Was there ever a streetcar that ran on Electric st. in Downriver
Been looking on Google Earth and other maps and I started wondering, if there ever was a Electric Street Car that ran on Electric street to Detroit from the downriver area. Or is it just named electric st. because that is where the large power lines are. If you look on google earth though you can clearly see a direct path from downriver to detroit, meeting up with fort street. Where I'm pretty sure was a streetcar line. Any Info is appreciated, Just doing some late night pondering.
Interurban via Fort Street Bascule Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
EastsideAl
Here is a map of Ecorse Township [[modern-day River Rouge, Ecorse, Wyandotte, etc.) and Springwells Township [[now mostly in SW Detroit) showing the line running down Fort St. west out of the city and then going off onto what's now Electric, near where Fort takes its southward turn past the Rouge River.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text...iew=pdf&seq=22
Although not as clearly depicted as it should be in the map link posted by EastsideAl, the original route of the Detroit-Toledo interurban initially veered south off of W. Fort Street via its own separate bridge across the Rouge River into Springwells Township before traveling along what's now S. Patricia Street and eventually along Liebold Street [[later renamed Electric). However, after the Fort Street drawbridge was constructed in 1922 to allow Great Lakes freighters access to the FoMoCo Rouge facility the cars were rerouted across the new drawbridge onto S. Fort before crossing over to the interurban private right-of-way.
However, because of increasing motor traffic congestion downtown, the DUR opened a new transfer station in April of 1925 on Fort Street just west of the Rouge River bridge. This resulted in most of the Toledo interurbans now terminating at this new Oakwood Terminal and express buses being used to continue the route into downtown.
Attachment 3509
This 1923 photo shows a DUR interurban atop the then recently constructed Fort Street River Rouge bridge. [[Bill Volkmer photo)
Electric Blvd. Rail Operation under the DSR
For 22 years the DSR would also operate its streetcars along the Detroit [[Electric Street) portion of the Detroit-Toledo interurban railway. After the interurban operation ceased in 1932, the DSR would continue to operate along those rails for the next 17 years.
In November of 1927, the DSR decided to extend its Fort-West streetcar line westward from Fort Street and Dearborn Avenue [[near the former city limits) to service the territory recently annexed by the city in 1922 from Springwells Twp. Instead of building new trackage, the Fort line would utilize the interurban private right-of-way originally built for the Detroit, Monroe & Toledo Short Line Railway [[1904-1906) along Electric Street.
After crossing the Fort Street drawbridge over the Rouge River, the cars traveled about two blocks along S. Fort, then one block via a center median P.R.W. where they would then turn left onto Stocker Street.
[[Check out this WSU Virtual Motor City photo link which looks along S. Fort at the rail cross-over onto Stocker St.)
After a block or so the cars would turn south onto the Detroit-Toledo interurban trackage, now owned by the Toledo Division of the Detroit United Railway [[DUR). Prior to entering center-of-street operation along Electric Street, a P.R.W. carried the cars through a heavy industrial area between Stocker and Schaefer Hwy. It was along this stretch, just south of Stocker, that the cars would travel through a narrow railroad trestle bridge across six railroad tracks belonging to the Michigan Central, Pennsylvania, and Wabash railroads, and then across a creek before entering the more residential Electric Street section. The DSR also built a "wye" turn-around two blocks inside the city limits in the vicinity of Electric and Gleason, that would serve as the western terminus for the extended line. Initially, the DSR leased the tracks but later purchased the rails in 1936 after the Toledo interurban service had been abandoned by Eastern Michigan Railways.
In 1932, the DSR combined its Fort-West line with its east-side Kercheval line, resulting in a longer cross-the-town Fort-Kercheval line. The Fort Street portion of the line was converted over to buses in 1949 and the combined route was separated.
Attachment 3511
This photo looks northeast along Electric Blvd. just south of Gleason in southwest Detroit sometime between 1946 and 1949 as car #3303 prepares to enter the "wye" turn-around built at the end of the Fort Street line. Note the sparsely populated post-war neighborhood prior to the homes currently there being constructed.
[[Norm MacDonald photo - Krambles-Peterson Archives)