Detroit Ended its Streetcar Operation 53 Years Ago Today.

[bc_n_dtown]

Today, April 8, 2009, marks the 53rd Anniversary of the ending of street railway service in the city of Detroit. On this date in 1956, GM diesel buses replaced PCC streetcars on Woodward Avenue, thus bringing to a close a chapter in this city's transit history that lasted nearly 93 years.

In commemoration of that event, the following web-page on the Detroit Transit History website takes a look back at the last days of streetcar operation in Detroit, and the subsequent sale and operation of the cars in Mexico City.

For those interested the article can be found at:
http://www.detroittransithistory.inf...roitPCC-5.html

For those primarily interested in photos there's also a 2-page photo gallery section devoted to the city's PCC fleet. The first page begins at:
http://www.detroittransithistory.inf...tos1940sC.html
[[New photos were recently added to Second Page)

[Bobl]

Great post!
I'm one of the old guard who remembers them. Lived near 8 Mile Rd & Gratiot, and liked watching the streetcars turn around for return trips on Gratiot. I was quite young, but used the street cars many times, usually with my mother on shopping trips to Hudson's downtown. Still remember the ozone smell!

[Irvine Laird]

Does the Michigan Transit Museum still own one its old PCC from the DSR fleet? A couple of years ago, I found photographs of it on the MTM Website, but a quick search today turned up nothing.

My dream is to restore that old streetcar and move it to a permanent display in front of the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward. I wonder if the Michigan Transit Museum would let the Detroit Museum borrow it.

[iheartthed]

Detroit's loss is Mexico City's gain...

[Rocko]

Yep, PCC 268 is the one MTM has. It got exterior paint a few years back but already looks worse for wear again. My idea was they should restore it and put it at the end of Woodward at Jefferson [[or someplace else of equal visibility) and open up the inside as a tourism/information booth type thing. Or, the Historical Museum is fine, too. A visitor's information booth in Midtown might not be a bad idea either. Below is a photo of the 268 at MTM from a few years back, when it was looking a bit better, that I found in an online hunt a few years ago....sorry I don't remember the source.

That's not the only surviving DSR streetcar out there. Two Peter Witt types exist, as well. One is the 3865, and the other is the 3876.


Peter Witt #3876, painted in the later attractive Maroon and Creme DSR scheme. It is at the Ohio Railway Museum, Worthington OH.
http://www.ohiorailwaymuseum.org/mus...detroitcar.jpg

Peter Witt #3865, painted in the earlier DSR creme and green colors. It went to the Henry Ford Museum after retirement and underwent a partial renovation before being stored out of sight. The exterior restoration was completed when it was sold to the Illinois Rail Museum in Union, IL in 1998, where it is on display.
http://www.irm.org/pictures/600/3865dsr01.jpg

PCC #268, painted in the attractive PCC version of the Maroon and creme. This is the only surviving PCC from the Detroit fleet, which once numbered 186 President's Conference Committee cars. It went with the rest of the Detroit PCC fleet into service in Mexico City, and was returned to Michigan in the 1990s. It is at the Michigan Transit Museum at Selfridge ANG base in Mt. Clemens.
http://lyttonspccs.homestead.com/263.html


Here's an article from 1998 about the DSR 3865, and the irresponsibility of the Henry Ford Museum. Happily, the story has turned happy, though the car is now a long way from it's home.
http://www.michigantransitmuseum.org/gaz_may.html

[Mackinaw]

And a sad day it was.

Time to start looking forward to the future of street rail in Detroit, though. The priority needs to be on making the Woodward Light rail as great as it can be.

I just saw the very interesting video I'm posting below about a 1.3 mile, 11-stop light rail line in Seattle. I think this shows just how substantial Detroit's current undertaking is. Note also the part about how the line spurred downtown Seattle's first new grocery store in decades. ...some of Detroit's problems aren't THAT unique.
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/...autostart=true

[Beech Cricker]

The PCCs certainly had nice lines.

I am too young to have seen the PCC cars operate in Detroit but I did get to see, ride and even photograph a few in Pittsburgh.

[Ltdave]

the F line in San Francisco has many PCC cars running and they are included in the MUNI transit use scheme along with the buses and cable cars...

[reddog289]

Hey didn't the SF f line have one of its cars painted in DSR colors?.Two of my favorite books are Detroit Street Railways Vol 1&2.

[crawford]

Mexico City's gain? There are no trolleys nowadays in Mexico City.

I never knew they sold the rolling stock to Mexico City. Very interesting.

[Bloomfield Pills]

There still are a few spots around Detroit where you can see the old trolley tracks.

[ASR89]

Bloomfield Pills, I'm curious. Where are there still visible tracks around? Thanks in advance.

[Irvine Laird]

Thank you for the information and the photos, Rocko. I know I asked this two or three years ago here, but what do you think it would cost to restore PCC 268, build a permanent home for it downtown, and move it from Selfridge AFB?

[Rocko]

Intersection of Vernor W. and Junction next to Holy Redeemer Church. Look for the curving rails in the street. If it's still there, this is a great stretch!

You also might be able to see them at Fort and Junction - again a curving segment, but they repaved that a few years back so they might be hidden again.

Take a close look at that asphalt slab running down the middle of the brick near old Tiger Stadium...as the asphalt crumbles away, rails down the middle are appearing! I'm not sure if the rails are still in place on the "curve" from Michigan westbount to Trumbull north, but you can clearly see where they WERE in the bricks.

When they stripped off the top layer of asphalt to repave last year on Fort near Cass and downtown, rails were evident there too.

When MDOT completely rebuilt Michigan Avenue between Livernois and Wyoming, they tore out all the rails that were under the top layer of pavement.

Seems like there's a bit of rail poking through next to a big pothole as you travel northbound on Mt. Elliot at Mack....may have been "patched" over, but just as likely not!

On Dearborn along the old CP Rail tunnel yard west of Fort, in the eastbound lane, you used to be able to see a rail, until they patched it over....but it's there....always reflected the sunlight real good on an early morning commute.

Wander over to the Wayburn Loop on E. Jefferson near Alter and you can see part of the streetcar "loop" still there poking through the pavement.

Finally, on St. Jean, just north of Warren next to the old DSR Shoremaker Terminal, you can see access rails crossing St. Jean.

Wow!, at 7:50 in the morning I'm doing pretty good to remember all this stuff!

>>>Rocko, previously referred to as BusterWMU

[jgavrile]

A lot of people don't realize that GM was actually the main reason that the streetcars went out both here in Detroit and in other major cities. They were pretty evil about it. Their whole deal was to sell busses, so they put out all this bad press about streetcars and how dangerous they were and how pedestrians were getting killed waiting in the street for them, etc.
I think that Chicago actually sued GM over this?

[ASR89]

Thank you Rocko.

[jgavrile]

When we were teenagers, you could drive down where the
Renaissance center is now on Atwater and the old tracks used to be still in the road. If you had an old pre-49 Ford, you could start out on those tracks with the wheels stradling the tracks and drive down the road no hands and the car would follow the tracks even on the curves. It sure use to be fun.

[turkeycall]

I was born in 1950 and grew up on Farmbrook between Southampton and Frankfort. My mother would often go downtown for Saturday shopping and I would have to tag along. We'd wait for the Warren / Downtown bus in front of the Maple Lanes bowling alley where, by the way, on the bus stop sign post, there a Detroit Free Press paper box. It was an open box with a heavy, flexible plastic cover. The daily edition was 6 cents.

Streecars are a vague memory but I remember the electric buses, especially around the St Jean bus barn. I think they used the same trolley wires as the streetcars.

[swede1934]

It's too bad you folks missed riding those PCC's. Between 6 and 7 mile on Woodward, the operators would really "put the pedal to the metal". They did not have a speedometer, but I would guess we were doing at least 45MPH along that stretch. The tracks were in good shape during the fortys and early fiftys, so that speed did not cause much swaying.

[Bob Green]

Maybe they could bring some of those old cars back and put them in service on the new line they are talking about putting in on Woodward. Of course I know it is not that simple, but how cool would that be?

[jgavrile]

Yea, along Woodward ,North of 6 mile,on the way to the fairgrounds ,those streetcars would really fly. It was really cool when the driver would open them up and go at it full tilt.
Going the other way on a trip, lets say down to Hudson's, the conductor would call out all the cross streets, and put his own little twist onto the names when he pronounced them.
We use to have class in this town.

[Mikeg]

A lot of people don't realize that GM was actually the main reason that the streetcars went out both here in Detroit and in other major cities. They were pretty evil about it. Their whole deal was to sell busses, so they put out all this bad press about streetcars and how dangerous they were and how pedestrians were getting killed waiting in the street for them, etc.
I think that Chicago actually sued GM over this?

Those are some mighty serious accusations you are making. How about providing some documentation and references to back them up? I thought that Detroit was one of the few cities in the nation to have a publicly-owned transit system. How did GM manage to surreptitiously take over the DSR and make the decision to replace the streetcars with buses and trolley buses? If this was the result of a deliberate corporate conspiracy, how do you explain away the fact that hundreds of thousands of Detroiters bought their own personal vehicles in the 1920s through the start of WW II, even though they lived within a half-mile from a streetcar line?

Maybe there is a reason that "A lot of people don't realize that GM was actually the main reason that the streetcars went out......" - it isn't true!

[Bigb23]

Granted, people will always question Wikipedia, but there are always source links to follow up on.

This is something I've been hearing about for 30 years, and the Internet helps me make my own judgment.

The Great American streetcar scandal [[also known as the General Motors streetcar conspiracy and the National City Lines conspiracy) is a conspiracy in which streetcar systems throughout the United States were dismantled and replaced with buses in the mid-20th century as a result of illegal actions by a number of prominent companies, acting through National City Lines [[NCL), Pacific City Lines [[on the West Coast, starting in 1938), and American City Lines [[in large cities, starting in 1943).

National, which had been in operation since 1920, was organized into a holding company and General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack, and the Federal Engineering Corporation made investments in the City Lines companies in return for exclusive supply contracts.[1] Between 1936 and 1950, National City Lines bought out more than 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities,[2] including Detroit, New York City, Oakland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, Baltimore, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles,[3] and replaced them with GM buses. American City Lines merged with National in 1946.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_A...eetcar_Scandal

[Mikeg]

Between 1936 and 1950, National City Lines bought out more than 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities,[2] including Detroit......[3]

Bigb23, those Wikipedia source links take you to:
[2] a page where this text was lifted from verbatim with no references or footnotes, only links to other Wikipedia articles
[3] a page that no longer exists and which had been a personal web page belonging to an AOL customer

So where are these Wikipedia source links and other sources that we can follow up on and which prove that a GM conspiracy resulted in the demise of Detroit's streetcars? Where is the proof that GM/National City Lines bought out the DSR?

[iheartthed]

Bigb23, those Wikipedia source links take you to:
[2] a page where this text was lifted from verbatim with no references or footnotes, only links to other Wikipedia articles
[3] a page that no longer exists and which had been a personal web page belonging to an AOL customer

So where are these Wikipedia source links and other sources that we can follow up on and which prove that a GM conspiracy resulted in the demise of Detroit's streetcars? Where is the proof that GM/National City Lines bought out the DSR?

National City Lines didn't buy out Detroit Department of Street Railways. DSR still exists today, but it's called DDOT. But DSR was not the only street car operation in Detroit. What happened to Eastern Michigan Railways? [[The only information I can find about it is that part of the operation was sold to DSR, but nothing explains what happened to the rest of it. Was it bought by National City Lines?)

But National City Lines did buy up a lot other street car lines around the country at about the same time period that DSR went completely to buses. In fact, National City Lines was sued about 10 years before DSR completely dismantled its streetcar operations for trying to establish a monopoly over public transportation services in major cities [[United States v. National City Lines, http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/770576). So isn't it a bit curious that, just several years after the largest employer in the city was sued for trying to monopolize the public transit market with motor buses, the Detroit Department of Street Railways miraculously decided to change to an all motor bus fleet?

GM may not have bought DSR, but that's only because they didn't have to buy them. DSR was already in their pockets.What's the difference between Detroit funneling all of its money to GM in 1956, at a higher cost than what it needed to spend on its public transit operations, and Detroit funneling contracts to Bobby Ferguson in 2006 at a higher cost than it needed to spend?