Using a Trolley Car as a Moving Van

The Conestoga Traction Company, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, made the not-so-obvious leap of faith that a trolley car could be put into service hauling furniture etc. for people moving house. It helps if your trackage covers the locality pretty densely; otherwise, you'll spend all your time loading and offloading to horse-drawn wagons. The comment about the market for this common carrier being "from some point in the city to the country or vice versa" seems to me to imply a fatally limited for an already questionable project. Click for larger.

Originally published in the July, 1908 issue of POPULAR ELECTRICITY.

Mountain Trolley Line

The cover of the July, 1908 issue of POPULAR ELECTRICITY. Click for larger.

 

Many more covers from this magazine online on MagazineArt.org. Bound volume run of the magazine on the Internet Archive.

The Bowery, NYC, Elevated Railroad, 1897

I collected this image of a stereoview in 2002, but didn't keep a trail as to its source. It can stand on its own. Click = bigger.

Trolley Diner

Sui generis example from Falmouth, Kentucky, in a photo postcard. Click to big.

From a recent listing for sale by

Balloon Route Excursion, Los Angeles, 1907

eBay seller had this booklet for sale last year, and his listing showed lots of the pages (not much rail hardware, sorry). If I'd been on the ball I'd have posted it then. Click for slightly larger versions.

Boston Public Library and Boylston Street Car 1896

From an article in the January, 1896 issue of SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE:




Click to see full-size version of the picture. Click here to see the full article, "The New building of the Boston Public Library."

Trolley Line in Seoul, Korea 1898-1900

Photographs from one of Burton Holmes's volumes, his trip to Korea in 1898-1900 — there is some debate as to which trip and what year these photos were taken.

The line had only recently been opened in Seoul when Holmes visited with still cameras and a Gaumont motion picture camera, and took the first known movies in Korea. Some of this film has survived and has been restored with funding by a Korean institution. I believe there is footage of a trolley shot (a dolly shot, shot from the front of a moving trolley), among the first of this kind.

Click for big.

The New Boston Subway for Trolley Cars (1897)

Enough paper! OK, a paper presentation of trolley cars. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN for September 18, 1897, with a cover feature on Boston:

Click image for a larger, fully readable version.

I've been there! Not at that time; I'm not nearly that old, though after an afternoon spent digging up a lawn I'm pretty close to feeling that old. From the MagazineArt.org section of covers from SCIAM, this is the one.

A thousand more SCIAM covers for your delectation. Enjoy!