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92-634: The conversion from streetcar to bus operation came from great pressure applied by New York City's Board of Transportation for a unified bus transportation system across the city. TARS applied for its first bus franchises in 1928. By 1948, all streetcar lines in Manhattan and The Bronx were converted to bus operation. The lines in Westchester County continued to operate, until the Yonkers city lines were shut down in 1952. Third Avenue Railway

184-589: A conduit in between the rails, by means of a plow, a method also used in Washington, D.C. , and London . Some cars were equipped with trolley poles for operation on lines outside Manhattan into the Bronx. In many cases the conduit was run in the former channel occupied by the propulsion cable. The Third Avenue Railroad expanded in 1898 with the acquisition of the Dry Dock, East Broadway and Battery Railroad and

276-516: A streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in

368-545: A telegram back to headquarters in New York requesting cash. He was taken into custody by local police, and blamed mental fatigue for his momentary lapse in judgement. Cimillo and the bus were returned to New York, where the wayward driver was received as a celebrity. Further investigation revealed Cimillo had run up a substantial gambling debt. He was arraigned in Bronx County Court on larceny charges for stealing

460-622: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on

552-520: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in

644-648: A failing physical plant made these attempts futile. By 1938, the streetcar operation had been converted to bus, and the Steinway Railway was sold to the Queensboro Bridge Railway Company and operated as subsidiary Steinway Omnibus . All leases with TARS ended in 1939 when the last of the Steinway lines was converted from streetcar to bus operation. The transit franchises are now operated by MTA Bus Company . Chartered in 1891,

736-726: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It

828-429: A single-track line that ran from White Plains to Tarrytown along Tarrytown Road. One branch ran south from White Plains to Eastchester, while another spur ran to Silver Lake . The WSR was sold back to Third Avenue Railway in 1926, and renamed Westchester Street Transportation Company. On November 16, 1929, buses had replaced trolleys completely. The WST was acquired by Fifth Avenue Coach Lines in 1956 when it bought out

920-946: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to

1012-640: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace

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1104-734: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow

1196-713: The Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in

1288-933: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,

1380-651: The National Register of Historic Places , is the only remaining such structure in the county. As early as the 1920s, public officials were advocating for the increase in bus service as the answer to relieving traffic congestion in New York City. The Third Avenue Railway looked to buses in 1920 when the company made an application to operate a bus line on Dyckman Street, Nagle Avenue, and Tenth Avenue north to 207th Street as an extension of its existing trolley line that served Dyckman Ferry. In 1924 TARS formed

1472-648: The New York and Stamford Railway was located on Mechanic Street in New Rochelle. The company entered receivership in 1908, and emerged in 1912. Most of the local lines had been closed and converted to bus by 1931. Route J (Glen Island) and Route P (Webster Avenue) were converted to bus operation in June 1939. Route A (Main Street-New Rochelle) and Route B (Mount Vernon Railroad Station-229th Street) were

1564-526: The Pelham Park and City Island Railway was acquired from Interborough Rapid Transit , further expanding the railway's reach into The Bronx. This extension was short-lived as the line ceased operation in 1919. By 1915 Frederick Whitridge was president of the company. Labor unrest caused strikes that disrupted trolley service system-wide, and Whitridge and his policies were under scrutiny. Edward A. Maher succeeded Whitridge, but tendered his resignation at

1656-715: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across

1748-824: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of

1840-814: The 17/217/317 single track suburban service to Gross-Enzersdorf. They were too wide to run on double track city lines. They were retired in 1969 when track brakes became mandatory. A number of cars formerly operated by TARS have been preserved. The following lines existed in later days: The following lines operated in The Bronx . The final streetcar lines were converted to bus operation in 1948. The following lines operated in New Rochelle, New York and Mount Vernon, New York , until they were converted to bus operation in 1950. The following lines operated in Yonkers, New York . All were converted to bus operation in 1952. Streetcar A tram (also known as

1932-1241: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included

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2024-713: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called

2116-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by

2208-481: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent

2300-462: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on

2392-774: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for

2484-1088: The Forty-Second Street, Manhattanville and St. Nicholas Railroad. Additional properties include the Belt Line Railway Corporation, the Mid-Crosstown Railway, the Brooklyn and North River Railroad (a joint operation with Brooklyn Rapid Transit , New York Railways , and TARS operating streetcars over the Manhattan Bridge ), the Kingsbridge Railroad, the Westchester Electric Railroad, and the Yonkers Railroad: The cost of rapid expansion led to financial problems, and Third Avenue Railroad came under

2576-496: The Interurban Street Railway which then leased Metropolitan Street Railway and renamed itself New York City Railways. The company entered receivership in 1908. Ownership of the franchise was directed by John Johnston Railroad Company until 1912 when lines were conveyed to the New York, Westchester & Connecticut Traction. This line was consolidated into the new Union Railway in 1908, which in turn came under

2668-520: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until

2760-545: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,

2852-697: The New Rochelle Street Horse Railroad founded in 1885) were merged into the Westchester Electric in 1893, which in turn was leased to the Union Railway . It came under control of Third Avenue Railway in 1898, the same year the Mount Vernon and New Rochelle operations were electrified. The main carbarn was located at Sanford Boulevard and Garden Avenue in Mount Vernon. A joint trolley terminal operated with

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2944-436: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73

3036-463: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but

3128-413: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;

3220-442: The Surface Transportation Corporation's bus transit routes. Surface Transportation Corporation was dissolved and Third Avenue Transit was renamed Surface Transit, Incorporated. The same year, New York City Omnibus changed its name to Fifth Avenue Coach Lines. In 1962, all Fifth Avenue Coach Lines routes were taken over by the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority following a crippling transit strike. The majority of

3312-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using

3404-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at

3496-432: The Westchester Electric Railroad was a subsidiary of the Union Railway , and made up the majority of the local streetcar lines in New Rochelle, Pelham, and Mount Vernon. The Mount Vernon and Eastchester Railway (an 1887 reorganization of the Mount Vernon and East Chester Rail Road founded in 1885) and the New Rochelle Railway and Transit Company (an 1890 reorganization of the New Rochelle and Pelham Railway founded in 1885 and

3588-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since

3680-422: The bus, but given a suspended sentence. The company gave him a second chance and reinstated him as a driver a month later. The larceny charges were dropped in 1950, and Cimillo continued in his career without any further incident. In 1948, Samuel S. Schreiber was appointed as general manager of the Third Avenue Transit Corporation. An experienced transit executive, he was hired to implement the orderly conversion of

3772-447: The busiest lines and remained in operation until December 17, 1950. The city of White Plains , the county seat of Westchester, marked TARS northernmost trolley operations. The Tarrytown Electric Co. had proposed a line starting from the New York Central Railroad station at Tarrytown, up Main Street, across Broadway on Nepperhan Road to Altamont Avenue, Rose Hill Avenue, and Benedict Avenue. The New York, Elmsford and White Plains Railway

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3864-460: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this

3956-439: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which

4048-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being

4140-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,

4232-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In

4324-473: The classic tramway built in the early 20th century with the tram system operating in mixed traffic, and the later type which is most often associated with the tram system having its own right of way. Tram systems that have their own right of way are often called light rail but this does not always hold true. Though these two systems differ in their operation, their equipment is much the same. Steinway Omnibus Too Many Requests If you report this error to

4416-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for

4508-456: The company by 1946, and implemented a plan to replace the remaining streetcar routes with buses. On November 10, buses replaced trolleys on the busy 59th Street crosstown line in Manhattan. Third Avenue Transit made national news on March 28, 1947, when diesel bus 1310 and driver William Lawrence Cimillo went missing from its normal route and did not return to the garage. The bus was discovered in Hollywood, Florida , on March 31, when Cimillo sent

4600-439: The control of Third Avenue Railway. The NYW&CT was operated by TARS subsidiary Westchester Electric Railroad. Incorporated in 1896, the Yonkers Railroad Company was the consolidation of the Yonkers Railroad, the North and South Electric Railway, and the Yonkers and Tarrytown Electric Railroad. The line was operated by Third Avenue Railway and consisted of nine routes serving New York State's third largest city. Litigation over

4692-528: The control of the Metropolitan Street Railway . The 1908 collapse of the Metropolitan Railway send Third Avenue Railroad into foreclosure, with Frederick Wallingford Whitridge named receiver. Third Avenue Railway was chartered in 1910, and acquired the properties of the former Third Avenue Railroad, completing the transaction in 1912. In 1911, the New York City Interborough Railway streetcar lines were purchased from Interborough Rapid Transit , gaining complete control over all streetcar lines in The Bronx. In 1914

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4784-469: The development of Steinway Village, a company town located in Queens where Steinway pianos were manufactured. William Steinway died in 1896, and the streetcar lines were sold to the New York and Queens County Railway . A 1922 bankruptcy separated the Steinway Railway from the NY&QC, and Slaughter W. Huff, president of Third Avenue Railway, was named receiver. Equipment was leased from TARS in an effort to improve service, however, declining revenues and

4876-430: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy

4968-416: The end of 1917. Slaughter W. Huff, former vice president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company , was elected to take over as president of TARS. Huff was an experienced transit executive, working his way through streetcar lines in California, Maryland, and Virginia, before returning to New York City. He was also the longest serving president of TARS. The Steinway Railway Company was founded in 1892, as part of

5060-435: The end of rail service. A partnership between Third Avenue Transit System and New York City Omnibus Corporation created New York Management Ownership Corporation (NYMOC) in 1954. In 1955, parent The Omnibus Corporation sold its stakes in Fifth Avenue Coach Lines and New York City Omnibus to NYMOC. In 1956, New York City Omnibus Corporation bought out the remaining shares of Third Avenue Transit System and gained control of

5152-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams

5244-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled

5336-439: The fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905

5428-444: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in

5520-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and

5612-437: The length of 125th Street. At its peak, more than 1,700 horses were stabled by the railway to keep up with demand. By 1885, Third Avenue Railroad had opened its first cable car line on Amsterdam Avenue. The 125th Street and Third Avenue lines were converted to cable car operation by 1893. The lines were converted to electric operation in 1899. Because of a ban on overhead trolley wires in Manhattan, streetcars collected power from

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5704-475: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be

5796-421: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system

5888-415: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by

5980-403: The remaining TARS operation. In 1969 WST was acquired by Liberty Lines Transit and the transit franchises are now part of Westchester County's Bee-Line Bus System . Chartered in Westchester County in 1895 as the North Mount Vernon Street Railway, building local streetcar lines connecting Mount Vernon , Pelham , Eastchester , and Tuckahoe . Facing bankruptcy, the company was reorganized as

6072-545: The remaining trolley lines to bus operation. Slowed briefly by wartime restrictions on gasoline and tires, all streetcar lines in Manhattan and the Bronx were converted to bus by the end of 1948. The remaining Mount Vernon and New Rochelle trolley lines followed on December 16, 1950. The last TARS streetcar operation came to an end in November 1952 with the closure of the former Yonkers Railroad lines. Third Avenue Transit System continued operating its transit franchises through its subsidiary Surface Transportation Corporation after

6164-581: The resources to procure new equipment. Instead, older trolleys were rebuilt with new aluminum bodies and reconditioned for extended service. The 138th Street crosstown line in The Bronx was discontinued in 1938. By 1942 Surface Transportation System was operating one of the world's largest fleets of diesel-powered buses. In 1943, Third Avenue Railway System was renamed Third Avenue Transit System and had taken over direct operation of STS. After years of litigation regarding transit franchises and purchases of stock by board members, Victor McQuistion had taken control of

6256-594: The subsidiary Surface Transit Corporation . In Westchester County, the local streetcar lines in New Rochelle were some of the first to be converted to bus operation in 1939. Streetcars had a rocky history in New York City, losing favor by the 1930s. New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia did not feel that trolleys were agreeable to the modern image he was trying to portray. Operating franchises for trolleys were not renewed, leaving TARS with no choice but to convert to bus operation. While streamlined PCC trolley cars were introduced in nearby Brooklyn in 1936, TARS did not have

6348-419: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in

6440-436: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of

6532-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than

6624-466: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off

6716-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,

6808-466: The transit franchises are now operated by MTA Bus Company . Fifth Avenue Coach Lines continued to own and operate the old TARS subsidiary Westchester Street Transportation Company in White Plains until it was sold to Liberty Lines Transit in 1969. Compensation for the condemnation of its bus routes in New York City was paid in 1970, and Fifth Avenue Coach Lines emerged from receivership in 1971. It

6900-505: The transit franchises extended streetcar service in Westchester County for years after the Manhattan and Bronx lines were converted. Routes in New Rochelle and Mount Vernon were closed in 1950, leaving only the Yonkers city lines in operation. Lines 5, 6, 8, and 9 were converted to bus on October 25, 1952. On November 1, Line 4 was closed. Lines 1, 2 and 3 followed the next day. On November 9, the streetcar era on TARS came to an end when Line 7

6992-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of

7084-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating

7176-532: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,

7268-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing

7360-682: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated

7452-491: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as

7544-612: Was chartered in 1892, and by June 1897 trolleys were running between White Plains and Glenville. By October of that year, the line was linked with the Tarrytown line, creating a continuous cross-county route to White Plains. It was purchased by the Union Railway in 1898 and renamed the Tarrytown, White Plains and Mamaroneck Street Railway. This operation was sold to the Third Avenue Railway in June 1900. The railway

7636-487: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia

7728-603: Was purchased by New York City Omnibus Corporation in 1956, and transferred the remaining transit operating franchises to subsidiary Surface Transportation, Inc. The origins of the Third Avenue Railway System can be traced back to a simple horsecar line operated by the Third Avenue Railroad Company between City Hall and 62nd Street in Manhattan in 1853. By the 1870s, routes had been extended as far north as 129th Street and across

7820-771: Was reorganized as the South Bay Corporation in 1973, a privately held investment group. After the system's abandonment, 42 cars of the largest and newest type, built by TARS itself in 1938–1939 (on Brill trucks), were sold to the operator of the Vienna , Austria, streetcar system, Wiener Stadtwerke Verkehrsbetriebe (now Wiener Linien ), for operation there. They were renumbered, designated Vienna type "Z" and fitted with pantographs in place of their trolley poles. They did not use conduit current collection in Vienna. They entered service there in 1949–1950, exclusively on

7912-621: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to

8004-540: Was shut down and converted to bus operation. The transit franchises were transferred to the new Yonkers Transit Corporation, organized by TARS general manager Samuel S. Schreiber. Liberty Lines Transit acquired Yonkers Transit Corporation in 1972, and continues to operate its routes as part of the Bee-Line Bus System . The Yonkers Trolley Barn at the foot of Main Street, built by TARS in 1903 and listed on

8096-532: Was sold at foreclosure to Richard Sutro, who set up the Westchester Street Railroad to take over the property. In 1910, control of the streetcar line was transferred to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad . By the 1920s, both WSR and the New York and Stamford Railway were being managed by New Haven subsidiary New York, Westchester and Boston Railway . By this time the WSR consisted of

8188-628: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including

8280-635: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to

8372-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line

8464-878: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in

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