ERA BULLETIN - JANUARY, 2015
The Bulletin
Electric Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated Vol. 58, No. 1 The Bulletin Published by the Electric Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated, PO Box 3323, New York, New York 10163-3323. For general inquiries, contact us at bulletin@ erausa.org. ERA’s website is www.erausa.org. Editorial Staff: Editor-in-Chief: Bernard Linder Tri-State News and Commuter Rail Editor: Ronald Yee North American and World News Editor: Alexander Ivanoff Contributing Editor: Jeffrey Erlitz Production Manager: David Ross ©2015 Electric Railroaders’ Association, Incorporated
In This Issue: Toward Underground (and Underwater) Rolling Stock (Continued) ...Page 2
January, 2015
THIRD AVENUE BUILT ITS LAST TROLLEY CAR 75 YEARS AGO After the company was reorganized on Jan- placed in service on the long, straight Webuary 1, 1912, it always had difficulty making a ster and White Plains Avenue Line, with only profit. In the early 1930s, the company was two right-angle turns. It derailed frequently on operating a fleet of slow, obsolete wooden the curves and was soon taken out of sertwo-motor cars and 100 newer single-truck vice. cars. But the company could not afford new In 1930, the company bought the first tenequipment because the city insisted on main- year-old car, 1702, a high-speed interurban taining the five-cent fare with universal trans- with blue plush seats. Because the car had fer privileges. narrow front Therefore the and rear doors, company decidit was a slow ed to modernize loader and was its fleet by buynot suitable for ing ten-year-old heavy city sersecond-hand vice. From July, cars, rebuilding 1933 to August, its single-truck 1934, we obcars, and buildserved the car ing new cars. A in service on few years later, the Webster most of the and White modern cars Plains Avenue were in service. Line. The car But New York was returned to City’s Mayor the shop, where LaGuardia, who the platforms th Car 1201 on Melrose Avenue at E. 149 Street, February 23, 1942. favored buses, Bernard Linder collection were rebuilt with refused to rewider doors and new the franchise unless Third Avenue the plush seats were replaced with rattan agreed to convert to buses. The company seats. The car was rebuilt with equipment complied and stopped building new cars. On similar to the equipment in all the company’s February 11, 1940, we observed the last new cars. In 1934, it was renumbered to 1250. car, 685, in service. On November 9, 1940, From 1933 to 1935, Third Avenue was busy the company was forced to accept a fran- buying modern second-hand cars that were chise that required it to substitute buses for in good condition. A January 15, 1934 newsstreetcars on one-fifth of the lines in each paper photo shows a Richmond Railways four-year period. Staten Island car being loaded on a BaltiThe ten-year modernization program began more & Ohio Railroad barge at Proctor and with the purchase of 1701, a single-truck Gamble’s Port Ivory Dock. The car was unconvertible built by Brill in 1929. It was (Continued on page 4) 1