Trolleys

Springfield Street Railway Car House, Springfield, Massachusetts (2)

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The car house of the Springfield Street Railway, seen from the corner of Main and Bond Streets in Springfield probably in 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2023:

As explained in more detail in the previous post, these two photos show one of the trolley barns that was used by the Springfield Street Railway. The top photo was probably taken right around the same time as the one in the previous post, since both photos show the same shadows in the same positions on the front of the building.

The top photo was taken shortly after the Springfield Street Railway system was electrified in the early 1890s. Prior to this time, the cars rode on rails in the streets but were pulled by horses. The switch to electric trolleys meant that the railway no longer had the expense of keeping several hundred horses, but instead the company needed facilities to store, maintain, and repair trolleys.

The building in the top photo was built sometime around the late 1880s or early 1890s, and it stood on the east side of Main Street between Carew and Bond Streets. The railway also had facilities around the corner on Bond Street and a little to the north of here on Hooker Street, both of which had much larger storage capacities than this one here on Main Street. However, during the mid-1890s this was the only one with pits beneath the tracks, meaning that every car in the system had to be rotated through here on a nightly basis for inspections.

Over time, the railway added new trolley barns, including one on the north side of Carew Street in 1897, along with a new one at Hooker Street in 1916. The old building here on the south side of Carew Street appears to have remained in use into the 20th century, but by the 1930s the trolley lines were steadily being replaced by buses, with the last trolley service ending in 1940.

The 1897 trolley barn on the north side of Carew Street is still standing, and the corner of the building is visible on the far left side of the second photo. However, the earlier trolley barn that is shown in the first photo is long gone. After the demise of the trolleys it was converted into commercial and retail use, and it stood here until December 1971, when it was destroyed by a fire. Its former location is now a gas station, as shown in the second photo.

Springfield Street Railway Car House, Springfield, Massachusetts

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The car house of the Springfield Street Railway, seen from the corner of Main and Bond Streets in Springfield, probably in 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show the northeast corner of Main and Bond Streets in Springfield. When the first photo was taken, this entire block of Main Street between Bond and Carew Streets was occupied by a Springfield Street Railway car house. Also known as a trolley barn, this building was a storage and maintenance facility for trolley cars. It was one of several car houses that the railway had in the North End, which can make it difficult to trace the history of this specific building, since historical records often made references to car houses or trolley barns without precisely identifying their locations. However, this building appears to have built sometime around the late 1880s or early 1890s, around the same time that the trolley system was electrified.

The Springfield Street Railway opened in 1870, with a single line that ran on Main Street from Hooker Street to State Street, and then east on State Street as far as Oak Street, for a total length of about 2.5 miles. As was the case with other street railways of this era, its cars were pulled along the rails by horses. This had the advantage of reduced friction compared to other horse-drawn vehicles, so a single horse could pull a heavier load while also providing a more comfortable ride for passengers.

The railway proved to be popular, and it was soon expanded with lines into other city neighborhoods. By the early 1880s, the horse-drawn streetcars provided service to Winchester Park (modern-day Mason Square) via State Street, to the Armory Watershops via Maple and Central Streets, and to Mill Street via the southern part of Main Street. The railway stables were originally located at Hooker Street, but those were later supplemented with stables in a building here at the site shown in these two photos, at the southeast corner of Main and Carew Streets. However, it seems unclear whether these stables were later incorporated into the larger building in the first photo, or if the building in the photo was entirely new construction.

Although the railway was successful, it nonetheless had significant operating expenses, particularly the horses. The company eventually required a total of 280 horses for its 74 cars, and the horses outnumbered human employees (156) by almost two to one. However, an alternative emerged in the mid-1880s, with the development of electric streetcars. These cars used electric motors that drew power from overhead wires, and they were often called “trolleys” because the movement of the current collector on the wire resembled that of a fishing boat trolling lines in the water.

The first large-scale electrified streetcar system in the United States was in Richmond, which opened in 1888. The Springfield Street Railway was quick to adopt this new technology, opening its first electrified line from State Street to Sumner Avenue in Forest Park in the summer of 1890. Most other lines soon followed, and the last horse-drawn trolley—which crossed the Old Toll Bridge to West Springfield—was retired in January 1893.

The first photo was taken soon after the system was electrified, and it shows six electric trolleys in front of the car house at the southeast corner of Main and Carew Streets. Like most other early trolleys, these were generally single-truck cars, meaning that they had just one chassis, unlike the larger trolleys of the early 20th century that typically had two trucks. The trolley closest to the camera, on the far right side of the scene, helps to establish the date of the photo. The front reads “Indian Orchard,” and since the Indian Orchard line opened in 1892, the photo likely could not have been taken before then. And, since it was published in a book in 1892, the photo could not have been taken later than that year.

By this point, the company had 32.5 miles of track, with an annual ridership of over 6.3 million. For many, the trolley was a way to commute to work from the suburbs, but it was also popular for recreational excursions, especially to the more distant locations such as Forest Park and Indian Orchard. The network of trolley lines served much of the city, and also connected to the neighboring towns of West Springfield, Chicopee, and Ludlow. The company charged a flat rate fare of five cents per trip on all lines except for Ludlow, which was ten cents.

As with any change, the switch to electric trolleys did raise some issues. For some, there were general concerns about the safety of electric power and the speed of the trolleys, while other concerns focused on more specific operational issues. A September 27, 1891 article in the Springfield Republican identified some of these, including confusing schedules. A schedule for one of the lines was reprinted in the article, and it read:

State street cars leave corner Main and Carew streets for Boston road at 5.50, 6.10, 6.30, 6.50, 7.10, 7.30, 7.50, 8.10, 8.30, 8.50, 9.10 a.m. From 9:23 a.m. until 4.18 p.m. every 15 minutes. From 4.18 p.m. until 7.18 p.m., every 12 minutes. From 7.23 p.m. until 10.38 p.m., inclusive, every 15 minutes.

Such a schedule gives a good sense of the interval between cars, but it makes it more complicated to determine exact departure times, since that requires adding or subtracting increments of 12 or 15 minutes to or from the specified times. And, although not specifically mentioned in the article, the math doesn’t quite add up; the cars were supposed to leave every 15 minutes from 9:23 to 4:18, yet that timeframe is not evenly divisible by 15 minutes.

Aside from the complicated schedule, the article also explained how, in many cases, the trolleys did not consistently keep to this schedule. Several different routes, including the State Street one, originated here at the corner of Main and Carew, presumably here in this building. However, there was not always a supervisor on hand to ensure that they departed at the correct time. As explained in the article:

Some people assert that the cars are not started properly on their trips. The assistant superintendent says that he acts as car-starter, but admits that he is away from the barn a good share of the time, when, so far as his personal avowal goes, the cars take care of themselves. The transfer man, who sits on the sidewalk at the corner of Main and Carew streets and tells the conductors who have paid among the passengers, and who haven’t, says he sees the cars do not get off late, but as he never uses his watch, it is to be inferred the cars are never behind hand.

In many cases, the issue seems to have been that the cars were leaving too early, combined with the fact that the trolleys were generally able to make their trips in less time than the scheduled times. This meant that passengers who successfully deciphered the schedule and arrived at the appointed time would often discover that the trolley had left several minutes earlier. The article described how:

Now, if the conductors will only hold their cars until plump on the advertised leaving time the mechanics and wood-workers around Winchester park will be greatly pleased, for, according to these men’s testimony, the car supposed until recently to leave the upper end at 6:06 p.m. had a troublesome habit of getting off from one to three minutes early, so that the workmen are obliged to ride smutty, or hustle amazingly.

Overall, most of the issues raised in the article seemed to be relatively minor inconveniences, rather than serious safety issues. As the article observed, “[w]ith the perfection and speed and extra comfort in open cars and cushioned seats the public has grown even more exacting.” And, because it is impossible to keep everyone happy, there were simultaneously complains that the cars ran too fast and that they ran too slow; that they rang their bells too much, or not enough; and that the open cars were too cold, while the closed cars were too stuffy. The article also pointed out, rather facetiously, that “[s]ome people want the cars to run right up to their doors, and would like the conductors to carry them in, while others think it an infringement on constitutional rights if the tracks are laid through their streets.”

In the meantime, the trolley system continued to expand with new lines throughout the 1890s, reaching about 40 miles of track by 1895. All of this required a considerable amount of maintenance in order to ensure that the tracks, the overhead wires, and the trolley cars themselves were all in good condition. Much of this work occurred here in the car houses, including the one shown here in this photo. Another Springfield Republicans article, published on December 29, 1895, provided an overview of how the system was maintained, including a detailed description of the regular work that was done on the trolleys:

The company has made a practice of putting every car into the shops once every year, when it is taken all to pieces, the mechanical and electrical parts thoroughly inspected and repaired and put together as good as new. The closed cars are overhauled in the summer and the open cars in the winter and they are painted if necessary. Then there is the daily inspection. Certain men have certain cars for whose condition they are responsible. They examine their cars carefully every day and make a daily report. One man is made responsible for all the cars and he receives those reports and takes charge of the repairs. When a car is out of repair a sign “Off” is hung up on it, and if the break is serious it is sent to the shop; if not the repairs are made in the barn. The car inspectors are men who are thoroughly up in mechanical and electrical matters. When a car comes into the barn for the night there are but a few hours before it goes into use again and during these few night hours the inspectors are busy. They raise the trap doors in the floor of the car and look over the motors carefully, examining the armatures, all the wire connections, the brushes and everything else that is at all likely to get out of order. Then they go down under the car and make an equally careful observation from the outside. If you have been in the car barns you have noticed the open spaces over which the cars run. These enable the inspector to examine with grate minuteness any part of the apparatus.

The brake is the thing that is examined with the most care, for the brake has to be relied upon to save lives and property, and it is essential that it be in a state of perfection. Outside of the regular inspection of the car there is a special inspection of the brakes. One man has charge of this and he is a high-priced man. It is his duty to look at every brake each day, or rather night, for he has to make examinations while the stars shine, and once a week every car is thoroughly tested in every respect. This man has to show in writing that every car has been tested. Besides all these examinations, the machinery of the car is constantly under the observation of the motorman and conductor, who acquire a considerable knowledge of the mechanism, and there is always a man stationed at Court Square or the corner of State street to see that everything is going right. It is astonishing how quickly a difficulty can be placed. An inspector can tell from the sound of a motor not only what make it is, but whether it is in good repair. In examining the machinery they get so familiar with it that they recognize each motor as an old acquaintance. Sometimes the motors are changed about in the cars and an inspector can tell you what car a certain motor came out of.

By 1897, about five years after the first photo was taken, the railway had about 180 cars—including snowplows—that all had to be stored and maintained on a regular basis. There were three main facilities here in the North End, including the car house here on Main Street, another one nearby on the south side of Bond Street, and one on Hooker Street. According to a May 29, 1897 article in the Republican, the railway was outgrowing these car houses, which often meant that around 10 to 12 trolleys were left outdoors overnight.

At the time, the Bond Street facility had a capacity of about 75 trolleys, while Hooker Street could store about 50. Here at the Main Street car house, there was only room for about 25 cars. But, the article also noted that this was the only facility with pits below the tracks. Because part of the daily inspections involved examining beneath the trolleys, this meant that each trolley had to come through this building every night, before ultimately being moved to its overnight storage building.

This overcrowding prompted the railway to acquire more land for a new facility. In 1897, the company purchased the former Carew house, located just to the north of here on the other side of Carew Street. This house, which is partially visible in the distance behind the left-most trolley in the first photo, had been built in 1803 as the home of Joseph Carew Sr. It would remain in his family for almost a century, with his daughter Caroline Spencer living here until her death in 1895 at the age of 84. During that time, she saw her neighborhood transform from a sparsely-populated area on the outskirts of a small town, into the transit hub of a rapidly-growing city. Her death marked the end of an era here, and the house was demolished after it was purchased by the railway. In its place, the company built a new car house, which still stands today at the northeast corner of Main and Carew Streets, on the left side of the second photo.

The early 20th century would prove to be the heyday of trolleys, both in America and also here in Springfield. The book Springfield Present and Prospective, published in 1905, gave description of the street railway system, which by that point had expanded to almost 94 miles. The fleet consisted of 107 closed cars and 120 open cars, and on a typical day a total of 75 of these cars were needed in order to maintain the schedules. And, beyond just linking the suburbs to the city center, the railway had also expanded to include service between other cities in the area. The book explains how, from Springfield, trolley passengers could travel to Holyoke, Northampton, Westfield, Palmer, and Hartford without even having to make any transfers.

In 1916 the trolley system was further supported by another car house, which opened a few blocks to the north of here at the corner of Main and Hooker Streets. However, by this point automobiles were becoming affordable to middle class families, and this trend would continue into the 1920s, making public transportation less of a necessity for many people. At the same time, trolley lines around the country were steadily being replaced by buses. This was the case here in Springfield, with trolley service eventually being whittled down to just the Forest Park line. This had been the first electrified line in the system, and it would prove to be the last, with the final trolley concluding its last run— with much fanfare—in the early morning hours of June 23, 1940.

The Springfield Street Railway continued to operate under this name for many years, despite being a “railway” in name only, with buses having replaced all of the former trolley lines. It eventually merged to form the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, which continues to provide bus service to Springfield and the other communities in the region.

Two of the former trolley barns still exist today. The one at Hooker Street is now used as a bus garage, and the one at the northeast corner of Main and Carew has been converted to other commercial uses. It is visible in the distance on the left side of the second photo, and it remains a distinctive landmark in the North End.

As for the trolley barn in the top photo, it was later converted into commercial and retail use. It stood here until it was destroyed by a fire in December 1971. The site of the building is now a gas station, and the contrast between these two photos provides a vivid illustration of the old trolleys and the newer method of transportation that replaced them.

Mount Tom Railroad, Holyoke, Mass (3)

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The trolley Elizur Holyoke approaching the summit on the Mount Tom Railroad, around 1905-1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

The first photo shows the trolley Elizur Holyoke, one of two that operated on the Mount Tom Railroad. Together with the Rowland Thomas, these two cars formed a funicular railway; they were connected by a cable that allowed the descending car to use its weight to help pull the other one up the mountain. This cable, which is seen in the foreground in the middle of the tracks in the first photo, was not powered by a motor at the summit, but instead each car had its own motors, which drew power from overhead wires by way of a trolley pole, as shown atop the Elizur Holyoke in the photo.

The Mount Tom Railroad opened in 1897, allowing visitors to reach the newly-constructed Summit House atop the 1,200-foot Mount Tom. It was just under a mile in length, and it rose 700 feet in elevation, with an average grade of 14 percent and a maximum of 21.5 percent. Most of the route was straight, with the exception of a curve near the summit, which is shown here in this scene. The cars typically ran once every half hour, although they could be operated more frequently depending on demand. Each car could seat 84 passengers, and over the course of an average season the railroad typically carried about 75,000 people to and from the summit.

Aside from the railroad itself, this scene also offers a view of the northernmost portion of the Mount Tom Range, along with part of the Holyoke Range. Appropriately enough, the first photo shows the Elizur Holyoke directly below Mount Holyoke. Both the mountain and the trolley share the same namesake, and the mountain also lent its name to the city of Holyoke, where Mount Tom is located. Further to the left of Mount Holyoke is Mount Nonotuck, which is visible near the upper left corner of the first photo.

When the railroad and Summit House here on Mount Tom opened in 1897, both of these mountains already had long-established hotels at their summits, with the Prospect House on Mount Holyoke and the Eyrie House on Mount Nonotuck. Unlike those businesses, though, the Summit House did not offer overnight accommodations, and instead catered entirely to day visitors. In any case, the aging Eyrie House was never a major competitor to the Summit House, and it ultimately burned in 1901. As for the Prospect House, its 20th century history would largely mirror that of the Summit House, and both ultimately closed in the late 1930s amid declining business during the Great Depression.

The Summit House was demolished around 1938, and the railroad tracks were removed around the same time. Then, in 1944 the property was sold to the radio station WHYN, which built towers and buildings at the summit and converted the railroad right-of-way into a paved access road. Overall, though, this scene has not changed much, aside from the loss of the railroad tracks. The slopes of Mount Tom still look much the same as they did when the first photo was taken, as do the mountains in the distance, although some are obscured by tree growth in the present-day photo. Even the Prospect House on Mount Holyoke is still standing, and it is barely visible as a tiny white speck just to the left of the summit in both photos. Now preserved as a museum, this historic building is one of the few surviving 19th century mountaintop resorts in the northeast, having long outlived its newer competitors on Mount Nonotuck and here on Mount Tom.

Mount Tom Railroad, Holyoke, Mass (2)

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The trolley Elizur Holyoke passing through a rock cut on the Mount Tom Railroad, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Holyoke Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

As explained in the previous post, the Mount Tom Railroad was a nearly mile-long funicular railway that brought visitors up to the Summit House at the top of Mount Tom. It opened in 1897, and it featured two trolleys connected by a cable. When one car descended, its weight helped pull the other car up the mountain. Each car also had its own electric motors, powered by overhead wires, which provided additional power to compensate for differences in weight and energy lost to friction. Most of the rail line what a single track, aside from a short turnout at the midpoint to allow the cars to pass.

The railroad rose 700 feet in elevation, with an average grade of 14 percent and a maximum grade of 21.5 percent. The route was mostly straight, although there was a gentle curve near the summit. Along the way, this route required several rock cuts and fills, to maintain a consistent grade. The largest of these cuts is shown here in these photos, about a third of a mile below the summit station. Here, trolleys would pass between two walls of Mount Tom’s distinctive basalt traprock, with its step-like formation.

The first photo shows the trolley Elizur Holyoke, named for the early settler who became the namesake of Mount Holyoke. According to tradition, he and fellow pioneer Rowland Thomas led an expedition up the Connecticut River, with Holyoke traveling up the east side and Thomas on the west side. After reaching an area where the river passes between two mountain ranges, the two men decided to name the eastern one for Holyoke, and the western one for Thomas. Appropriately enough, the other trolley here on the railroad was named the Rowland Thomas.

The Mount Tom Railroad remained in service for about 40 years. Its operating season generally lasted from May through October, and in a typical year would average around 75,000 visitors during the season. Among the most famous of these was President William McKinley, who visited with his wife Ida in 1899 and rode up the mountain on the Elizur Holyoke. Calvin Coolidge and his future wife Grace Goodhue also rode up the railroad in the early 20th century, although with far less fanfare than McKinley had enjoyed, since Coolidge was still an obscure young Northampton lawyer at the time.

The Summit House suffered two disastrous fires, first in 1901 and again in 1929. The second was particularly devastating to the railroad, since its small, hastily-constructed replacement failed to draw the same number of visitors to the summit. This, combined with increased car ownership during the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s, ultimately led to the Summit House and the railroad closing by the late 1930s. In 1938 the Summit House was dismantled, and around the same time the railroad tracks were torn up and removed.

During its many years in operation, the Mount Tom Railroad had a good safety record, and it does not appear to have had any major incidents. However, less than a decade after the railroad closed, this spot here would become the site of a deadly transportation disaster. On the night of July 9, 1946, an Army Air Corps B-17 airplane was en route from Goose Bay, Labrador to Westover Field in Chicopee. The plane had a crew of four, and it also carried 21 passengers who were returning from active duty in Greenland, including 15 Coast Guardsmen, four Army Air Corps servicemen, and two civilians. While attempting to land at the nearby airfield in the dark on a rainy night, the plane instead crashed into Mount Tom, hitting the exposed rock along this section of the railroad grade. The impact disintegrated the plane, killing all 25 men instantly and starting a large fire here. A group of people at nearby Mountain Park climbed up the railroad right-of-way, but they could not get close to the crash scene because of the intense heat, and in any case there was little that they could have done to assist at that point.

Today, more than 80 years after the railroad closed, its route is now a paved access road for the telecommunications towers that occupy the former site of the Summit House. However, there are still remnants of the old railroad along the road, including piles of discarded ties and metal support braces for the utility poles. On a more somber note, however, there are also many remnants of the B-17 crash throughout this area, including pieces of twisted metal and fragments of melted aluminum. The site of the crash is now marked by a monument that is inscribed with the names of the 25 men who died here. It is located about 100 yards in the distance, atop a rocky outcropping on the left side of the road. The monument itself is not visible in the present-day photo, but it can be reached via a short path that starts at the green bush in the distant center of the photo.

Mount Tom Railroad, Holyoke, Mass

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The trolley Rowland Thomas on the Mount Tom Railroad in Holyoke, around 1905-1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

The early 20th century was the heyday of electric trolleys in the United States. In the years prior to widespread car ownership, most cities and even many small towns were served by networks of trolley lines that were generally run by private companies. In order to maximize profits, these companies often built picnic groves, amusement parks, and other recreational facilities along their lines. Known as trolley parks, these generated revenue not only through admission fees, but also through increased trolley ridership on otherwise-slow weekends.

Here in Holyoke, the Holyoke Street Railway Company opened Mountain Park in the 1890s. It began as a small park at the base of Mount Tom, but it soon added amenities such as a dance hall, a restaurant, a roller coaster, and a carousel. Most significantly, though, the company also built a summit house at the top of the 1,200-foot mountain, allowing visitors to enjoy the expansive views of the Connecticut River valley. Mountaintop resorts were popular in the northeast during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and there were already several in the vicinity of Mount Tom, including the Prospect House on Mount Holyoke and the Eyrie House on Mount Nonotuck. However, unlike those establishments, the Summit House here on Mount Tom was not a hotel. Instead, it catered to day visitors, with a restaurant, a stage, and an observatory equipped with telescopes.

To bring visitors to the Summit House, the company constructed the Mount Tom Railroad, a nearly mile-long funicular railway that rose 700 feet in elevation from Mountain Park to a station just below the summit. It had an average grade of 14 percent, with a maximum grade of 21.5 percent at its steepest section. The lower part of the route was straight, as shown here in this view looking down from the midpoint, although there was a gentle curve right before the summit station. Like most funiculars, it consisted of two cars that were connected by a cable. As one car descended, it pulled the other car up the mountain, allowing gravity to do most of the work. The cable itself was unpowered, but the cars each had their own electric motors powered by overhead wires, in order to compensate for weight differences and energy lost to friction.

The two cars were named the Rowland Thomas and Elizur Holyoke, in honor of the early colonists who became the namesakes of Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke. Each car was 36 feet long, 9 feet wide, and could seat 84 passengers. They were connected to each other by a 5,050-foot-long, 1.25-inch steel cable, which passed over a large sheave at the summit. This sheave was mounted on an A-frame that was, in turn, bolted securely into the rock. In addition, the cars maintained constant telephone connection with each other, by way of telephone lines that ran alongside the tracks just above ground level, as shown in the lower left corner of the first photo. The cars connected to these by way of brush-like shoes that ran along the top of the wires as the car moved.

Because of the steep grade of the railroad, the cars’ braking ability was of critical importance, as an uncontrolled descent would likely have had deadly consequences. To prevent this, the cars had several independent braking systems. Each car was equipped with standard trolley brakes, but the cable itself was controlled by a centrifugal governor at the summit that automatically slowed the cable once it began moving faster than 1,400 feet per minute, or about 16 miles per hour. This second feature obviously only worked if the cable remained intact, but there was yet another braking system in the event of a catastrophic failure of the cable. As shown in the first photo, a third rail ran inside the tracks next to the cable. In an emergency, the motorman could activate a lever that would cause the car to clamp on to this rail. This could also be done automatically, by a governor that was set to engage the rail once the car exceeded 1,500 feet per minute, or 17 miles per hour.

In any funicular railway, one of the other challenges is determining how the two cars will pass each other. The simplest solution is to have two parallel tracks, with each car operating on its own track at all times. However, this requires a wider right-of-way, along with significantly more materials than a single-track railway. One alternative is a three-rail funicular, in which each car has its own outside rail and shares the middle one, diverging only at a short passing section. The other option is to have one track for both cars, with a turnout at the halfway point. This requires the least amount of land and materials, but it requires a complex track arrangement at the turnout to ensure each car takes the correct path and safely crosses over the cable.

Here on Mount Tom, the railroad engineers chose the third option, as shown in the first photo. The two cars met at a passing loop, which is visible in the lower center of the photo. At first glance it looks similar to a standard railroad switch, but the key difference is that it has no moving parts. Instead, the cars and tracks are designed so that each one can only take one path, which remains the same regardless of whether the car is heading up or down the mountain. As such, the Rowland Thomas always took the tracks on the north side (the left side when viewed from this direction), while the Elizur Holyoke always took the south side.

To achieve this, the two cars had different wheel arrangements. The wheels on one side of the car had a wider tread than on the other side, which caused them to be guided along deflector rails onto the correct track. For the Rowland Thomas, these wide-tread wheels were on the left side when it was headed uphill, and for the Elizur Holyoke they were on the right side. On the same side as these wheels, each car also had an extra set of wheels that were slightly raised above the others and hung out about 15 inches from the main wheels. Because the turnout required gaps in the main rail to allow the cable to pass through, there was a short section of rail next to these gaps. As the main wheels approached the gap, the auxiliary wheels would roll along this additional rail, preventing what would otherwise be a derailment.

Work on the railroad began in March 1897, and it was completed in time for the summer season, opening on May 25. It operated throughout the summer and into the fall foliage season, before closing for the winter at the end of October. Round trip fare was 25 cents, and included the trolley ride along with use of the Summit House. The trolleys were scheduled to run twice an hour, with extra trips as needed. However, by September this schedule was insufficient to keep up with demand, as indicated by a Springfield Republican article that criticized the railroad for dangerously overcrowded trolleys.

During the early years of the railroad, perhaps its most distinguished passenger was President William McKinley, who visited Mount Tom along with his wife Ida on June 19, 1899. A number of onlookers gathered at the lower station to catch a glimpse of the president, who sat in the front seat of the Elizur Holyoke trolley for the ride up the mountain. At the summit, he and Ida were likewise greeted by a large crowd, and they spent about an hour there, where they ate a light lunch at Summit House before heading back down the mountain.

As it turned out, the McKinleys would be the first of at least two presidential couples who would travel up the Mount Tom Railroad. About five years later, a young Calvin Coolidge and Grace Goodhue visited the mountain on a date. At the time, Calvin was a lawyer in Northampton and Grace was a teacher at the Clarke School for the Deaf. While at the Summit House, he purchased a souvenir plaque of the mountain, which became the first gift he ever gave her. They subsequently married in 1905, and he went on to become governor, vice president, and then ultimately president in 1923.

In the meantime, the original Summit House only lasted for a few years before being destroyed by a fire in 1900. Its replacement opened the following year, but this too would eventually burn, in 1929. By contrast, the Mount Tom Railroad itself appears to have avoided any major incidents throughout its history. However, there were occasional breakdowns that forced passengers to walk down the mountain, and in at least one instance causing a number of people to spend the night in makeshift accommodations at the Summit House.

On July 24, 1928, at around 9:15pm, the Rowland Thomas had to stop about 150 feet from the upper station because of a broken journal on one of its axles. This likewise caused the Elizur Holyoke to stop the same distance from the lower station. The passengers on the Elizur Holyoke were able to easily return to the station, but about 50 people were  stranded at the summit. Many chose to walk down the mountain in the dark, guided by railroad employees with lanterns, but 22 remained at the Summit House overnight. Some stayed up all night, playing bridge and dancing, and most descended the mountain after sunrise, although four guests stayed at the summit until railroad service was restored later in the day. A similar incident occurred less than a month later, when a spread rail stopped the trolleys at about 9:00pm. This time, 35 people walked down in the dark, but it does not appear that anyone spent the night at the summit.

After the 1929 fire at the Summit House, the railroad quickly constructed a temporary replacement at the summit. It had intended to then build a more permanent structure, but by the early 1930s the mountain faced declining numbers of visitors. Part of this was because of the Great Depression, which began just months after the fire here. Another factor was increased car ownership among the middle class, which meant that recreational activities were no longer limited to places that people could access by trolley.

At the base of the mountain, Mountain Park would remain a popular amusement park for decades, but both the Mount Tom Railroad and the Summit House closed in the late 1930s. The temporary Summit House was dismantled for scrap metal in 1938, and around the same time the railroad tracks were taken up and removed. The rails and other metal components were presumably reused or scrapped, but the wooden ties were discarded in piles alongside the right-of-way. More than 80 years later, many of these ties are still in remarkably good condition, and a few are visible in the lower right corner of the second photo.

The railroad ultimately sold the summit area and the right-of-way to the WHYN radio station, which constructed radio towers and transmitter buildings on the site of the old Summit House. The old railroad grade was paved over, and it became an access road for the radio station. As a result, the present-day scene looks very different from the first photo, although there are still a few remnants of the old railroad, including the ties, some discarded spikes, and metal support braces for the old utility poles that once supported the electrified trolley wire.

North Pearl Street from State Street, Albany, New York

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Looking north on North Pearl Street from the corner of State Street in Albany, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2019:

Pearl Street is one of the main north-south streets through downtown Albany, and these photos show the view looking north from the corner of State Street. When the first photo was taken, much of the streetscape consisted of four-story brick Italianate-style commercial buildings from the second half of the 19th century. However, the one major exception was the Albany Savings Bank, which stands on the left side of the scene. The building, with its Corinthian columns and large dome, was designed by noted architect Henry Ives Cobb, and it was constructed in 1898.

Just to the left of the bank was another notable downtown building, the Tweddle Building. It stood at the corner of State and North Pearl Streets, and it is more visible in a photo from an earlier post, which shows it from State Street. Here on the North Pearl Street side of the building, it had several different retail tenants on the ground floor. Starting on the far left side of the first photo, it housed “Cut Price Druggists,” which had a window advertisement for “Lime-Ade,” declaring it to be “First Aid to the thirsty.” Just to the right of the drugstore is the Whittle Brothers florist shop, and further to the right is the umbrella shop of J. McElwee, which had an outdoor display advertising for “Covering and Repairing” of umbrellas.

Elsewhere in the first photo, a number of signs adorn the sides of the buildings and extend outward across the sidewalk, hoping to catch the attention of the pedestrians. On the far right side near the foreground, these included the Albany & Troy Candy Kitchen, the Hallwood Cash Register Company, Harry Ellis’s men’s furnishings shop, the W. F. Antemann & Son jewelry shop, and the Joseph Feary & Son boot and shoe store. Antemann’s shop was marked by a large pocket watch sign, but many of his competitors apparently had the same idea, since there are at least three similar pocket watch signs visible across the street on the left side. Also on the left side, just beyond the bank, is Failing’s Apothecary, with a name that inspires even less confidence than the competing “Cut Price Druggists” a block away.

On the street, the traffic in the photo consists primarily of horse-drawn wagons. The most visible of these is the well-decorated wagon of the Grand Union Tea Company, on the far left side of the photo. The driver is perhaps delivering tea to the Cut Price drugstore, and the horse is staring directly at the camera. There are no automobiles visible in the photo, although by this point there were already thousands registered in the state of New York, and within just a few years they would largely displace the horse-drawn vehicles. In the meantime, though, the only sign of new transportation methods in the first photo is the electric trolley in the distance.

Today, around 115 years after the first photo was taken, very little remains of the early 20th century scene, especially here in the foreground. Cars now dominate the street, with not a draft animal in sight, and even the trolleys are long gone, having been replaced by buses, such as the one in the lower center of the 2019 photo. Most of the buildings here are also gone. Among the first to be demolished was the Tweddle Building on the far left, which was replaced by the 17-story Ten Eyck Hotel in the mid-1910s. This hotel was then demolished in the early 1970s, around the same time as the Albany Savings Bank building. The spot where the hotel once stood is now a modern office building, and the site of the bank is the Ten Eyck Plaza.

Despite all of the changes, though, there are a few surviving buildings near the foreground on the right side of the scene. Closest to the camera is the four-story building at 23-25 North Pearl Street, which was occupied by Feary’s boot and shoe store in the first photo. It was built in 1854, and it is still standing today, with few significant exterior changes aside from the storefronts. A little further north, just beyond Maiden Lane, are two other historic buildings, at 29-31 North Pearl Street. These were built in 1869 and feature distinctive cast iron lintels over the windows. The main facade of 29 North Pearl was altered at some point in the 20th century with a Tudor-style appearance, but otherwise the buildings are still recognizable from the first photo.

Overall, the best-preserved section of this scene is far in the distance. The two blocks between Pine and Columbia Streets are still lined on both sides with predominantly 19th and early 20th century buildings. These include the former YMCA building, site of the first basketball game played away from the sport’s Springfield birthplace, and the Kenmore Hotel, an ornate High Victorian Gothic building that opened in 1878. These buildings, along with the other historic buildings in this scene, are now part of the Downtown Albany Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.