Slabtown Streetcars

No area of Portland, Oregon, played a more important role in street railway history than Northwest Portland and the neighborhood known as Slabtown. In 1872, the city’s first streetcars passed close to Slabtown as they headed for a terminus in the North End. Slabtown was also home to the first streetcar manufacturing factory on the West Coast. In fact, until locally built streetcars began to be replaced by trolleys from large national builders in the 1910s, more than half of all rolling stock was manufactured in shops located at opposite ends of Northwest Twenty-third Avenue. All streetcars operating on the west side of the Willamette River, including those used on the seven lines that served Northwest Portland, were stored in Slabtown. When the end finally came in 1950, Slabtown residents were riding two of the last three city lines.

In Portland's first decades, the northwest side remained dense forests. Native Americans camped and Chinese immigrants farmed around Guild's Lake. In the 1870s, Slabtown acquired its unusual name when a lumber mill opened on Northrup Street. The mill's discarded log edges were a cheap source of heating and cooking fuel. This slabwood was stacked in front of working-class homes of employees of a pottery, the docks, icehouses, slaughterhouses, and lumber mills. Development concentrated along streetcar lines. The early 20th century brought the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, manufacturing, shipbuilding, Montgomery Ward, and the Vaughn Street Ballpark. Today, Slabtown is a densely populated residential neighborhood, with many small shops and restaurants and an industrial area on its northern border. Tourists still arrive by streetcar to the charming Thurman, NW Twenty-first, and Twenty-third Avenues. Famous residents include author Ursula Le Guin, baseball greats Johnny Pesky and Mickey Lolich, NBA player Swede Halbrook, and Portland mayors Bud Clark and Vera Katz.

Portland neighborhoods owe their location, alignment, and growth to a splendid, 19th-century innovation: the streetcar. This city still bears the imprint of the carlines that once wove their way out to suburbs in every direction, including Fulton, Portland Heights, Goose Hollow, Nob Hill, Slabtown, Willamette Heights, Albina, Saint Johns, Irvington, Rose City, Mount Tabor, Montavilla, Mount Scott, and Sellwood. As routes developed, people used them for more than just getting to work; they also discovered the recreational function of street railways while visiting friends, parks, and shopping areas farther from the center of town. The time of the trolley peaked during the 1910s. In 1927, the local street railway system entered a period of slow decline that ended in 1950, when Portland's last city streetcars gave way to buses. This is the history of those classic lines.

Street railways arrived early in Portland and made lasting social and economic contributions that are still apparent in the layout and character of the citys neighborhoods today. During the 1890s, streetcar lines spread rapidly into the West Hills and across the Willamette River. The technological prowess of the growing Rose City was reflected in the largest horsecar in the Northwest, the second steepest cable car grade in the nation, the first true interurban railway, and an annual illuminated trolley parade. By the dawn of the 20th century, Portland could boast of the largest electric railway system in the West, as well as its first eight-wheeled streetcar. The streetcars lasted into the late 1950s here, and then, after a hiatus of nearly 30 years, were rediscovered by a new generation of urban planners. Street railways arrived early in Portland and made lasting social and economic contributions that are still apparent in the layout and character of the citys neighborhoods today. During the 1890s, streetcar lines spread rapidly into the West Hills and across the Willamette River. The technological prowess of the growing Rose City was reflected in the largest horsecar in the Northwest, the second steepest cable car grade in the nation, the first true interurban railway, and an annual illuminated trolley parade. By the dawn of the 20th century, Portland could boast of the largest electric railway system in the West, as well as its first eight-wheeled streetcar. The streetcars lasted into the late 1950s here, and then, after a hiatus of nearly 30 years, were rediscovered by a new generation of urban planners.

The Toronto Beaches Lions Club Easter Parade of April 8, 2012 leading off with Toronto Transit Commission historic Presidents’ Conference Committee car No. 4500, vintage Peter Witt car No. 2766, and Canadian Light Rail Vehicle No. 4074 in this view on Queen Street at Woodbine Avenue was witnessed by thousands of people. Kenneth Springirth, with a lifelong interest in rail transportation, has made numerous trips to Toronto to ride, research, walk, and photograph the streetcar lines. Born and raised in the United States, he commuted to the Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University) in Philadelphia by streetcar, subway, and sometimes commuter train. His father was a streetcar motorman in Philadelphia and his grandfather was a streetcar motorman in Washington D.C. This book is a photographic essay documenting Toronto’s extensive streetcar system that during 2012 on an average Monday to Friday work day carried an average of 285,000 passengers with its 11 routes, 671 stops, and 247 cars. From the urban residential area of Kingston Road to the commercial district of Spadina Avenue where between King and Bloor Streets there is a streetcar in peak periods every 2 to 3 minutes, this book provides an insight to an amazing streetcar system. Illustrations: 234 colour photographs

Streetcars played a key role in the frenzy of development that followed completion of the first bridges across the Willamette River in Portland in 1887. As carlines radiated eastward, a revolutionary shift in population saw suburban neighborhoods like Sunnyside spring up overnight. In 1888, the first steam streetcars expanded the city of East Portland beyond the limits imposed by horse-drawn transportation. Within a year, "motor" lines were running north and south of Mount Tabor and local entrepreneurs, prompted by opposition to locomotives rumbling over city streets, were experimenting with new-fangled battery, gasoline and electric-powered streetcars. In 1889, Southeast Portland residents raised their own money to fund one of the first electric street railways in the country. By 1891, rival companies had merged to form the largest streetcar system in the West. The process would continue into the early twentieth century, as Portland built the third largest system of its type in the United States. Most of its carlines would serve Southeast Portland, operating from the city's largest carbarn complex. This is the colorful story of those sixteen lines, from the first steam dummy to Sunnyside in 1888 to the last trolleys to Mount Tabor and Montavilla sixty years later.

By the first quarter of the 20th century, Manhattan had well over 400 miles of streetcar trackage, an investment of several million dollars. Less than 50 years later, the rail system had completely vanished. Manhattan's Lost Streetcars chronicles the finance, political pressures, and advancing technology behind Gotham's streetcar networks from 1890 to 1935. The story ends with the dismantling of the system. Manhattan's Lost Streetcars recalls a bygone era when public rail transportation was aboveground and New Yorkers rode the Metropolitan Street Railway, the Green Lines, the Manhattan Bridge Three Cent Line, and the Brooklyn & North River line, among others. It features images of the independent rail companies and the individual lines that made up a vast public transportation network in Manhattan.

On the 19th of September, 2015 it will be 60 years since the last streetcar made it's final run through Winnipeg's well known Portage and Main. Even our oldest daughter in her mid fifties never had a chance to see a Winnipeg streetcar operating, and naturally her children and grandchildren haven't either. What an experience they have missed! I operated the streetcars for the final 17 months of existence here, April 1954 to September 1955. I was the third youngest streetcar operator at that time. I turned 86 years old in November 2014 so the remaining half dozen operators will be in their mid nineties now. I have tried to capture the experience that the 73 years of streetcar service provided to Winnipeg and the surrounding towns. From the start of the horse cars in 1882 where the drivers were paid 12 cents an hour, to the beginning of electric streetcars in January 1891, this book describes with the aid of numerous pictures the essence of the transportation experience of those times. The streetcars ran for approximately 35 years before the first four buses came in 1918. In that time the streetcars supported the growth of the city to 150,000 people by 1912 becoming the third largest city in Canada. Writing this book has brought back many fond memories of those days. The last Winnipeg streetcar book was written by the late John Baker 32 years ago. It's about time for another.