Twin City Rapid Transit
Encyclopedia
The Twin City Rapid Transit Company (TCRT), also known as Twin City Lines (TCL), was a transportation company that operated streetcars, and bus
es in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area
in the U.S. state of Minnesota
. Other types of transportation were tested including taxicab
s and steamboat
s, along with the operation of some destination sites such as amusement park
s. It existed under the TCRT name from a merger in the 1890s until it was purchased in 1962. At its height in the early-20th century, the company operated an intercity streetcar system that was believed to be one of the best in the United States
. It is a predecessor of the current Metro Transit
bus and light rail
system that operates in the metro area.
The origins of street rail transport in the Twin Cities are not entirely known. Some sources state that it dates back to 1867, when businessman and mayor
Dorilus Morrison
began building rails in downtown Minneapolis
. He quickly joined forces with Colonel William S. King
and other Minneapolis businessmen to create the Minneapolis Street Railway. However, the lines didn't go very far, and the railway was useless for a time. There are some indications that a streetcar was purchased but never used, collecting dust for several years.
On the other side of the Mississippi River, the St. Paul Railway Company started the first successful horse-drawn streetcar
system of the metro area in St. Paul. Then in 1875, the reformed Minneapolis Street Railway made a deal with the Minneapolis City Council where the company would have exclusive access to street rails for 50 years if they could be up and operating in four months. The company recruited real-estate mogul Thomas Lowry
, who on September 2, 1875 brought online a route between downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota
.
The streetcars became popular because they rode on smooth rails, while most of the streets of the era were dirt or made of cobblestone
pavers. These roads could become treacherous to pedestrians and uncomfortable to ride on in horse-drawn buggies
, especially during Minnesota winters
.
Thomas Lowry envisioned linking together the various railways that were cropping up around Minneapolis. While other systems were popping up with more horse-drawn carriages or cable car
s, Lowry pushed forward with electrification
of the lines. Starting in the late-1880s, electric streetcars began moving in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Cable cars quickly lost favor as they struggled through snow
y Minnesota winters, and the public quickly grew weary of slow horsecars.
, the first of four rail lines linking them together. A merger of the two city systems, the St. Paul City Railway Co. and Minneapolis Street Railway, formed the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. It went on a building spree, quickly doubling the amount of electrified track in the system.
The company continued absorbing smaller competitors for the next 40 years. In 1898, the company began a transition to using company-built streetcars and machinery (such as crane
s and snowplow
s) rather than purchasing the cars from other companies. The first such car was built as a personal streetcar for company president Thomas Lowry, although his was a special-order. The car featured one end with large windows, to make the scenery more visible. This car was used on special occasions, such as the opening of new lines and a visit by United States President
William McKinley
.
TCRT built some of the largest streetcars in the country. The Twin City Rapid Transit Company got into the business of building street cars at its Nicolett Shops in 1898 after concluding that cars it was operating from Eastern manufactures couldn't hold up to Minnesota's harsh winters. By 1906 they opened a manufacturing facility at its Snelling Shops where they not only manufactured cars for TCRT but also Chattanooga, Duluth, Seattle and Chicago among others. These cars were larger than traditional street cars being 45 long and 9 feet wide.
Old track was also upgraded. In the early days, a number of lines had been laid down with narrow gauge track. These were all upgraded to standard gauge
. In addition, the basic construction of the lines improved. The rails of the Twin Cities were upgraded to the most expensive track in the country, running US$
60,000 per mile. Tracks featured welded
(thermite
) joints, and were commonly surrounded by cobblestone or asphalt
. By 1909, 95 percent of the rails were of this type of construction. They were used until the company ended streetcar service.
From 1906 to 1926, TCRT experimented with "streetcar boats." Officially known as Express Boats, they were steam-powered vessels with designs reminiscent of the streetcars of the day. The boats operated between resorts on Lake Minnetonka
, but slow times hit hard in the 1920s. Ultimately, seven were built, but most of them were scuttled in the lake in 1926.
TCRT also expanded into the region around White Bear Lake
. Company-owned attractions were built in that area, including the Wildwood Amusement Park in Mahtomedi
.
The internal combustion engine
didn't escape notice. The Twin City Rapid Transit acquired several bus lines that began to pop up around the time of World War I
. They also acquired a taxicab company in the 1920s.
When the transportation system peaked in 1922, it had nearly 530 miles (850 km) of track and 1021 streetcars. Rail extended a distance of about 50 miles (80 km) from Stillwater
on the bank of the St. Croix River
in the east to Lake Minnetonka in the west. For a time, TCRT was the largest employer in the area.
It is said that anyone who lived in Minneapolis was no farther than 400 yards (less than ¼ mile) from the nearest station at that time.
Like any organization, TCRT felt some growing pains along the way. In 1917, a major labor strike
took place in the months after the United States entered World War I. It began on October 6, and was influenced by the organization Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW, also known as the "Wobblies"), a militant group that had been organizing unions in the region, particularly in the northern Mesabi Iron Range. Horace Lowry, the son of Thomas Lowry, headed the company at this time and absolutely refused to negotiate with the striking workers. This angered workers and others who felt sympathy for them.
An angry mob in St. Paul damaged streetcars and harassed those who had continued to work. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety ordered the workers back on the job, and they complied for a while. People again left work in late-November. On December 2, a crowd energized by speakers from the Nonpartisan League again grew angry after TCRT cut off electricity to the streetcars in downtown St. Paul, making it impossible for many people to return home. Over the following days, many were arrested, and the strike was effectively broken. 800 people were eventually replaced by non-union workers.
Things turned out differently in the 1930s, although it was not a smooth transition. In 1932, most of the system's streetcars were converted to "one-man operation" where, rather than requiring both a motorman to drive in front and a conductor to take fares in the rear, the motorman took over both operations. The doors on the streetcars were modified to allow easier boarding in front. So-called "gate cars" which had used open grating on the rear of the cars mostly disappeared from the lines. The transition from two-man to one-man operation was taking place on many streetcar lines across the country around this time.
The conversion to single-man operation meant that about half of the company's workforce was suddenly surplus. Many employees found it hard to get work, and were often forced to take strange shifts. One worker recorded having a 17-hour shift from 4:24 p.m. on Sunday to 9:49 a.m. on Monday. There was a company union, although it hadn't done much good. By October 1933, the workers had gained backing from Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson
, St. Paul Mayor William Maloney, and the National Recovery Administration
, among others. The next year, the workers voted to join the Amalgamated Transit Union
.
and the rise of the automobile
, the rail lines began to decline. Buses were frequently used toward the edges of the system as long routes, especially those with low ridership, were cut back. World War II
allowed the system to bounce back for a time, since strict fuel rationing
and citizens' efforts to conserve resources made automobile use rather un-patriotic
. However, the restrictions also hit TCRT itself since they could not afford to build many new streetcars. The company was forced to add more buses to shore up the system's various routes.
After the war, trolley riders returned to their automobiles. TCRT's management
explored ways to upgrade the line to bring people back. Heavy wartime use meant that the rails needed to be repaired. Competition from other forms of transportation required modernization. In 1945, the company received its first streamlined PCC streetcar
. The following years saw dozens of new PCC cars on the streets, although the first one remained unique in the fleet because it was the only one to have air brake
s. All of the PCCs were several inches wider than standard, to match the nine-foot (2.75 m) width of the company's older streetcars.
s. In 1948, a Wall Street
speculator
named Charles Green bought 6000 shares of TCRT stock. He expected to quickly gain profit, but found he had purchased stock just as the company decided to set forth on some major construction. Knowing this would demolish his anticipated dividends, Green contacted other shareholders and urged them to vote out the company's president, D. J. Strouse, and put him in charge instead.
Green took control of the company in 1949 and quickly started dismantling the railway system, announcing that the company would completely switch to buses by 1958. Many of the system's trolleys were sold to other cities around the continent. It was soon discovered that Green had connections to organized crime
, and his actions were alienating the public. He sold his shares in 1950 to be briefly replaced by Emil B. Anderson before local lawyer
Fred Ossanna
ascended to head the company the next year. Ossanna held off on the teardown for a short while, but soon announced that the process would be accelerated. Lines would be removed and replaced by buses in two years.
On June 19, 1954, four years before Green had envisioned, the very last streetcars ran in Minneapolis. The leftover vehicles were unceremoniously burned in order to recover the scrap metal they contained. The last streetcar was very famously photographed alight behind Fred Ossanna
and James Towley as Towley presented Ossanna with a check
.
Many have alleged that the teardown of TCRT's rail system was associated with actions General Motors took in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, arguably with the express purpose of destroying streetcar systems to promote bus and automobile travel. GM, along with Firestone and Standard Oil, formed National City Lines
, a holding company
that engaged in hostile takeovers of many streetcar lines. In 45 cities, this resulted in "bustitution
," the full conversion from steel-wheel to rubber-tire transit.
Others point out that these allegations fail to account for the issues facing TCRT. Automobiles were more flexible than trains, didn't require the rider to abide by a schedule and afforded some privacy. A population growing more wealthy could afford such luxuries. Highway development enabled settlement over a wider area. Minneapolis' population peak in the late 1940s and St. Paul's a decade later in the late 1950s. Population growth and job growth was spread out in less dense suburbs where capital requirements for building new rail were too high compared to the potential ridership. Building rails to service these areas was cost prohibitive. Buses though could be profitable on such routes. More so other street car lines without connection to NCL also converted to buses, frequently having done so long before the TCRT began the process.
National City Lines did not engage directly with Twin City Rapid Transit, although Fred Ossanna had previously worked for NCL. He came to work at TCRT as a lawyer for Charles Green in the 1949 takeover of the company. However, General Motors did apparently offer some deep discounts on buses. Reportedly, Ossanna once went to ask for 25 buses—and was offered 525. The vast majority of buses in TCRT's eventual bus fleet were built by GM.
Most of the activity was geared toward stripping TCRT of its asset
s to fill the pockets of owners and investor
s. Ossanna was convicted in 1960 of illegally taking personal profit from the company during the transition period. He was imprisoned
along with other accomplices. Carl Pohlad
, who became the owner of the Minnesota Twins
in 1984, was the eventual successor of Fred Ossanna as head of Twin City Lines in the 1960s. He ultimately sold the company in 1970.
s. These were sold off in 1952 and 1953, still in very good operating condition. The cars ended up in Mexico City
(91 cars), Newark, New Jersey
(30), and Shaker Heights, Ohio
(20). Relatively few places could have taken them because of their extra width, and each of these buyers had significant amounts of dedicated right-of-way
. For instance, the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit commuter line to Cleveland
was grade-separated in many areas. The vast majority of the older wood
en streetcars, mostly built by TCRT itself, were destroyed. Out of 1240 built by the company, only about five have survived to be restored and operated by rail museums.
Only two of the wooden streetcars in use in the 1950s had been given away to railfan
groups before the rest of the fleet was burned. They are owned by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum
(TCRT No. 1300) and the Seashore Trolley Museum
(TCRT No. 1267) in Maine
. One other steel
-sheathed car (TCRT No. 1583) had been sent to a railway to the north in Duluth
-Superior
, but it was never used. It now resides at the East Troy Electric Railroad Museum in Wisconsin
. A few additional cars escaped the burn pits, but they were still subjected to harsh conditions and only one or two are restored.
One of the streetcar boats, the Minnehaha, was found by divers and then brought to the surface in 1980. After a long wait, it was restored and has been operating on Lake Minnetonka from 1996 to 2004 by the Minnesota Transportation Museum
, and since then by the Museum of Lake Minnetonka
. MTM also restored one of TCRT's old PCC cars (TCRT No. 322), operated now by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum
.
Some of the PCC cars once owned by Twin City Rapid Transit are just beginning their lives as museum pieces. The Newark City Subway finished operation of their 24 remaining cars on August 24, 2001, replacing the cars with new light-rail trainsets. Fifteen have been sold to the San Francisco Municipal Railway
, or Muni, for their collection of classic streetcars on the Market Street Railway
. In addition, 12 PCCs that ran on the Shaker Heights line are now owned by the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association
. Many of these cars owe their longevity to the fact that the Twin Cities area makes heavy use of salt
to de-ice roadways in the winter. In anticipation of this, the cars were largely made of stainless steel
to prevent corrosion
.
. One of the oldest structures to survive is a building in Minneapolis now known as the Colonial Warehouse
. First built in 1885, it housed the headquarters of the Minneapolis Street Railway Co. during the early horsecar era, and also later served as a powerhouse as the system was converted. The lines needed a lot of electricity, so hydroelectric generators were installed at Saint Anthony Falls
about a mile away, and the Southeast Steam Plant
was also constructed nearby. The old headquarters was sold in 1908, soon after these were constructed. The steam plant was bought by the University of Minnesota
, which now uses it for providing heat to the campus downriver.
A large building on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul first served as the main construction and repair shop for the streetcars when it was built in 1907. It was expanded and remodeled over the years, later becoming a major garage for the bus system. However, the complex had become outdated, with poor ventilation, a leaky roof, and other problems. It was finally shut down and demolished in September 2001.
Selby Hill in St. Paul was a steep climb and was a place where cable cars were used in the late 19th century before Selby Hill Tunnel was constructed in 1905 to provide a more gradual incline. The tunnel
still exists, but the ends have been blocked off. It is near the Cathedral of St. Paul
.
Billboards
across the area were originally laid out to target passengers of the rail lines with advertising
. Many of these billboards remained for decades afterward, despite the fact that automobile traffic frequently favored different routes. These finally disappeared in large part due to city beautification efforts of the 1990s.
. All regional transportation for the metropolitan area was soon overseen by the Met Council's transit agency which would take on the name Metro Transit
. Twenty years after rails disappeared from Twin Cities streets, politicians and planners began proposing new light rail
systems. Congestion was bad enough in 1972 that there were proposals to build new subway
s or people mover
s, but excessively high costs prevented any of the projects from getting anywhere until the end of the century. The University of Minnesota did a fair amount of research on personal rapid transit
(PRT) systems and has held a number of patent
s on the idea.
Rail transport returned to the Twin Cities with the construction of the Hiawatha Line
, which began operations in 2004. A proposal for a heritage streetcar
line running east-west through the city, possibly including PCC cars once owned by TCRT, has been examined.
A new Northstar commuter rail line, tracing U.S. Route 10
northwest out of Minneapolis, opened in 2009. Other proposals have included adding light rail west from Minneapolis to the southwest suburbs
and adding both a commuter connection to the complete North
& Southeast
of downtown Saint Paul and a light rail alignment to the Southwest of downtown Minneapolis. Right now a connection between both of the twin cities
is currently being built and is planned to open in 2014.
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
es in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
in the U.S. state of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Other types of transportation were tested including taxicab
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
s and steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
s, along with the operation of some destination sites such as amusement park
Amusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
s. It existed under the TCRT name from a merger in the 1890s until it was purchased in 1962. At its height in the early-20th century, the company operated an intercity streetcar system that was believed to be one of the best in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is a predecessor of the current Metro Transit
Metro Transit (Minnesota)
Metro Transit is the transit division of the Metropolitan Council, a regional governmental agency in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Metro Transit is the largest operator of bus services in the seven-county region surrounding Minneapolis and St...
bus and light rail
Hiawatha Line
The Hiawatha Line is a light rail corridor in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from downtown Minneapolis to the southern suburb of Bloomington. It was formerly known as the Hiawatha Line named after Hiawatha Avenue. Major connections on the line include the Minneapolis-St...
system that operates in the metro area.
Establishment
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
Dorilus Morrison
Dorilus Morrison
Dorilus Morrison was a banker, businessman, and politician who lived in the U.S. state of Minnesota. He was the first and third mayor of Minneapolis. Morrison was born in Livermore, Maine, and was a lumber merchant in Bangor, Maine before moving to Minnesota. He was the cousin of William D...
began building rails in downtown Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. He quickly joined forces with Colonel William S. King
William S. King
Colonel William Smith King was a Republican United States Representative for Minnesota from March 4, 1875 to March 3, 1877. He engaged in a variety of other activities, including journalism and surveying. King was born in Malone, New York in Franklin County where he grew up and attended the...
and other Minneapolis businessmen to create the Minneapolis Street Railway. However, the lines didn't go very far, and the railway was useless for a time. There are some indications that a streetcar was purchased but never used, collecting dust for several years.
On the other side of the Mississippi River, the St. Paul Railway Company started the first successful horse-drawn streetcar
Horsecar
A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered streetcar or tram.These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel...
system of the metro area in St. Paul. Then in 1875, the reformed Minneapolis Street Railway made a deal with the Minneapolis City Council where the company would have exclusive access to street rails for 50 years if they could be up and operating in four months. The company recruited real-estate mogul Thomas Lowry
Thomas Lowry
Thomas Lowry was a lawyer, real-estate magnate, and businessman who oversaw much of the early growth the streetcar lines in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding communities in Minnesota...
, who on September 2, 1875 brought online a route between downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
.
The streetcars became popular because they rode on smooth rails, while most of the streets of the era were dirt or made of cobblestone
Cobblestone
Cobblestones are stones that were frequently used in the pavement of early streets. "Cobblestone" is derived from the very old English word "cob", which had a wide range of meanings, one of which was "rounded lump" with overtones of large size...
pavers. These roads could become treacherous to pedestrians and uncomfortable to ride on in horse-drawn buggies
Horse and buggy
A horse and buggy or horse and carriage refers to a light, simple, two-person carriage of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn usually by one or sometimes by two horses...
, especially during Minnesota winters
Climate of Minnesota
The climate of Minnesota is typical of a continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. Minnesota's location in the Upper Midwest allows it to experience some of the widest variety of weather in the United States, with each of the four seasons having its own distinct characteristics...
.
Thomas Lowry envisioned linking together the various railways that were cropping up around Minneapolis. While other systems were popping up with more horse-drawn carriages or cable car
Cable car (railway)
A cable car or cable railway is a mass transit system using rail cars that are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required...
s, Lowry pushed forward with electrification
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
of the lines. Starting in the late-1880s, electric streetcars began moving in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Cable cars quickly lost favor as they struggled through snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
y Minnesota winters, and the public quickly grew weary of slow horsecars.
Rise of the system
In 1890, the two cities were connected with a railway along University AvenueUniversity Avenue (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
University Avenue in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region of Minnesota begins near the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul and extends westward into neighboring Minneapolis, where it passes the University of Minnesota, and then turns north to pass through several suburbs before ending in Blaine,...
, the first of four rail lines linking them together. A merger of the two city systems, the St. Paul City Railway Co. and Minneapolis Street Railway, formed the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. It went on a building spree, quickly doubling the amount of electrified track in the system.
The company continued absorbing smaller competitors for the next 40 years. In 1898, the company began a transition to using company-built streetcars and machinery (such as crane
Crane (machine)
A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of...
s and snowplow
Snowplow
A snowplow is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes...
s) rather than purchasing the cars from other companies. The first such car was built as a personal streetcar for company president Thomas Lowry, although his was a special-order. The car featured one end with large windows, to make the scenery more visible. This car was used on special occasions, such as the opening of new lines and a visit by United States President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
.
TCRT built some of the largest streetcars in the country. The Twin City Rapid Transit Company got into the business of building street cars at its Nicolett Shops in 1898 after concluding that cars it was operating from Eastern manufactures couldn't hold up to Minnesota's harsh winters. By 1906 they opened a manufacturing facility at its Snelling Shops where they not only manufactured cars for TCRT but also Chattanooga, Duluth, Seattle and Chicago among others. These cars were larger than traditional street cars being 45 long and 9 feet wide.
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...
. In addition, the basic construction of the lines improved. The rails of the Twin Cities were upgraded to the most expensive track in the country, running US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
60,000 per mile. Tracks featured welded
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
(thermite
Thermite
Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide that produces an exothermic oxidation-reduction reaction known as a thermite reaction. If aluminium is the reducing agent it is called an aluminothermic reaction...
) joints, and were commonly surrounded by cobblestone or asphalt
Asphalt
Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...
. By 1909, 95 percent of the rails were of this type of construction. They were used until the company ended streetcar service.
Lake Minnetonka
Lake Minnetonka is a lake in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Throughout its recorded history, the lake has been a resort destination. It is located west-southwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The lake is an irregular shape with numerous bays and islands which make up about of shoreline...
, but slow times hit hard in the 1920s. Ultimately, seven were built, but most of them were scuttled in the lake in 1926.
TCRT also expanded into the region around White Bear Lake
White Bear Lake
White Bear Lake is the name of a city and two townships in Minnesota* White Bear Lake, Minnesota is located in Ramsey County, Minnesota;* White Bear Township, Minnesota is located in Ramsey County, Minnesota....
. Company-owned attractions were built in that area, including the Wildwood Amusement Park in Mahtomedi
Mahtomedi, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 7,563 people, 2,503 households, and 2,027 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,095.4 people per square mile . There were 2,581 housing units at an average density of 715.1 per square mile...
.
The internal combustion engine
Internal combustion engine
The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
didn't escape notice. The Twin City Rapid Transit acquired several bus lines that began to pop up around the time of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. They also acquired a taxicab company in the 1920s.
When the transportation system peaked in 1922, it had nearly 530 miles (850 km) of track and 1021 streetcars. Rail extended a distance of about 50 miles (80 km) from Stillwater
Stillwater, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 15,143 people, 5,797 households, and 4,115 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,340.0 people per square mile . There were 5,926 housing units at an average density of 915.7 per square mile...
on the bank of the St. Croix River
St. Croix River (Wisconsin-Minnesota)
The St. Croix River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately long, in the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The lower of the river form the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota. The river is a National Scenic Riverway under the protection of the National Park Service. A...
in the east to Lake Minnetonka in the west. For a time, TCRT was the largest employer in the area.
It is said that anyone who lived in Minneapolis was no farther than 400 yards (less than ¼ mile) from the nearest station at that time.
Changing labor conditions
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
took place in the months after the United States entered World War I. It began on October 6, and was influenced by the organization Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW, also known as the "Wobblies"), a militant group that had been organizing unions in the region, particularly in the northern Mesabi Iron Range. Horace Lowry, the son of Thomas Lowry, headed the company at this time and absolutely refused to negotiate with the striking workers. This angered workers and others who felt sympathy for them.
An angry mob in St. Paul damaged streetcars and harassed those who had continued to work. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety ordered the workers back on the job, and they complied for a while. People again left work in late-November. On December 2, a crowd energized by speakers from the Nonpartisan League again grew angry after TCRT cut off electricity to the streetcars in downtown St. Paul, making it impossible for many people to return home. Over the following days, many were arrested, and the strike was effectively broken. 800 people were eventually replaced by non-union workers.
Things turned out differently in the 1930s, although it was not a smooth transition. In 1932, most of the system's streetcars were converted to "one-man operation" where, rather than requiring both a motorman to drive in front and a conductor to take fares in the rear, the motorman took over both operations. The doors on the streetcars were modified to allow easier boarding in front. So-called "gate cars" which had used open grating on the rear of the cars mostly disappeared from the lines. The transition from two-man to one-man operation was taking place on many streetcar lines across the country around this time.
The conversion to single-man operation meant that about half of the company's workforce was suddenly surplus. Many employees found it hard to get work, and were often forced to take strange shifts. One worker recorded having a 17-hour shift from 4:24 p.m. on Sunday to 9:49 a.m. on Monday. There was a company union, although it hadn't done much good. By October 1933, the workers had gained backing from Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson
Floyd B. Olson
Floyd Bjørnstjerne Olson was an American politician. He served as the 22nd Governor of Minnesota from January 6, 1931 to August 22, 1936. He died in office from stomach cancer. He was a member of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, and was the first member of the Farmer-Labor Party to win the...
, St. Paul Mayor William Maloney, and the National Recovery Administration
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices...
, among others. The next year, the workers voted to join the Amalgamated Transit Union
Amalgamated Transit Union
The Amalgamated Transit Union is a labor union in the United States and The Amalgamated Transit Union Canadian Council in Canada, representing workers in the transit system and other industries...
.
Competition from automobiles
With the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and the rise of the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
, the rail lines began to decline. Buses were frequently used toward the edges of the system as long routes, especially those with low ridership, were cut back. World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
allowed the system to bounce back for a time, since strict fuel rationing
Rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...
and citizens' efforts to conserve resources made automobile use rather un-patriotic
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
. However, the restrictions also hit TCRT itself since they could not afford to build many new streetcars. The company was forced to add more buses to shore up the system's various routes.
After the war, trolley riders returned to their automobiles. TCRT's management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
explored ways to upgrade the line to bring people back. Heavy wartime use meant that the rails needed to be repaired. Competition from other forms of transportation required modernization. In 1945, the company received its first streamlined PCC streetcar
PCC streetcar
The PCC streetcar design was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II was licensed for use elsewhere in the world...
. The following years saw dozens of new PCC cars on the streets, although the first one remained unique in the fleet because it was the only one to have air brake
Air brake (rail)
An air brake is a conveyance braking system actuated by compressed air. Modern trains rely upon a fail-safe air brake system that is based upon a design patented by George Westinghouse on March 5, 1872. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was subsequently organized to manufacture and sell...
s. All of the PCCs were several inches wider than standard, to match the nine-foot (2.75 m) width of the company's older streetcars.
Company takeover and decline
The company had a long-standing policy of reinvestment in the rail system. When profits appeared, they were usually used to pay off loans and improve the rails, streetcars, and other hardware the company owned. It was rare for the company to pay out dividendDividend
Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...
s. In 1948, a Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
speculator
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
named Charles Green bought 6000 shares of TCRT stock. He expected to quickly gain profit, but found he had purchased stock just as the company decided to set forth on some major construction. Knowing this would demolish his anticipated dividends, Green contacted other shareholders and urged them to vote out the company's president, D. J. Strouse, and put him in charge instead.
Green took control of the company in 1949 and quickly started dismantling the railway system, announcing that the company would completely switch to buses by 1958. Many of the system's trolleys were sold to other cities around the continent. It was soon discovered that Green had connections to organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
, and his actions were alienating the public. He sold his shares in 1950 to be briefly replaced by Emil B. Anderson before local lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
Fred Ossanna
Fred Ossanna
Fred Albin Ossanna was a Minnesota lawyer who oversaw the dismantling of the Minneapolis-St. Paul streetcar system as head of Twin City Rapid Transit Company in the 1950s. Ossanna had been hired by Charles Green, a Wall Street speculator who had purchased a large number of TCRT stock shares and...
ascended to head the company the next year. Ossanna held off on the teardown for a short while, but soon announced that the process would be accelerated. Lines would be removed and replaced by buses in two years.
End of the streetcar system
Fred Ossanna
Fred Albin Ossanna was a Minnesota lawyer who oversaw the dismantling of the Minneapolis-St. Paul streetcar system as head of Twin City Rapid Transit Company in the 1950s. Ossanna had been hired by Charles Green, a Wall Street speculator who had purchased a large number of TCRT stock shares and...
and James Towley as Towley presented Ossanna with a check
Cheque
A cheque is a document/instrument See the negotiable cow—itself a fictional story—for discussions of cheques written on unusual surfaces. that orders a payment of money from a bank account...
.
Many have alleged that the teardown of TCRT's rail system was associated with actions General Motors took in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, arguably with the express purpose of destroying streetcar systems to promote bus and automobile travel. GM, along with Firestone and Standard Oil, formed National City Lines
National City Lines
National City Lines, Inc. , was a controversial company founded in Minnesota, United States in 1920 as a modest local transport company operating two buses which was reorganized into a holding company in 1936 with equity funding from General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and...
, a holding company
Holding company
A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...
that engaged in hostile takeovers of many streetcar lines. In 45 cities, this resulted in "bustitution
Bustitution
The word bustitution is a neologism sometimes used to describe the practice of replacing a passenger train service with a bus service either on a temporary or permanent basis. The word is a portmanteau of the words "bus" and "substitution"...
," the full conversion from steel-wheel to rubber-tire transit.
Others point out that these allegations fail to account for the issues facing TCRT. Automobiles were more flexible than trains, didn't require the rider to abide by a schedule and afforded some privacy. A population growing more wealthy could afford such luxuries. Highway development enabled settlement over a wider area. Minneapolis' population peak in the late 1940s and St. Paul's a decade later in the late 1950s. Population growth and job growth was spread out in less dense suburbs where capital requirements for building new rail were too high compared to the potential ridership. Building rails to service these areas was cost prohibitive. Buses though could be profitable on such routes. More so other street car lines without connection to NCL also converted to buses, frequently having done so long before the TCRT began the process.
National City Lines did not engage directly with Twin City Rapid Transit, although Fred Ossanna had previously worked for NCL. He came to work at TCRT as a lawyer for Charles Green in the 1949 takeover of the company. However, General Motors did apparently offer some deep discounts on buses. Reportedly, Ossanna once went to ask for 25 buses—and was offered 525. The vast majority of buses in TCRT's eventual bus fleet were built by GM.
Most of the activity was geared toward stripping TCRT of its asset
Asset
In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset...
s to fill the pockets of owners and investor
Investor
An investor is a party that makes an investment into one or more categories of assets --- equity, debt securities, real estate, currency, commodity, derivatives such as put and call options, etc...
s. Ossanna was convicted in 1960 of illegally taking personal profit from the company during the transition period. He was imprisoned
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
along with other accomplices. Carl Pohlad
Carl Pohlad
Carl R. Pohlad was a successful financier and the owner of the Minnesota Twins baseball franchise from 1984 until his death in 2009.-Early life:...
, who became the owner of the Minnesota Twins
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
in 1984, was the eventual successor of Fred Ossanna as head of Twin City Lines in the 1960s. He ultimately sold the company in 1970.
Streetcar preservation
Before the dismantling began, TCRT had purchased a significant number of PCC streetcarPCC streetcar
The PCC streetcar design was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II was licensed for use elsewhere in the world...
s. These were sold off in 1952 and 1953, still in very good operating condition. The cars ended up in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
(91 cars), Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
(30), and Shaker Heights, Ohio
Shaker Heights, Ohio
Shaker Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population was 28,448. It is an inner-ring streetcar suburb of Cleveland that abuts the city on its eastern side.-Topography:Shaker Heights is located at...
(20). Relatively few places could have taken them because of their extra width, and each of these buyers had significant amounts of dedicated right-of-way
Right-of-way (railroad)
A right-of-way is a strip of land that is granted, through an easement or other mechanism, for transportation purposes, such as for a trail, driveway, rail line or highway. A right-of-way is reserved for the purposes of maintenance or expansion of existing services with the right-of-way...
. For instance, the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit commuter line to Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
was grade-separated in many areas. The vast majority of the older wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
en streetcars, mostly built by TCRT itself, were destroyed. Out of 1240 built by the company, only about five have survived to be restored and operated by rail museums.
Only two of the wooden streetcars in use in the 1950s had been given away to railfan
Railfan
A railfan or rail buff , railway enthusiast or railway buff , or trainspotter , is a person interested in a recreational capacity in rail transport...
groups before the rest of the fleet was burned. They are owned by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum
Minnesota Streetcar Museum
The Minnesota Streetcar Museum is a transport museum that operates two heritage streetcar lines in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the western suburb of Excelsior....
(TCRT No. 1300) and the Seashore Trolley Museum
Seashore Trolley Museum
The Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's oldest and largest museum of mass transit vehicles....
(TCRT No. 1267) in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
. One other steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
-sheathed car (TCRT No. 1583) had been sent to a railway to the north in Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
-Superior
Superior, Wisconsin
Superior is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 26,960 at the 2010 census. Located at the junction of U.S. Highways 2 and 53, it is north of and adjacent to both the Village of Superior and the Town of Superior.Superior is at the western...
, but it was never used. It now resides at the East Troy Electric Railroad Museum in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. A few additional cars escaped the burn pits, but they were still subjected to harsh conditions and only one or two are restored.
Minnesota Transportation Museum
The Minnesota Transportation Museum is a transport museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota.The MTM operates several heritage transportation sites in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin...
, and since then by the Museum of Lake Minnetonka
Museum of Lake Minnetonka
The Museum of Lake Minnetonka is an organization that was split from the Minnesota Transportation Museum in 2004–2005 to operate the steamboat Minnehaha that was part of a small fleet made by the Twin City Rapid Transit Company in 1906...
. MTM also restored one of TCRT's old PCC cars (TCRT No. 322), operated now by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum
Minnesota Streetcar Museum
The Minnesota Streetcar Museum is a transport museum that operates two heritage streetcar lines in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the western suburb of Excelsior....
.
Some of the PCC cars once owned by Twin City Rapid Transit are just beginning their lives as museum pieces. The Newark City Subway finished operation of their 24 remaining cars on August 24, 2001, replacing the cars with new light-rail trainsets. Fifteen have been sold to the San Francisco Municipal Railway
San Francisco Municipal Railway
The San Francisco Municipal Railway is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California. In 2006, it served with an operating budget of about $700 million...
, or Muni, for their collection of classic streetcars on the Market Street Railway
Market Street Railway
Market Street Railway may be a reference to:*Market Street Railway , a nonprofit organization that supports the operation of the F Market historic streetcar line in San Francisco...
. In addition, 12 PCCs that ran on the Shaker Heights line are now owned by the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association
Brooklyn Historic Railway Association
The Brooklyn Historic Railway Associations shop, trolley barn and offices are located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York, on the historic Beard Street Piers . BHRA had a fleet of 16 trolleys...
. Many of these cars owe their longevity to the fact that the Twin Cities area makes heavy use of salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
to de-ice roadways in the winter. In anticipation of this, the cars were largely made of stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
to prevent corrosion
Corrosion
Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...
.
Historical remnants
Other vestiges of the company's streetcar history remained in the Twin Cities, and some surviving elements are now listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. One of the oldest structures to survive is a building in Minneapolis now known as the Colonial Warehouse
Colonial Warehouse
Constructed in 1885, Colonial Warehouse is located at 212 Third Avenue North in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. This quintessential building, rich in history, is part of Minneapolis' Historic Warehouse District. Formally known as the Minneapolis Street Railway Company Building, the property now...
. First built in 1885, it housed the headquarters of the Minneapolis Street Railway Co. during the early horsecar era, and also later served as a powerhouse as the system was converted. The lines needed a lot of electricity, so hydroelectric generators were installed at Saint Anthony Falls
Saint Anthony Falls
Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony, located northeast of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the only natural major waterfall on the Upper Mississippi River. The natural falls was replaced by a concrete overflow spillway after it partially collapsed in 1869...
about a mile away, and the Southeast Steam Plant
Southeast Steam Plant
The Southeast Steam Plant, also known as the Twin City Rapid Transit Company Steam Power Plant, is a combined heat and power plant on the Mississippi River in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States owned by the University of Minnesota....
was also constructed nearby. The old headquarters was sold in 1908, soon after these were constructed. The steam plant was bought by the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, which now uses it for providing heat to the campus downriver.
A large building on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul first served as the main construction and repair shop for the streetcars when it was built in 1907. It was expanded and remodeled over the years, later becoming a major garage for the bus system. However, the complex had become outdated, with poor ventilation, a leaky roof, and other problems. It was finally shut down and demolished in September 2001.
Selby Hill in St. Paul was a steep climb and was a place where cable cars were used in the late 19th century before Selby Hill Tunnel was constructed in 1905 to provide a more gradual incline. The tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
still exists, but the ends have been blocked off. It is near the Cathedral of St. Paul
Cathedral of Saint Paul (Minnesota)
The Cathedral of Saint Paul is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. It is the Co-Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, along with the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. One of the most distinctive cathedrals in the United States, it sits on...
.
Billboards
Billboard (advertising)
A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...
across the area were originally laid out to target passengers of the rail lines with advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. Many of these billboards remained for decades afterward, despite the fact that automobile traffic frequently favored different routes. These finally disappeared in large part due to city beautification efforts of the 1990s.
Legacy to 21st century rail
In the 1970s, the bus lines (some of which still trace former horse-drawn buggy paths) were shifted to a partially publicly-funded operation overseen by the Metropolitan CouncilMetropolitan Council
The Metropolitan Council or Met Council is the regional governmental agency and metropolitan planning organization in Minnesota serving the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area. The Met Council is granted regional authority powers in state statutes by the Minnesota Legislature. These powers...
. All regional transportation for the metropolitan area was soon overseen by the Met Council's transit agency which would take on the name Metro Transit
Metro Transit (Minnesota)
Metro Transit is the transit division of the Metropolitan Council, a regional governmental agency in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Metro Transit is the largest operator of bus services in the seven-county region surrounding Minneapolis and St...
. Twenty years after rails disappeared from Twin Cities streets, politicians and planners began proposing new light rail
Light rail
Light rail or light rail transit is a form of urban rail public transportation that generally has a lower capacity and lower speed than heavy rail and metro systems, but higher capacity and higher speed than traditional street-running tram systems...
systems. Congestion was bad enough in 1972 that there were proposals to build new subway
Rapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...
s or people mover
People mover
A people mover or automated people mover is a fully automated, grade-separated mass transit system.The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks, but is sometimes applied to considerably more complex automated...
s, but excessively high costs prevented any of the projects from getting anywhere until the end of the century. The University of Minnesota did a fair amount of research on personal rapid transit
Personal rapid transit
Personal rapid transit , also called podcar, is a public transportation mode featuring small automated vehicles operating on a network of specially built guide ways...
(PRT) systems and has held a number of patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s on the idea.
Rail transport returned to the Twin Cities with the construction of the Hiawatha Line
Hiawatha Line
The Hiawatha Line is a light rail corridor in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from downtown Minneapolis to the southern suburb of Bloomington. It was formerly known as the Hiawatha Line named after Hiawatha Avenue. Major connections on the line include the Minneapolis-St...
, which began operations in 2004. A proposal for a heritage streetcar
Heritage streetcar
Heritage streetcars or heritage trams are a development of the heritage railways that are becoming popular across the world. As with modern streetcar systems, the vehicles are referred to as trams or tramcars in the United Kingdom, Australasia and certain other places , but as streetcars or...
line running east-west through the city, possibly including PCC cars once owned by TCRT, has been examined.
A new Northstar commuter rail line, tracing U.S. Route 10
U.S. Route 10
U.S. Route 10 is an east–west United States highway formed in 1926. Though it never became the cross-country highway suggested by the "0" as the last digit of its route number, U.S...
northwest out of Minneapolis, opened in 2009. Other proposals have included adding light rail west from Minneapolis to the southwest suburbs
Southwest Corridor (Minneapolis)
The Southwest Corridor is currently scheduled to become the third light rail transit corridor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, with service between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie, Minnesota, going through Hopkins and Minnetonka along the way...
and adding both a commuter connection to the complete North
Rush Line Corridor
The Rush Line Corridor is a transport corridor and proposed commuter rail service that will run from Union Depot in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota to Hinckley, Minnesota. It roughly follows the path of U.S. Route 61 and Interstate 35...
& Southeast
Red Rock Corridor
The Red Rock Corridor is a proposed commuter rail service that will go from downtown Minneapolis through neighboring Saint Paul and then southeast along the Mississippi River to Hastings, Minnesota, with a possible later extension to Red Wing...
of downtown Saint Paul and a light rail alignment to the Southwest of downtown Minneapolis. Right now a connection between both of the twin cities
Central Corridor (Minnesota)
The Central Corridor is a light rail line under construction that is to cover the stretch between the downtown regions of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota...
is currently being built and is planned to open in 2014.
See also
- General Motors streetcar conspiracyGeneral Motors streetcar conspiracyThe General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to allegations and convictions in relation to a program by General Motors and a number of other companies to purchase and dismantle streetcars and electric trains in many cities across the United States and replace them with bus services; a program...
- Light rail in Minnesota
- Minnesota Streetcar MuseumMinnesota Streetcar MuseumThe Minnesota Streetcar Museum is a transport museum that operates two heritage streetcar lines in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the western suburb of Excelsior....
External links
- Minnesota Streetcar Museum
- Minnesota Transportation Museum
- Minneapolis Public Library: Intercity transport history with the infamous burning car photo
- Minneapolis Track Map - 1950
- Streetcars in Minneapolis & St. Paul
- Market Street Railway in San FranciscoSan Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
owns some old TCRT PCC cars - Seashore Trolley Museum
- East Troy Electric Railroad