130-550: The Holyoke Street Railway ( HSR ) was an interurban streetcar and bus system operating in Holyoke, Massachusetts as well as surrounding communities with connections in Amherst , Belchertown , Chicopee , Easthampton , Granby , Northampton , Pelham , South Hadley , Sunderland , Westfield , and West Springfield . Throughout its history the railway system shaped the cultural institutions of Mount Tom , being operator of
260-525: A dinosaur to be found in North America was unearthed in South Hadley by Pliny Moody while plowing in 1802, 40 years before dinosaurs were identified as a fossil group. The sandstone slab bearing large, mysterious footprints was later purchased by Elihu Dwight, who gave the prints the name of "Noah's Raven". Professor Edward Hitchcock then obtained the slab, which is now on prominent display in
390-582: A light rail line. South Hadley South Hadley ( / ˈ h æ d l iː / , HAD -lee ) is a town in Hampshire County , Massachusetts , United States. The population was 18,150 at the 2020 census . It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area . South Hadley is home to Mount Holyoke College , South Hadley High School , Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School , and
520-474: A boom in agriculture which lasted through the First World War , but transportation in rural areas was inadequate. Conventional steam railroads made limited stops, mostly in towns. These were supplemented by horse and buggies and steamboats , both of which were slow and the latter of which were restricted to navigable rivers. The increased capacity and profitability of the city street railroads offered
650-513: A contractor rather than competing with the new system. Today few vestiges remain of the former streetcar or bus systems, and the railway is best remembered for its Mount Tom Summit House and inclined railway , which was visited by President William McKinley in 1899. Following a series of fires and the Great Depression , the third and final summit house was disassembled after a vandalism incident in 1938. While routes have changed in
780-698: A decade for the Holyoke Street Railway and in Massachusetts as a whole. When the railway's first electric cars appeared in 1891, at the time about a third of all street railway lines in Massachusetts had electric overhead systems. However by the turn of the century not only were these cars commonplace in the Holyoke system, they comprised more than 99% of such streetcar lines in the Commonwealth. Another feature that typified railways in
910-500: A dispute between labor and management led regular bus service to an abrupt end, with would-be passengers still waiting at stops, on July 1, 1987. After four years of inactivity and with a municipal school bus contract failing to pass negotiations, the company liquidated its assets and had dissolved by 1991. Today their former headquarters serves as the main facilities of the Holyoke Department of Public Works, now known as
1040-474: A female householder with no husband present, and 36.1% were non-families. Of all households, 30.4% were made up of individuals, and 13.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.93. In the town, the population was spread out, with 19.6% under the age of 18, 14.9% from 18 to 24, 25.6% from 25 to 44, 22.4% from 45 to 64, and 17.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
1170-581: A former bridge connecting Holyoke across the Connecticut River. The following year, it was proposed the company stop every other car on the South Hadley route on the Holyoke side of where the Vietnam Memorial Bridge stands today, to halve taxes paid for use of the bridge there at that time. Public opinion on the South Hadley side of the river remained largely in favor of the company, however one writer for The Republican compared
1300-517: A former partner in the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram , approached the railway's board of directors proposing that their line from City Hall and Maple Street be extended further into Elmwood . Loomis had previously purchased a large tract of land there which he planned to develop into a streetcar suburb . His calls for expansion were rejected however by the railway company, but ultimately working with connections from his time as
1430-416: A newspaper magnate, he would buy a controlling share in the company. Upon purchasing this stock, Loomis began working on the laying out of additional tracks along with roads on his own land, the former Horace Brown Farm which would become the blocks around modern-day Elmwood Avenue, as well as Laurel Street/Brown Avenue across Northampton Street. By 1889 the railwork had been completed to Elmwood, and in 1890 to
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#17327875782271560-487: A period of decline and financial difficulties by its parent company, the Mount Tom Railroad cable railway was sold and dismantled in 1938. Despite building new carbarns specifically for its rail fleet, the company gradually began introducing buses to their routes beginning in 1921, in response to ridership changes after the First World War . "Motorization" rapidly accelerated for Holyoke and its competitors in
1690-566: A progressive loss of their initial passenger service over the years. In 1905, the United States Census Bureau defined an interurban as "a street railway having more than half its trackage outside municipal limits." It drew a distinction between "interurban" and "suburban" railroads. A suburban system was oriented toward a city center in a single urban area and served commuter traffic . A regular railroad moved riders from one city center to another city center and also moved
1820-484: A resounding success as aside from Loomis and the board of directors, no passengers climbed aboard on the maiden run of an electric car; it was not until the return trip back over the bridge from South Hadley that one Jesse L. Bliss became the new system's first passenger. Bliss himself would go on to try to become a driver of the cars, however reportedly jumped one of the trolleys off the tracks on his own first run. The electrification of old horse trams came within less than
1950-573: A separate entity and the HSR as a whole. The location of the railway, now a service road and paved trail, was determined early in planning as ideally running up the side of the mountain diagonally to follow the contours of a ravine, thus minimizing needed blasting and grading work. The rails construction and design was said to be based on the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway 's, having a single track with one passing loop between
2080-502: A small part of their extensive business empires, which often include real estate, hotels and resorts, and tourist attractions. For example, the Keikyu network has changed unrecognizably from its early days, operating Limited Express services at up to 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph) to compete with JR trains, and inter-operating with subway and Keisei Electric Railway trains on through runs extending up to 200 kilometres (120 mi);
2210-436: A substantial amount of freight. The typical interurban similarly served more than one city, but it served a smaller region and made more frequent stops, and it was oriented to passenger rather than freight service. The development of interurbans in the late nineteenth century resulted from the convergence of two trends: improvements in electric traction, and an untapped demand for transportation in rural areas, particularly in
2340-585: A term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution, when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between towns and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in
2470-496: Is a type of electric railway , with tram -like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of the world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as
2600-412: Is accessible through Chicopee . Westover Metropolitan Airport is located in neighboring Chicopee and offers air services throughout the region. Bradley International Airport , serving the greater Hartford – Springfield area, is located 17 miles (27 km) to the south. The closest Amtrak station is the Holyoke station . The Village Commons, a center for dining, shopping, and leisure, is located at
2730-619: Is home of the 2004 state champion lacrosse team that won Division II with the smallest high school enrollment of all 81 teams. It is also home of the 2022 Division IV Boys Soccer State Champions, as well as the 2019 Division III Girls Soccer State Champions. It also won the 2005 Division IA Super Bowl in football . The 2008 boys' golf team won the Division 1 state championship. The Tigers Hockey team, composed of students from Holyoke, Granby, and South Hadley High Schools, has won WMass Championships in 1989,2009,2010,2011,2012, and 2017 as well as
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#17327875782272860-480: Is necessarily blurry. Some town streetcar lines evolved into interurban systems by extending streetcar track from town into the countryside to link adjacent towns together and sometimes by the acquisition of a nearby interurban system. Following initial construction, there was a large amount of consolidation of lines. Other interurban lines effectively became light rail systems with no street running whatsoever, or they became primarily freight-hauling railroads because of
2990-638: Is now owned by the state of Indiana and uses mainline-sized electric multiple units . Its last section of street running, in Michigan City, Indiana , was finally closed in 2022 for conversion to a grade-separated double-track line. SEPTA operates two former Philadelphia Suburban lines: the Norristown High Speed Line (Route 100) as an interurban heavy rail line, and the Media–Sharon Hill Line (Routes 101 and 102) as
3120-652: The Badner Bahn , operates a classic interurban passenger service, in addition to some freight services. Some interurban lines survive today a local railways in Upper Austria are such as the Linzer Lokalbahn , Lokalbahn Vöcklamarkt–Attersee and Lokalbahn Lambach–Vorchdorf-Eggenberg . While others operate as extension of as local city tramways such as the Traunseebahn which is now connected to
3250-580: The Beneski Museum of Natural History at Amherst College . Hitchcock believed the fossils were made by gigantic ancient birds, long before scientists accepted that modern birds and dinosaurs are related. As of the census of 2000, there were 17,196 people, 6,586 households, and 4,208 families residing in the town. The population density was 971.0 inhabitants per square mile (374.9/km ). There were 6,784 housing units at an average density of 383.1 per square mile (147.9/km ). The racial makeup of
3380-518: The Gmunden Tramway . Today, two surviving interurban networks descending from the vicinal tramways exist in Belgium. The famous Belgian Coast Tram , built in 1885, traverses the entire Belgian coastline and, at a length of 68 kilometres (42 mi), which is the longest tram line in the world. The Charleroi Metro is a never fully completed pre-metro network upgraded and developed from
3510-518: The Hardt Railway . Other examples include: Milan operates one remaining interurban tramway to Limbiate with another interurban route to Carate Brianza / Giussano suspended since 2011. These two lines were once part of large network of interurbans surrounding Milan that were gradually closed in the 1970s. In Japan, the vast majority of the major sixteen private railways have roots as interurban electric railway lines that were inspired by
3640-597: The Highlands . During his time with the railway Loomis would serve as treasurer as well as general manager of the company, and is generally credited as a key figure in the expansion of the railway system to the two other neighborhoods, Oakdale and Springdale . The railway's first electric car ran on the South Hadley Falls line at about 2pm on August 8, 1891, and by the end of that year all routes had been electrified. The very first run however proved to not be
3770-556: The Hly. St. Ry. Co. , the streetcar system began operation on September 24, 1884, consolidated with the Amherst and Sunderland Street Railway in 1907, and ceased operations as a streetcar operator in 1937. Regular bus operations began in 1921, and soon after the incorporation of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority in 1977, the company began serving as a contract operator. This service continued until 1987, when
3900-758: The Japan Railways Group along highly congested corridors is a hallmark of suburban railway operations in Japan. For example, on the Osaka to Kobe corridor, JR West competes intensely with both Hankyu Kobe Line and Hanshin Main Line trains in terms of speed, convenience and comfort. However, a number of urban lines in Japan did close as late as the 2000s, with networks in Kitakyushu and Gifu being shut down. Between Vienna and Baden bei Wien
4030-667: The Japanese National Railways network at the time. The (former JNR) Hanwa Line was a wartime acquisition from Nankai, operating 'Super Express' trains on the line at an average speed of 81.6 kilometres per hour (50.7 mph), a national record at the time. The old Sendai station terminus of the Miyagi Electric Railway (the predecessor of the JR Senseki Line ) was situated in a short single-track underground tunnel built in 1925; this
Holyoke Street Railway - Misplaced Pages Continue
4160-1023: The Long Beach Line in Long Beach and Los Angeles, California (this was the last remaining part of the Pacific Electric system). The Long Beach Line was cut in 1961, the North Shore Line in 1963; the Philadelphia Suburban's route 103 and the NYS&;W in New Jersey both ended passenger service in 1966. Today, only the South Shore Line, Norristown High Speed Line (SEPTA Route 100), and SEPTA Routes 101/102 remain. Some former interurban lines retained freight service for up to several decades after
4290-586: The Low Countries , Poland and Japan , where populations are densely packed around large conurbations such as the Randstad , Upper Silesia , Greater Tokyo Area and Keihanshin . Switzerland, particularly, has a large network of mountain narrow-gauge interurban lines. In addition, since the early 21st century many tram-train lines are being built, especially in France and Germany but also elsewhere in
4420-841: The Meitetsu opened their first interurban lines in 1912, what today form parts of the Meitetsu Inuyama Line and Tsushima Line . In 1913, the first section of what will become the Keiō Line opened connecting Chōfu to just outside Shinjuku with street running on what is today the Kōshū Kaidō or National Route 20 . Kyushu Electric Railroad, predecessor to Nishitetsu opened its first interurban line in 1914 serving Kitakyushu and surrounding areas, taking heavy inspiration from Hanshin Electric Railway . The fortunes of
4550-552: The Midwestern United States . The 1880s saw the first successful deployments of electric traction in streetcar systems. Most of these built on the pioneering work of Frank J. Sprague , who developed an improved method for mounting an electric traction motor and using a trolley pole for pickup. Sprague's work led to widespread acceptance of electric traction for streetcar operations and end of horse-drawn trams. The late nineteenth-century United States witnessed
4680-694: The Shore Line Trolley Museum 's "Preserved North American Electric Cars Roster" (PNAECR) survey states the wooden cabin for one such car remains in Holyoke in the private collection of James Curran at The Wherehouse banquet hall. Additionally four of the railway's Wason open-air cars were sold and repainted for the Blue Hill Street Railway of Canton in 1909, however fate of that livery remains unknown. Interurban The interurban (or radial railway in Canada)
4810-532: The United States Census Bureau , the town has a total area of 18.4 square miles (48 km ), of which 17.7 square miles (46 km ) is land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km ) (3.70%) is water. The mountain range called the Holyoke Range or Mount Holyoke Range passes through the north of the town and separates it from Hadley and Amherst. There are 12 reservoirs in the town fed by eight distinct streams and six natural ponds. The first confirmed evidence of
4940-614: The funicular 's alternating cars. Construction began in early 1897 under the Charles F. Parker Company of New York City, and by June, the Mount Tom Railroad Company had officiated a 25 year operating lease with the Holyoke Street Railway. The inaugural ride took place on June 17, 1897, with a number of city officials, railway employees, and officials of the Wason Manufacturing Company being
5070-456: The poverty line , including 5.8% of those under age 18 and 7.2% of those age 65 or over. Although South Hadley's economy has changed greatly in the last two centuries, reflecting the trends of the Commonwealth and country, today it still retains businesses in agriculture, education, and manufacturing. With Mount Holyoke College being by far the largest employer in the area, a number of other contractors, service providers, and businesses support
5200-589: The 1970s, the remaining interurban tramways have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in the form of the Sneltram , a modern light rail system that uses high floor, metro-style vehicles and could interoperate into metro networks. Various other interurbans in Europe were folded into local municipal tramway or light rail systems. Switzerland retained many of its interurban lines which now operate as tramways, local railways, S-Bahn, or tram-trains. Milan's vast interurban network
5330-668: The 2009 and 2011 Massachusetts Division IIIA Ice Hockey State Championship. The South Hadley football team won the Division II Super Bowl vs. Putnum in 2010 after completing a season with only one loss to Division I for Longmeadow. The baseball team won the Division II Massachusetts' state championship in 2012. The South Hadley High School Marching Band has competed in the state and/or New England USSBA Championship each year. In 2005 they placed second nationally and won Best Percussion. In 2006 they won
Holyoke Street Railway - Misplaced Pages Continue
5460-514: The Amherst & Sunderland Street Railway and its interests, by the end of 1897 the competitor had been given access and some consideration was given to franchise. In response to this, the railway would attempt to expand its own holdings in Hadley, building a new line through Mill Valley to the Hadley border in the following year. The railway's ties with the Holyoke Street Railway began in 1902 when
5590-635: The Amherst & Sunderland lines history can also be found in the "Trolley Barn" development in North Amherst; while redeveloped in proximity to the line the building, done in the style of a car barn, was built in 2014. Borrowing from the precedent set by Amherst for its car barn, the City of Holyoke placed a request for proposal for a feasibility study in July 1988 for re-purposing the company's offices and central garage on Canal St, and assumed ownership of
5720-526: The Amherst company, consolidating it with the acquired Hampshire system to create the Amherst and Sunderland Division of the Holyoke Street Railway. In the next several years the HSR would further develop the Orient Springs stop in West Pelham as a picnic ground, as well as construct new infrastructure such as permanent stops, the last of which stood at UMass Amherst from 1911 until 2012 when it
5850-582: The Berkshire Hills Music Academy. South Hadley was an unsettled area of Hadley from 1659 until 1721, when English settlers moved in from Hadley. A separate town meeting was held in 1753, and the town was officially split and incorporated in 1775. The town is the home of the nation's first successful navigable canal as well as the oldest continuing institution of higher education for women (Mount Holyoke College). The Civil War Monument (believed to be by Jerome Connor ) in
5980-524: The Holyoke Street Railway proposing that they use the new thermite process for their own lines. Soon after the railway ordered 160 joints to be placed on an approximately one mile (1.6 km)-long tract of rail on Main Street, and on August 8, 1904 Holyoke became the first rail line in the United States to lay track with the process. That same year Hartford would join the ranks as the second in country. While Hartford would be met with some issues due to what
6110-480: The Holyoke Street Railway. While the HSR would continue operations in Amherst as a bus carrier, after trolley service ceased in 1932 the A&;S name was dropped altogether. The company was initially chartered on February 27, 1896, but was beset by legal troubles in its initial formation. Among these setbacks was the sale of shares under the name the "Amherst Street Railway Company", which legally did not exist, prompting
6240-521: The King Ward name, operating today as a charter company, now known as King Gray. Of the original trolley stops, virtually all had been replaced by modern plexiglass bus stops by the time of the company's demise; the one exception had been a simple brick and glass structure built by the company for its Amherst and Sunderland line in 1911. This stop remained entirely intact and was used by the PVTA until it
6370-611: The Netherlands a line from The Hague to Delft. Which opened as horse-tramway in 1866. Nowadays the line operates as Line 1 of The Hague Tramway . Line E, run by Randstadrail , was an interurban line connecting Rotterdam to The Hague and in the past also to Scheveningen. It now interoperates with the Rotterdam Metro . A large interurban network called the Silesian Interurbans still exists today connecting
6500-581: The Netherlands in earnest with the founding of the Tramweg Stichting (Tramway Foundation). Many systems, such as the Hague tramway and the Rotterdam tramway , included long interurban extensions which were operated with larger, higher-speed cars. In close parallel to North America, many systems were abandoned from the 1950s after tram companies switched to buses. Instigated by the oil crisis in
6630-641: The Pellisier Building, for the family which owned and managed the system in its final decades. A second car barn of the Amherst and Sunderland Street Railway division functions as facilities for the town of Amherst's own Department of Public Works. The Holyoke Street Railway Company held its first meeting on February 12, 1884, with a charter granted by the Office of Secretary of the Commonwealth Henry B. Pierce on June 11, 1884. According to
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#17327875782276760-457: The US during their heyday. While most interurbans in Japan have been upgraded beyond recognition to high-capacity urban railways, a handful have remained relatively untouched, with street running and using 'lighter-rail' stock. To this day they retain a distinct character similar to classic American interurbans. These include: The only surviving interurban line is also the oldest regional tramway in
6890-739: The US. But instead of demolishing their trackage in the 1930s, many Japanese interurbans companies upgraded their networks to heavy rail standards, becoming today's large private railways. To this day, private railway companies in Japan operate as highly influential business empires with diverse business interests, encompassing department stores, property developments and even tourist resorts. Many Japanese private railway companies compete with each other for passengers, operate department stores at their city termini, develop suburban properties adjacent to stations they own, and run special tourist attractions with admission included in package deals with rail tickets; similar to operations of large interurban companies in
7020-654: The United States Marine Corps Esprit De corps award, second place in USSBA, and Best Percussion. In 2007 they took the best percussion for the third year in a row, Massachusetts USSBA championship, New England Championship, and seventh place in the Northern States championship. In 2008 they repeated as best percussion (for the fourth straight year) and seventh place in the Northern States championship. South Hadley continues to have one of
7150-447: The United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. But due to preference given to automobiles, by 1930, most interurbans in North America had stopped operating. A few survived into the 1950s. Outside of the US, other countries built large networks of high-speed electric tramways that survive today. Notable systems exist in
7280-454: The United States, particularly in the states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Utah, and California. In 1900, 2,107 miles (3,391 km) of interurban track existed, but by 1916, this had increased to 15,580 miles (25,070 km), a seven-fold expansion. At one point in time beginning in 1901, it was possible to travel from Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin , to Little Falls, New York , exclusively by interurban. During this expansion, in
7410-408: The Worcester Bus Company and Springfield Street Railway. Nevertheless more than half of the company's revenue came from school bus contracts, which allowed the system to maintain its route service at that time. The continued closure of factories and mills, and the prevalence of automobiles, reduced usage substantially and the company would ultimately join the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority in 1977 as
7540-418: The amusement park to the Collins family of Lincoln Park in 1952, they assumed operations the following year until its closure. The certificates of public convenience and necessity (CPCNs) the company had been issued for routes in 13 towns were transferred to Terrien Transportation in December 1988; Russ Ward, a former manager of Holyoke's bus fleet went on to work for Terrien and soon after the company adopted
7670-490: The beginning of Pellissier's career with the railway company, as he would obtain a full-time engineer position upon graduation and went on to present his work to the American Street and Interurban Railway Association in 1905. The Holyoke engineer would not only serve as merely Goldschmidt's first American customer, but rather Pellissier would go on to work for the inventor's American company in New York, designing their Jersey City welding plant and also contributing improvements to
7800-435: The board to have to take up entirely new shares from the same parties that they had first sold them to. This issue had apparently arisen from an early board meeting during which a stockholder from Sunderland moved to append the town name to the railway company's, however none of the members had new paperwork printed to reflect this. This problem was further complicated when then-president of the board, Levi Stockbridge , revealed
7930-417: The border of the neighbouring City of Mississauga , unlike other Toronto radial lines which were all abandoned outside of the 1960s boundary of the City of Toronto . In Germany various networks have continued to operate. Karlsruhe revitalized the interurban concept into the Karlsruhe model by renovating two local railways Alb Valley Railway , which already had interoperability with local tram trackage, and
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#17327875782278060-416: The building on December 21, 1988. The car barn and offices, designed by the Samuel M. Green Company and built in 1914 by Casper Ranger Construction, has since been rechristened the Pellisier Building for its previous owners, and converted into Holyoke's Department of Public Works headquarters, maintenance shop, and waste transfer station. No complete Holyoke Street Railway tram is known to exist today, however
8190-405: The cable railway with the Holyoke Street Railway system. For several years William Loomis and the rest of the board had pursued the idea of a mountain railway to connect the summit to their system, with notices published as far back as 1893, soon after the lines had been electrified. By June 6, 1896, the Mount Tom Railroad Company had been incorporated, with Loomis serving as president of both it as
8320-427: The center of the Commons was given to South Hadley by William H. Gaylord in the 1900s. The Gaylords also donated the Gaylord Memorial Library, located near the center of town. South Hadley is located in the western part of Massachusetts, specifically in the Pioneer Valley . It is bordered on the north by Hadley and Amherst , on the east by Granby , and on the south by Chicopee . The Connecticut River defines
8450-408: The city to work to more closely align its planning with the development of the street railway in a working relationship, saying a liaison or authority ought to be established in determining future extensions and improvements in the electric railway lines operating in the city, stressing it would yield some of the most economical growth of housing capacity in tandem with the grid system. By 1920, prior to
8580-412: The college. Additionally the area maintains a small agricultural sector with several farms, and is home to several small machine shops and manufacturing firms, including a research and manufacturing facility of the E Ink Corporation . Mount Holyoke College , a member of the Five College Consortium , and the oldest of the Seven Sisters colleges, is located in South Hadley. South Hadley High School
8710-479: The company's articles of association, it began with capital of $ 25,000 (≈$ 692,000 in 2017 USD) with 250 shares of $ 100 each issued, and was authorized to operate as a horsecar rail system in South Hadley and Holyoke . The company's first president was William A. Chase, and its first board of directors included two members who would later become mayors of Holyoke, Franklin P. Goodall and George H. Smith . The system rapidly expanded its service capacity; in 1884,
8840-519: The country's railway infrastructure and cater to the post-war baby boom. The companies continued their policies of improvement they had followed before the war; lines were reconstructed to allow higher speeds, mainline-sized trains were adopted, street-running sections were rebuilt to elevated or underground rights-of-way, and link lines to growing metro systems were built to allow for through operations. Many of these private railway companies started to adopt standards for full-blown heavy rail lines similar to
8970-459: The decades since the railway's closure, the PVTA continues to provide bus service in Holyoke as well as all other municipalities previously covered by the former carrier's services. Due to several recessions in the 1980s, the railway's former amusement park Mountain Park shuttered the same year as buses ceased, in 1987. This year coincides with the Railway Company's closure however the two were unaffiliated by that time; Louis Pellissier Sr. had sold
9100-446: The dense vicinal tramway network around the city. Similar to the United States, in Canada most passenger interurbans were removed by the 1950s. One example of continuous passenger service still exists today, the Toronto Transit Commission 501 Queen streetcar line. The western segment of the 501 Streetcar operates largely on what was the T&YRR Port Credit Radial Line, a radial line that remains intact through Etobicoke and up to
9230-412: The discontinuance of passenger service. Most were converted to diesel operation, although the Sacramento Northern Railway retained electric freight until 1965. After World War II , many interurbans in other countries were also cut back. In Belgium, as intercity transport shifted to cars and buses; the large sections of the vicinal tramways were gradually shut down by the 1980s. At their peak in 1945,
9360-517: The early 1900s with some assistance from Thomas Edison . By the 1930s a vast network of interurbans, the Società Trazione Elettrica Lombarda , connected Milan with surrounding towns. In the first half of the 20th century, an extensive tramway network covered Northern England , centered on South Lancashire and West Yorkshire . At that time, it was possible to travel entirely by tram from Liverpool Pier Head to
9490-765: The east at 339 miles (546 km) and had provided Pittsburgh-area coal country towns with hourly transportation since 1888. By the 1960s only five remaining interurban lines served commuters in three major metropolitan areas: the North Shore Line and the South Shore Line in Chicago, the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway in northern New Jersey, and
9620-453: The end of their next meeting the group was able to recollect all necessary shares. Following an extended period of discussion over the specific location of the tracks, work commenced in the laying of line in April 1897, and by June of that year the first trolleys were operational. While Stockbridge remains notable among founding figures of the street railway, his role as president of the company
9750-527: The first bus routes, the railway had a reported 71.5 miles of track and 18,000,000 fares in that same year. As a transportation system, the railway also held at least one unprecedented piece of technology prior to its numerous competitors in the early 20th century- thermite welding . During the 1890s in Germany, Hans Goldschmidt developed the modern process for exothermic welding for railways. This process, now an international standard in railway construction,
9880-490: The first in the country to implement this now- standard operating procedure , but would further develop Hans Goldschmidt 's welding process for the street railway, subsequently serving as an engineer and superintendent for the inventor's Goldschmidt Thermite Company before returning to Holyoke as an assistant general manager. Operated by the Holyoke Street Railway Company , abbreviated on livery as
10010-511: The first passengers. The railway briefly rose to national fame when President McKinley and First Lady Ida Saxton rode to the summit house on June 20, 1899. At one point toward the end of the railroad's existence, there was some discussion of using it to pull skiers up the mountainside. This planned ski resort would not ultimately materialize however and it would not be until 1962 that the Mount Tom Ski Area would open. Following
10140-429: The following year at an annual meeting at the Holyoke company's offices. In the following year the railway began advertising jointly with the Holyoke Street Railway as the best way to reach "The Famous Amherst 'Notch'", and by 1905 the entirety of the system was leased to Holyoke. The loose association between the Amherst and Sunderland system and Holyoke's became official when in 1907 the company moved to buy all stock of
10270-557: The industry in the US and Canada declined during World War I , particularly into the early 1920s. In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Electric Railways Commission to investigate the financial problems of the industry. The commission submitted its final report to the President in 1920. The commission's report focused on financial management problems and external economic pressures on
10400-522: The industry, and recommended against introducing public financing for the interurban industry. One of the commission's consultants, however, published an independent report stating that private ownership of electric railways had been a failure, and only public ownership would keep the interurbans in business. Many interurbans had been hastily constructed without realistic projections of income and expenses. They were initially financed by issuing stock and selling bonds. The sale of these financial instruments
10530-656: The interurban whose private tax paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist." William D. Middleton , in the opening of his 1961 book The Interurban Era , wrote: "Evolved from the urban streetcar, the Interurban appeared shortly before the dawn of the 20th century, grew to a vast network of over 18,000 miles in two decades of excellent growth, and then all but vanished after barely three decades of usefulness." Interurban business increased during World War II due to fuel oil rationing and large wartime employment. When
10660-497: The interurbans were the fifth-largest industry in the United States. In Belgium , a sprawling, nation-wide system of narrow-gauge vicinal tramways have been built by the NMVB / SNCV to provide transport to smaller towns across the country; the first section opened in 1885. These lines were either electrically operated or run with diesel tramcars, included numerous street-running sections, and inter-operated with local tram networks in
10790-434: The juncture of Massachusetts Routes 116 and 47, in the area commonly called South Hadley Center. Additional commercial centers are located on Massachusetts Route 33 and farther south on Route 116, including South Hadley Falls, which is across the river from Holyoke. South Hadley is also the home of Mount Holyoke College , the oldest continuously operating institution of higher education for women, founded in 1837. According to
10920-448: The larger cities. Similar to Belgium, Netherlands constructed a large network of interurbans in the early 1900s called streektramlijnen . In Silesia, today Poland, an extensive interurban system was constructed, starting in 1894 with a narrow-gauge line connecting Gliwice with Piekary Śląskie through Zabrze , Chebzie , Chorzów and Bytom , another connected Katowice and Siemianowice . After four years, in 1898, Kramer & Co.
11050-527: The late 1930s in response to new highway construction which removed old track, and the last trolley cars ceased service in 1937, with all but one of the 50 remaining cars burned as an expedient way to obtain the remaining metal for scrap. By the 1960s the number of buses would peak at a fleet of 75, with 100 full-time drivers. By the time the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority was initially chartered in 1974, Holyoke and many of its former traction counterparts had already been seeing dramatically reduced revenue. With
11180-550: The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was trolley parks ; in the years immediately after the electrification of the system, Loomis purchased a large lot on the southeastern side of Mount Tom and in 1894 purchased a post-and-beam stage for performers there. In 1895 the railway was extended to this site, and by 1897 the area was officially chartered at Mountain Park . In his 1908 report to Mayor Nathan P. Avery , landscape architect and planner Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. urged
11310-608: The line was legally defined as a tramway and included street running at the two ends, but was based on American interurbans and operated with large tramcars on mostly private right-of-way. In the same year, the Keihin Express Railway , or Keikyu, completed a section of what is today part of the Keikyū Main Line between Shinagawa , Tokyo and Kanagawa , Yokohama . This line competes with mainline Japanese National Railways on this busy corridor. Predecessors of
11440-648: The long Cincinnati & Lake Erie Railroad (C&LE), and in Indiana with the very widespread Indiana Railroad . Both had limited success up to 1937–1938 and primarily earned growing revenues from freight rather than passengers. The 130-mile (210 km) long Sacramento Northern Railway stopped carrying passengers in 1940 but continued hauling freight into the 1960s by using heavy electric locomotives. Oliver Jensen, author of American Heritage History of Railroads in America , commented that "...the automobile doomed
11570-532: The mileage of vicinal tramways reached 4,811 kilometres (2,989 mi) and exceeded the length of the national railway network. Sprawling tram networks in the Netherlands extended to neighbouring cities. The vast majority of these lines were not electrified and operated with steam and sometimes petrol or diesel tramcars. Many did not survive the 1920s and 30s for the same reasons American interurbans went bust, but those that did were put back into service during
11700-607: The mountain spa resort of Hakone. Many private lines were nationalised during the Second World War. The handful that remained in the hands of JNR after the end of the war – including the Hanwa Line, Senseki Line and the Iida Line – remain outliers on the national JR network, with short station distances, (in the case of the Iida Line) lower-grade infrastructure, and independent termini (such as Aobadori Station and
11830-516: The mountain's famous summit houses, one of which hosted President McKinley , the Mount Tom Railroad , and the trolley park at the opposite end of this funicular line, Mountain Park . In the history of American railroad engineering, the system was the first in the United States to make use of exothermic welding , better known as thermite welding, to lay track for regular use. Railway engineer George E. Pellissier would not only be
11960-574: The national rail network, and, like JR commuter routes, are operated as 'metro-style' commuter railways with mainline-sized vehicles and metro-like frequencies of very few minutes. In 1957, the Odakyu Electric Railway introduced the Odakyu 3000 series SE , the first in a line of luxurious tourist Limited Express trains named ' Romancecars '. These units set a narrow-gauge speed record of 145 kilometres per hour (90 mph) on its runs to
12090-548: The new regional authorities being established, the Massachusetts Legislature issued a survey to all bus carriers in the state with regular passenger service. In 1972, the Company reportedly $ 1,042,773 in revenue but had operating costs of $ 1,000,808 with $ 762,449 in outstanding debt. It had the third most passengers per year of all bus lines surveyed with 2,668,326 passengers carried in 1972, eclipsed only by
12220-419: The only competitive marching band programs in all of Western Massachusetts. Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School is a public charter school located in South Hadley, focusing in the performing arts. Berkshire Hills Music Academy (BHMA), founded in 1999 and opened in 2001, is a private post-secondary residential school for young adults with learning or developmental disabilities. The school
12350-472: The ordeal to "child's play" due to lack of compromise by either. Some consensus was eventually reached during the construction of the bridge's successor, the Hadley-Holyoke Bridge by engineer Edward S. Shaw , as the railway company's lawyer would work with Hampshire and Hampden county commissioners to negotiate the bridge's width and location of the railway tracks. In 1887, William S. Loomis,
12480-545: The original narrow gauge network was converted to standard, which allowed a connection with the new system in Sosnowiec. By 1931, 47,5% of the narrow-gauge network was reconstructed, with 20 kilometres (12 mi) of new standard-gauge track built. A large network of interurbans started developing around Milan in the late 1800s; they were originally drawn by horses and later powered as steam trams. These initial interurban lines were gradually upgraded with electric traction in
12610-614: The possibility of extending them into the countryside to reach new markets, even linking to other towns. The first interurban to emerge in the United States was the Newark and Granville Street Railway in Ohio, which opened in 1889. It was not a major success, but others followed. The development of the automobile was then in its infancy, and to many investors interurbans appeared to be the future of local transportation. From 1900 to 1916, large networks of interurban lines were constructed across
12740-455: The rail business altogether ran afoul of state commissions which required that trains remain running "for the public good", even at a loss. Many financially weak interurbans did not survive the prosperous 1920s, and most others went bankrupt during the Great Depression . A few struggling lines tried combining to form much larger systems in an attempt to gain operating efficiency and a broader customer base. This occurred in Ohio in year 1930 with
12870-423: The regions where they operated, particularly in Ohio and Indiana, "...they almost destroyed the local passenger service of the steam railroad." To show how exceptionally busy the interurbans radiating from Indianapolis were in 1926, the immense Indianapolis Traction Terminal (nine roof covered tracks and loading platforms) scheduled 500 trains in and out daily and moved 7 million passengers that year. At their peak
13000-562: The repair costs. The rise of private automobile traffic in the middle 1920s aggravated such trends. As the interurban companies struggled financially, they faced rising competition from cars and trucks on newly paved streets and highways, while municipalities sought to alleviate traffic congestion by removing interurbans from city streets. Some companies exited the passenger business altogether to focus on freight, while others sought to buttress their finances by selling surplus electricity in local communities. Several interurbans that attempted to exit
13130-487: The short-lived Hampshire Street Railway specifically to connect the other two systems; the Hampshire Street Railway would lease the line to the Holyoke railway in 1905, which ultimately consolidated with it, along with Amherst & Sunderland, in 1907. After the merger the name was kept as a legacy and lines to the north of the Holyoke Range were referred to as the Amherst and Sunderland Division of
13260-412: The state railroad commissioners refused to recognize the company, as its charter had been accepted in the minutes of a meeting called by a single board member, rather than the entirety of the charter members. Despite predictions by some that this was the end of the enterprise, Stockbridge urged that if the group did not organize to build the street railway, there were several other syndicates which would; by
13390-591: The stockholders and directors voted to increase the capital stock of the company to construct a line across the Notch in the Holyoke Range and connect with the Hampshire Street Railway system at the Granby town line. The Hampshire Street Railway, organized that same year, served as a collaboration of the interests of the Amherst and Holyoke railways, with Walter Cowls and William Loomis elected as sitting directors in
13520-561: The system had 2 cars and 5 horses operating a line between Main Street in Holyoke and South Hadley Falls, by 1886 this had expanded to 3 other routes in Holyoke and the livery totaled at 15 cars and 56 horses. At the time it was commonplace for patrons to keep lumps or cubes of sugar in their pockets for often ornery horses. In its earliest years it met some resistance from Hampshire County commissioners and South Hadley selectmen, threatening to withdraw from South Hadley Falls in 1886 due to policies related to taxation and maintenance of roads and
13650-485: The thermite installation process. In 1910 the Holyoke Street Railway, which had since used thermite for regular work, served as an urban laboratory for Pellissier's refinements on the process for the Goldschmidt Company, during which he tested a new technique for whole-rail welds, an improvement contributing to the development of continuous welded rail . The Amherst and Sunderland Street Railway
13780-399: The town was 94.05% White , 1.20% African American , 0.12% Native American , 2.53% Asian , 0.06% Pacific Islander , 0.77% from other races , and 1.28% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.36% of the population. There were 6,586 households, out of which 26.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.6% were married couples living together, 9.3% had
13910-599: The town was launched. After World War I and the Silesian Uprisings, in 1922 the region (and the tram network) was divided between newly independent Poland and Germany, and international services appeared (the last one ran until 1937). In 1928 further standard gauge systems were established in Sosnowiec, Będzin and Dąbrowa Górnicza (the so-called Dabrowa Coal Basin - a region adjoining the Upper Silesian Coal Basin). Between 1928 and 1936 most of
14040-491: The town's western border and separates it from the cities of Holyoke and Easthampton. South Hadley is 45 miles (72 km) south of Brattleboro, Vermont , 87 miles (140 km) west of Boston , and 145 miles (233 km) from New York City. Although no interstate highways cross South Hadley's borders, U.S. Route 202 and Massachusetts Highways 33 , 47 , and 116 provide primary routes of transportation. Interstate 91 can be accessed in Holyoke while Interstate 90
14170-461: The trains retain a red livery based on the Pacific Electric's 'Red Cars', true to the company's interurban roots. The Keiō Line did not fully remove the street running section on the Kōshū Kaidō outside of Shinjuku Station until the 1960s, replacing it with an underground section. Similar to passenger railway conditions in early 1900s America, intense competition still exists today between private railways and mainline railways operated by
14300-407: The upper level of Tennōji Station ). Today, trackage of the major sixteen private railways , in many places originally designed as American-style interurban railways, has been upgraded beyond recognition into high capacity urban heavy railways. Private railway companies that started out as interurbans such as Tokyu , Seibu , Odakyu , Hankyu and Tobu ; rail transportation now tends to form only
14430-478: The urban areas of the Upper Silesia . It is one of the largest interurban networks in Europe. In Łódź region, an interurban tram system connects Łódź, Pabianice, Zgierz and Konstantynów Łódzki, and formerly also Ozorków, Lutomiersk, Aleksandrów Łódzki, Rzgów and Tuszyn. Only three continuously operating passenger interurbans in the US remain with most being abandoned by the 1950s. The South Shore Line
14560-605: The village of Summit, outside Rochdale , a distance of 52 miles (84 km), and with a short 7 miles (11 km) bus journey across the Pennines, to connect to another tram network that linked Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds. The first interurban railway in Japan is the Hanshin Electric Railway , built to compete with mainline steam trains on the Osaka to Kobe corridor and completed in 1905. As laws of that time did not allow parallel railways to be built,
14690-537: The war ended in 1945, riders went back to their automobiles, and most of these lines were finally abandoned. Several systems struggled into the 1950s, including the Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad (passenger service ended 1950), Lehigh Valley Transit Company (1951), West Penn Railways (1952), and the Illinois Terminal Railroad (1958). The West Penn was the largest interurban to operate in
14820-628: The war years, or at least the remaining parts not yet demolished. One of the largest systems, nicknamed the Blue Tram , was run by the Noord-Zuid-Hollandsche Stoomtramweg-Maatschappij and survived until 1961. Another, the RTM ( Rotterdamse Tramweg Maatschappij ), which ran in the river delta south-west of Rotterdam , survived until early January 1966. Its demise sparked the rail-related heritage movement in
14950-576: The world. These can be regarded as interurbans since they run on the streets, like trams, when in cities, while out of them they either share existing railway lines or use lines that were abandoned by the railway companies. The term "interurban" was coined by Charles L. Henry , a state senator in Indiana. The Latin, inter urbes , means "between cities". The interurban fit on a continuum between urban street railways and full-fledged railroads. George W. Hilton and John F. Due identified four characteristics of an interurban: The definition of "interurban"
15080-406: The years, the municipality has kept certain attention to detail, including keeping remaining tracks in place within the building. In recent years consideration has been given to a more modern facility but as of 2018, the car barn was still used by the town government. In 2019 it was announced that the town intends to raze the car barn and replace it with a new fire department headquarters. An homage to
15210-408: Was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 72.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 65.8 males. The median income for a household in the town was $ 46,678, and the median income for a family was $ 58,693. Males had a median income of $ 42,256 versus $ 31,219 for females. The per capita income for the town was $ 22,732. About 4.1% of families and 5.9% of the population were below
15340-498: Was an interurban streetcar system that operated in Amherst , Sunderland , Pelham , Granby , and South Hadley, Massachusetts . From 1897 until 1932, trolleys operated between Sunderland, the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now UMass Amherst), and connected with the Holyoke Street Railway's system at "The Notch" after 1902. This rail line, providing freight and passenger service, was built by
15470-461: Was chosen to start electrification on Katowice Rynek (Kattowitz, Ring) - Zawodzie line, after which Schikora & Wolff completed electrification of four additional lines. In 1912, the first short 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge line was built in Katowice . In 1913, a separate standard gauge system connecting Bytom with suburbs and villages west of
15600-487: Was common. Receivership was a common fate when the interurban company could not pay its payroll and other debts, so state courts took over and allowed continued operation while suspending the company's obligation to pay interest on its bonds. In addition, the interurban honeymoon period with the municipalities of 1895–1910 was over. The large and heavy interurbans, some weighing as much as 65 tons, caused damage to city streets which led to endless disputes over who should bear
15730-529: Was destroyed by a contractor without university authorization in 2012; the university did not rebuild the 8-column waiting station, citing costs and the area's "modern use for today’s students". During the motorization period replacing the interurban system with bus lines, the company sold its Amherst and Sunderland Branch car barn in 1934, only 17 years after its construction, to the Town of Amherst's Dept. of Public Works. While several additions have been added over
15860-651: Was first used commercially in tram lines in Essen, Germany in 1899. Over the next several years other cities including Leeds and Singapore would adopt this construction method, and in 1904 its inventor would open the Goldschmidt Thermit Company offices in New York City. While development of this process continued, an engineering student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute , George E. Pellissier, followed Goldschmidt's work closely and approached
15990-593: Was later described as a rushed installation, the Holyoke installation served as a proof-of-concept for the advantages of the method. With thermite welding, a small crew of unskilled laborers with no prior knowledge of welding or specialty metalwork could be sent out with a crucible, pre-made molds, and a set amount of thermite. For railway companies the new technique would lead to a more reliable and inexpensive method of laying down new tracks that would make future system expansion more practical than bolted or welded separate joint techniques used up to that time. This represented
16120-635: Was limited to its first year, a greater credit was due to Walter D. Cowles, a member of the board and subsequent president of the company, whose family stored the streetcars in car barn facilities on the grounds of their lumber business in the railways earliest years. In 1897 the railway began to see competition from the Northampton and Amherst Railway, later known as the Connecticut Valley Street Railway, as it connected Northampton to Amherst, through Hadley. Despite outcry from
16250-425: Was often local with salesmen going door to door aggressively pushing this new and exciting "it can't fail" form of transportation. But many of those interurbans did fail, and often quickly. They had poor cash flow from the outset and struggled to raise essential further capital. Interurbans were very vulnerable to acts of nature damaging track and bridges, particularly in the Midwestern United States where flooding
16380-506: Was operated by the Holyoke Street Railway from 1897 until 1938. Built in 1897, the railway quickly gained national fame when it was visited by President William McKinley who remarked upon the beauty of the mountainside. It was closely identified with the Summit Houses which adorned the mountaintop with the most ornate first two designed by local architect James A. Clough . At the foot of the railway sat Mountain Park , which connected
16510-648: Was progressively closed in the 1970s but parts of it were reused as the outer parts of the Milan Metro . Development of Japanese interurbans strayed from their American counterparts from the 1920s. The second boom of interurbans occurred as late as the 1920s and 1930s in Japan, with predecessors of the extensive Kintetsu Railway , Hankyu , Nankai Electric Railway and Odakyu Electric Railway networks starting life during this period. These interurbans, built with straighter tracks, electrified at 1500V and operated using larger cars, were built to even higher standards than
16640-508: Was razed by a contractor. The car barn on the Cowls property was maintained until the North Amherst route switched to bus service in 1928. The only extant structure related to the Amherst division today is the former South Amherst Car Barn which first entered service in 1917. Increasing competition from buses and cars would lead this structure to serve for less than 15 years, with all Amherst & Sunderland rail service ceasing in 1932. The facility
16770-577: Was sold to the town government in 1934, and has been used as the Amherst Department of Public Works offices and garage since that time. In July 2019 it was announced that the trolley barn would be razed for a modern fire department headquarters. [REDACTED] The Mount Tom Railroad , also known as the Mount Tom Railway , was a funicular mountain railway on the northeast slope of Mount Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts which
16900-621: Was the first stretch of underground railway in all of Asia, predating the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line by two years. Meanwhile, existing interurbans like the Hanshin Electric Railway started to rebuild their street-running lines into grade-separated exclusive rights-of-way. After the war, interurbans and other private railway companies received large investments and were allowed to compete not only with mainline trains but also with each other, in order to rejuvenate
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