost of new cars, by rebuilding these retired streetcars, into rapid transit cars for the L, and subways. And considering that they got about another 35 years from these rebuilt cars, that was probably the best financial decision the CTA ever made!
@@MilwaukeeF40C That's Blue Goose 4021. It's on static display at the Illinois Railway Museum, where 4391 also is.
General Motors is the cause of the demise of the streetcars look up some of the videos on UA-cam
The Depression and World War II had far more to do with it...after fifteen years of deferred maintenance and five years of hard wartime service, the entire streetcar physical plant had to be rebuilt all at once. Plus the Elevated was literally lucky to make payroll every month, lacked signals over most of the system, and was a substantially pre-1910 fleet. Converting to buses cut a lot of fixed plant costs from the surface system, and converting the streetcars to "L" cars saved the "L".
No, GM did not do it, that's pop culture crap.
Railroads and transit lines created suburbanization, especially around Chicago. People naturally wanted it and then populist government subsidized the hell out of it.
M1903A1 , I think the CTA tried to save the streetcar system in that they had about 600 PCC cars built as replacements to their aging red Pullman streetcars of 1910 vintage. The first of these newly built cars were delivered, I believe, in 1948. But a tragic, deadly fiery crash, where a new PCC streetcar ran a red light and "T-boned" a gasoline tanker truck, happened in 1950. There was a huge explosion, and at least 30 people, trapped within the streetcar, were burned to death. Negative publicity of this disaster by the public, along with perceived safety deficiencies of these newer PCC cars (not having proper emergency escape mechanisms that probably couldn't be retrofitted into the streetcars), I'm sure, also led to their decline.
i used to ride the trolleys on Lincoln ave. Workers seemed to want a bunch of $$$, same happened at the RI Farmall works - workers thought they could strike at the drop of a hat so, no more plant
It lastED longer THEN IT SHOULD HAVE
Meanwhile in Melbourne.
streetcars scare the beejesus outta me!
Beautiful video
Im glad we can see how majestic these streetcars were.
Mantis XXX , majestic these streetcars were. I personally remember that last day, shown in the second half of this video. This was a BIG TIME story of television news in Chicago. Everyone locally had stories about Chicago streetcars, because, like myself, many had pleasant memories about riding everywhere in Chicago on the streetcars. I've ridden on them quite a few times as a child. My uncle was a motorman for the CTA for many years. He got a new job elsewhere after retirement of that last streetcar, in 1958.