This car enthusiast is dedicated to the philosophy of integrated transport, using streetcars and light rail as a means of moving people quicker, in greater safety, and with less polution than an autos-only system. Therefore I was delighted to hear an item on the Seattle NPR news Monday morning that construction was about to begin on that city's new First Hill streetcar line. On that same day I also received an e-mail promoting a DVD about classic eastern Canadian streetcar lines, which led me to wax nostalgic about the "red rockets" of my past in Toronto.
If I'm to be honest I'd have to admit that the streetcars of yesterday (or "trolleys" as my US friends sometimes call them) would hardly satisfy contemporary citizens when it comes to comfort, quiet, and convenience. But go back a few decades and they were not only efficient for the times but fun to ride, often for reasons their designers hadn't intended. In this blog I'm going to take you through that era as I knew it: as a young boy, teenager, and still immature adult.
When I first began riding them, the TTC (Toronto Transportation System) had three types of streetcars in its fleet. The oldest dated back to the early 1900s, featuring a combination of steel and wood-frame construction. The shape consisted of boxy, straight lines that look right at home next to antique and vintage automobiles. The seats were made of wood and the roof had a raised section to provide light and ventilation. They were noisy, and rattled when underway, but there was something about those old machines that gave them character. Sadly the TTC failed to save even one when their time was up, eagerly selling the cars for scrap. I feel privileged to have been a passenger.
In the 1920s the TTC began replacing those oldies with all-steel Peter Witt streetcars that were more spacious and more powerful, eventually adding nearly 600 units to the fleet. They were the streetcars that I knew as a youngster, along with the remaining antiques and a growing number of streamlined "PCC's".
The PCC (Presidents’ Conference Committee) streetcar was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The committee represented the presidents of various street railways who worked together to redesign, refine, and perfect the electric streetcar. When the first prototype was shown at the Canadian National Exhibition my grandmother took me to see it. As a youngster who was already in love with transportation design I was hugely impressed. Numerous PCC's have been preserved as heritage cars and can be found running in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and other cities. Rugged and serviceable when rebuilt to modern safety standards, those old streamliners are doing double duty as tourist attractions and everyday transport.
Interesting though such history may be I did promise to tell you about my personal experiences and what made the streetcars fun. Some of what I'm about to reveal is embarrassing but what the heck... that's the way it happened. For example, the simple act of riding to and from Toronto's Beach district to downtown during rush hours.
When I was in my late teens most Torontonions still used streetcars to get to work and the cars would be very, very crowded. Jammed cheek-to-jowl and occasionally bottom (female)-to-(male) pelvis. I was a shy kid and well-mannered so I never arranged this on purpose... honest! In those sardine-packed streetcars it just happened and my problem was that massive amounts of willpower were not enough to avoid the inevitable male reaction, although a few of the young women with whom I was unintentionally intimate seemed slow moving away when the crowds began to thin out.
The PCCs could also be used for a free ride on the exterior, albeit at considerable danger. The rear of the car had a bumper of sorts, just a curved steel band with a gap between it and the body. Above the rear windows was a small ridge created by a horizontal trim piece. By placing his feet on the bumper gap and his fingers in the horizontal trim, a brave or foolish young man could become a non-revenue passenger, not unlike those we see on third world passenger trains. Obviously this was not meant for long distances due to physical risks and the probability that the operator would spot us and call the police. We mostly used it for tricks of bravado at the conclusion of Balmy Beach Canoe Club dance nights when our choice of sweethearts rejected pleas of "can I take you home after the last dance?"
The dance hall at the opposite end of Toronto's waterfront, the Palace Pier, was a wondrous building distinguished by a vast floor mounted on springs, the intention being to reduce the bounce of jitterbugging and jiving, the disco dances of an earlier generation. Famed jazz bands like Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, and Count Basie appeared there, and when they did we Balmy Beachers would swarm en masse to the Palace Pier, traveling, of course, by streetcar. The connection to the Queen car line was over a wide avenue of medium curves known as the Queensway. At the end of the night the TTC would arrange to have several PCC cars waiting at the Palace Pier to connect us with the Queen Street line.
It was an absolute miracle that no one was killed. The cars were packed with fans, seated and standing in the aisles. The drivers must have looked on that curving route as a modern F1 star might see a race circuit. They didn't just traverse the tracks, they attacked them, taking advantage of the PCC's wheel's ability to remain connected to the rails. We, the passengers, clung together, all thoughts of dates and sex forgotten as we prayed for survival. That those cars never left the tracks speaks well for the design, though not for the drivers.
Some of the older Peter Witt streetcars had a motorman, who did the driving, and a conductor who had his own protected area just ahead of the exit doors, which were located midships. Later models were revised for one-man operation, hardly an easy job as the motorman had to sell tickets (four for a quarter), make change, give and take transfers, call the stops, ring the bell at errant motorists, and drop the "fender" to prevent dogs and cats from getting run over. Oh... and drive the vehicle at a speed necessary to maintain schedule. Those on the Yonge Street route would occasionally pull trailers of a similar design, each with their own conductor and a single set of doors. But those trailers, unlike the traction cars ahead, had no electric heating system. The car was kept warm with a large stove that the conductor had to periodically feed with shovels of coal, in between his ticket selling duties and monitoring the doors. Needless to say little of the heat reached the ends of the car, thus on cold winter days passengers would scramble for seats near the stove.
It may be difficult to imagine that getting around in those circumstances could actually be fun. But passengers tended to be more sociable then, unafraid of striking up a conversation with strangers. Discomforts were shared with a sense of humour. Young guys like myself could strike up a conversation if a pretty young thing sat next to us, which might even lead to a date. I doubt whether the streetcar revival slowly taking place in North America will offer the kinds of experiences we had in the 1940s and 1950s. Times change, attitudes change, and the streetcars have changed. But you never know until you try one.
[Photo Credits: Vintage streetcar, Toronto City Archives/PCC, John F. Bromley/ Peter Witt trailer, Julian Bernard]
