^That is an awesome shot.  I like the big, bold signage.  We've beaten it to death already, but RTA's branding and signage these days is just so sadly meek and blando corporate.

 

Actually that was the Cleveland Rapid, CTS.  Before RTA.

 

That photo was from 1978, three years after RTA took over. The signage may have been left over from CTS, but the scene was from the RTA era.

^That is an awesome shot.  I like the big, bold signage.  We've beaten it to death already, but RTA's branding and signage these days is just so sadly meek and blando corporate.

 

Actually that was the Cleveland Rapid, CTS.  Before RTA.

 

That photo was from 1978, three years after RTA took over. The signage may have been left over from CTS, but the scene was from the RTA era.

 

I'm talking about the signage.

I'm surprised you can see the signage at your age.

I'm surprised you can see the signage at your age.

 

Seeing that the Euclid Corridor Project ripped up the tracks on Euclid Ave. my question is do tracks exist on St.Clair or Superior?

 

I think so. But I don't see them being used for a new streetcar someday.

 

While this isn't Cleveland (it's Kansas City), this streetcar rail was uncovered at 17th and Main during utility work in the last couple of days. It shows the condition that rails are in after being left encased in pavement for 5-6 decades (KC's last three streetcar lines ended in 1957)....

 

^The rails under E. 105th looked even better than that when they were doing work on 105th and Wade Park over the summer. They were still shiny.

Dec. 17, 1913 -- the first continually operating segment of Greater Cleveland's rapid transit system opened.

 

A non-copyrighted piece......

 

http://www.riderta.com/dec-17-1913-first-light-rail-service-operates-shaker-heights

 

Dec. 17, 1913: First light-rail service operates in Shaker Heights

 

CLEVELAND -- In 1913, Cleveland’s rapid transit system began growing into the system we know today.

 

Brothers O.P. and M.J. Van Sweringen had started to develop the City of Shaker Heights. Their goal -- connect the suburb to their Terminal Tower project with a private right-of-way light-rail. Then, it was called the Cleveland & Youngstown Railway. Now, it is called the Green and Blue lines of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA).

 

100 years ago

 

On Dec. 17, 1913, trains began operating on the first 1.6-mile segment in the median of what would become Shaker Boulevard, from Coventry Road east to Fontenay Road. They called it "the Shaker Lakes trolley."

 

The fare: 3 cents. The vehicle: a center-entrance car from C. Ry, as pictured above.

 

The Coventry to Fontenay track is now the oldest section of continuously operating Rapid tracks still in use today in Cuyahoga County. It is also one of the few surviving American light-rail systems of the original streetcar era. The longest in-use light-rail track is Boston's Boyleston Street Subway, 1897.

 

That section is now served by 5 Green Line stations -- Coventry, Southington, South Park, Lee and Attleboro.

 

Back in 1913, it was a 45-minute, 1-seat trip from Coventry Road to streetcar tracks on Fairmount Boulevard, Cedar Glen and Euclid Avenue and downtown.

 

Just a few years earlier, in 1906, the all-dirt Fairmount Road became the first divided highway in the nation. The name was changed to Fairmount Boulevard.

 

Light-rail grows up

 

In 1915, service was extended to Courtland Boulevard, and in 1936, to Green Road.

 

In 1920, after it became apparent that the Cleveland & Youngstown Railway would never reach Youngstown, it was renamed the Cleveland Interurban Railway (CIRR).

 

In April.1920, the brothers opened a direct, dedicated line, with trains separate from rail and street traffic, from Shaker Heights to East 34th Street. From there, trains used streetcar tracks to reach downtown.

 

In 1923, the Standard Oil Company built the Coventry Road Station for $17,500. That building, at 14100 Shaker Blvd., is owned by RTA, and leased to the Ledsky Insurance Co.

 

In 1924, the Shaker trains were referred to as "the private right-of-way rapid transit line," but calling it "the rapid" probably dates back further than that.

 

On July 20, 1930, Shaker Rapid cars began using the Cleveland Union Terminal (CUT), after the Terminal Tower opened. Today, that is called RTA's Tower City Station.

 

In 1942, the City of Cleveland acquired the Cleveland Railway, and in 1944, the City of Shaker Heights acquired the Cleveland Interurban Railway. In 1975, the two systems became one as RTA was formed.

 

The original Cleveland Union Terminal (CUT) is now called RTA's Tower City Station. The Green Line is route 67A, the Blue Line is 67. Ridership is more than 12,000 a day.

 

###

 

Thanks

Ken Prendergast of All Aboard Ohio

Wikipedia

Blaine Hays, author and transit historian

TRAIN DREAMS (PART 1)

December 16, 2013

By Pete Beatty

 

The Van Sweringen brothers started out as office boys at a fertilizer company. They ended up, like everyone else, as fertilizer. In the interim, they became very rich, and then went very broke. The brothers were millionaires many times over, but their name never became a metonym for wealth, like Croesus, Fugger, Carnegie, or Rockefeller.

 

The brothers—universally referred to as just “the Vans”—built the type of pile that outlasts a human lifespan. This level of wealth typically lingers on in the names of parks, museum wings, scholarships, or campus building, reminding the living world of just how much money O.P. and M.J. earned in their 50-odd years of existence. But the Van Sweringens have no such legacy.

 

The Vans hammered Cleveland into a new shape on the anvil of their ambition. They built one of the most affluent suburban communities in the world, Shaker Heights, from nothing, articulating  a romantic, upmarket version of the American dream, and sold that dream to an upper middle class desperate to stratify itself from the soiled reality of Cleveland. They linked their utopian community to booming, dirty downtown Cleveland with rapid transit. They built Terminal Tower—a gleaming city-within-a-city meant to vault Cleveland into the front rank of American metropolises. And they built a massive train station underneath their skyscraper, and displaced thousands to do so.  They remade the country, too. From a rattling six-mile streetcar line, the Vans improbably assembled a 20,000-mile railroad empire that spanned the continent.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://beltmag.com/train-dreams-part-1/

I posted this over in the Cincinnati Streetcar thread, but it belongs here as much as anywhere.....

__________

 

Random Questions:

 

1) Does anyone remember that picture of the subway first being built out to Brooklyn and the headline in the paper was something like "Train to Brooklyn? Who would ever go there".  Then the article went on to talk about farmland in brooklyn or something.

 

I don't remember a newspaper article attached to it, but I remember this picture of the 7 lines being built through Queens (Rawson St/33rd Street station):

 

I used to live a few stops East of there, the density is very similar to what OTR should be. I don't think I ever had a seat on the 7 train at the spot pictured above, even at odd times.

 

I've been looking for more photos like that for a long time! Thank you!

 

I have a couple from Cleveland.....

 

This is the Cleveland Railway Co. (a stockholder-owned streetcar system carrying 400 million riders per year) extending the double-track Mayfield Road streetcar from Lee Road to Oakwood Drive in Cleveland Heights in 1929. This is at Ivydale Road, looking east. If anyone knows about Cleveland Heights today, it is a relatively dense, walkable streetcar suburb. Note the rural landscape surrounding this scene that was about to change with the coming of the streetcar....

 

 

 

Same view but in 2013....

 

 

 

And over in Shaker Heights, another Cleveland streetcar suburb, we have the Lynnfield station on the Van Aken line in 1922 (line was built in 1920). The rail line and the surrounding city were built by companies owned by the Van Sweringen brothers (read about their history in the Shaker Rapid 100 years thread I started today here in the mass transit section):

 

 

 

Today, this is the route of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's Blue Line, lined with high-density apartment buildings near stations and fine estates between the stations....

 

 

 

And the transit-oriented development in Shaker Heights isn't done. In fact, one of the largest TOD projects is about to begin in 2014. A suburban strip mall around the Warrensville station at the east end of the Blue Line will be demolished and a street grid built in its place. This also includes a short extension of the Blue Line to a new intermodal terminal on the southeast side of the new Van Aken District....

 

http://shakeronline.com/departments/planning/van-aken

 

 

 

Great thread, KJP. Let's also not forget the rolling stock that first operated on the Shaker Rapid route. Streetcars built by Cleveland's own (and my great great grandfather) G.C. Kuhlman.

 

http://www.trainweb.org/norm/roster/CRC_1200s.htm

Great thread, KJP. Let's also not forget the rolling stock that first operated on the Shaker Rapid route. Streetcars built by Cleveland's own (and my great great grandfather) G.C. Kuhlman.

 

http://www.trainweb.org/norm/roster/CRC_1200s.htm

 

HE was your great great grandfather?? My man, you are now a celebrity in my eyes! :)

 

BTW, the article I posted above (http://beltmag.com/train-dreams-part-1/) includes a couple of quotes I find very interesting. The quotes are from the Van Sweringens' PR pieces. They show that the thinking back then was reversed, with respect to whether transportation investments should follow development patterns or be used to create them.

 

“Most communities just happen; the best are always planned,” announced one article of Van Sweringen propaganda. ....As their marketing arm mused in yet another piece of persuasive advertising, “whenever and wherever a railroad is built it upturns seeds which immediately spring to life as home communities. It is an interesting reversal of this universal article for a new home community to grow a railroad as part of its development.”

Yeah, unfortunately none of the money from the sale to JG Brill made it down the family tree.

 

Also, I wrote a paper in high school on the Vans and remember seeing a map or diagram with future plans for the Shaker Rapid line that never came to fruition because of the Depression. If I remember correctly, the 'Green Line' was supposed to terminate around Gates Mills Blvd and SOM. Do you have any info on this, KJP? I searched the forum but couldn't find anything.

Great thread, KJP. Let's also not forget the rolling stock that first operated on the Shaker Rapid route. Streetcars built by Cleveland's own (and my great great grandfather) G.C. Kuhlman.

 

http://www.trainweb.org/norm/roster/CRC_1200s.htm

 

Wow, that's cool...

 

Also, I wrote a paper in high school on the Vans and remember seeing a map or diagram with future plans for the Shaker Rapid line that never came to fruition because of the Depression. If I remember correctly, the 'Green Line' was supposed to terminate around Gates Mills Blvd and SOM. Do you have any info on this, KJP? I searched the forum but couldn't find anything.

 

You might type in "Invisible Giants" (not the whole title) and "Herbert H. Harwood, Jr."  Years ago I thumbed through this book at Loganberry Books near Shaker Sq., but (unfortunately) didn't buy it... It is excerpted as a Google Book... It's an excellent, comprehensive book which, I'm pretty sure, discusses the Van's future plans to develop "Shaker Country Estates" (what is now Beachwood, Pepper Pike and Gates Mills) and extend the Rapid out to a giant loop near Gates Mills Blvd, which is apparently why the street widens near its end at Mayfield Rd.... A decade or so ago, I actually exchanged emails with Harwood -- nice man. His Dad was actually a RR exec (with the B&O RR IIRC) who worked with the Vans... it was good stuff.

btw, another interesting Harwood tidbit (in my emails with him) is that it was always the Vans plan to convert the Shaker Rapid into a high platform heavy rail operation and unify equipment throughout the system… The old CTS rapid station, which is generally the site of the current Tower City Red/Blue/Green station, was built with high platforms.  The problem with the Vans, as he notes in his book (and reflected in the above blog KJP cites) is that they were so secretive and hard to figure. ("enigmatic" was I think the word he used to describe the Van's view of/approach to rapid transit)  For example, Harwood notes, the Vans spent millions (a couple $100Ms in today’s dollars), to develop what is now the Red Line route to East Cleveland, including bridges, caternary support poles, tracks and even, in 1934 used KY interurban cars, but had no idea who would run the line and no electrical power… They had long discussed Terminal Tower being, in addition to a RR Union Station, but an interurban hub for NEO…

 

… BUT the interurban companies would build the outer ROWs and run the trains and, then, pay Union Terminal rents to one of the Van’s holding companies.  The initial development of the East Cleveland rapid line (including the extant “vault” to be used for RTA’s new Little Italy/UC station, as well as some rapid development on the West Side route along the Nickel Plate RR (now Norfolk Southern) was the only non-Shaker Rapid development that ever occurred.   

 

Yeah, unfortunately none of the money from the sale to JG Brill made it down the family tree.

 

Also, I wrote a paper in high school on the Vans and remember seeing a map or diagram with future plans for the Shaker Rapid line that never came to fruition because of the Depression. If I remember correctly, the 'Green Line' was supposed to terminate around Gates Mills Blvd and SOM. Do you have any info on this, KJP? I searched the forum but couldn't find anything.

 

From "New Northern Ohio's Interurbans" by Harry Christiansen, 1982

Page 840

FUTURE PLANNING

 

Where Gates Mills Blvd. turns northeast today, a large circle was planned with a trolley junction within it. The Gates Mills line was to follow Gates Mills Blvd., and the traffic circles located today along this road were to be future trolley car loops. Approaching Mayfield Road, the center strip widens into a large car yard area. Through this center strip, running east, the abandoned Cleveland & Eastern interurbans started their decline into the Gates Mills Valley. The Vans secured control of this right-of-way for eventual trolley service into Gates Mills.

 

At the Shaker Blvd-Gates Mills Blvd. junction another line was to run southeast across country to Lander Circle. This was also designed as a future trolley loop. From this point ran the abandoned Cleveland & Chagrin Falls right-of-way, and the Vans bought it, hoping someday to see trolley cars reach Chagrin Falls again.

 

The Van engineers even preserved the Chagrin Falls right-of-way on the south side of Kinsman Rd. from the Warrensville Center-Van Aken terminal to Lander Circle for a secondary rapid route. A track was even laid across new pavement at Kinsman Road to the right-of-way, and real estate men pointed to it as evidence of coming trolley service. The railway setback along Kinsman, now Chagrin Blvd., is evident today.

 

###

 

This is from the James Toman book "The Shaker Heights Rapid Transit" (which has great photos and I will share a few of them -- I highly recommend buying the book to see/read everything)...

 

 

 

OK, quiz time. Identify these two locations....

 

 

 

 

OK, quiz time. Identify these two locations....

 

 

I'm guessing the top photo was taken facing East from what is now Shaker Square.

 

The second might be facing West on top of the bridge for Lee Road over the Van Aken line.

 

Am I close?

 

 

Correct on both! The way you worded you answer for the top photo was what made it correct. It would also have been correct if you have said Moreland Circle. The Shaker and the Van Aken lines split in the middle of the circle. But when a square was sought, the Van Sweringen brothers wanted the future option of depressing the tracks through the square and building inside the square, including on top of the rail line. So that necessitated moving the junction east of the square.

 

EDIT: here is an aerial view circa 1922 of Moreland Circle....

 

Just saw this....

 

Greater Cleveland RTA celebrates a century of rail

Shaker Heights rail line celebrates 100 years

Leon Bibb

Dec 17, 2013

 

CLEVELAND - The men who built the Cleveland Terminal Tower, who trains from around the country lumbered in and who later developed the bedroom community of Shaker Heights saw need to link their two gemstones. They did so by laying track from the suburb to its big brother, Cleveland.

 

That was 100 years ago. The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority celebrates the beginnings of its rail lines by marking the accomplishments of O.P. and M.J. Van Sweringen, two brothers who wanted to develop  an easier route for the people who lived in Shaker Heights to get to their jobs in downtown Cleveland.

 

They understood the importance of rail, having bought the Nickel Plate Railroad. That was a heavier line.  What they were looking for was a lighter rail line for in-town commuters.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/greater-cleveland-rta-celebrates-a-century-of-rail

Another thing I've always wondered is when did the tunnels at Kingsbury Run go out of use? Was it after the 1980s renovation? Also, what was the purpose of them, considering that now the lines operate without using the tunnels?

Another thing I've always wondered is when did the tunnels at Kingsbury Run go out of use? Was it after the 1980s renovation? Also, what was the purpose of them, considering that now the lines operate without using the tunnels?

 

KR was built by the Shaker Rapid, because the cars only opened on the right side.  When the Red Line was built, and added to the "shared" track from 68 Street/Kinsman the tunnels were used to send Shaker Trains to their yard and to switch the train onto the shared track as the cars could only use the center platform.

 

It's hard to explain if you haven't been a customer of the Shaker Rapid before the merger with the Cleveland Rapid and the rebuilding of the line.

There were three active tunnels there which served two purposes. One purpose was to reverse the direction of operation by track but in a grade-separated manner so rail traffic didn't have to wait, as shown in the diagram below. The diagram doesn't show the other two tunnels or explain their purpose which was to be a "duck under" of diverging tracks for the high-speed interurban systems rail funnel into downtown Cleveland, which was later built with a new purpose -- the Red Line. These historical graphics provide a better view of these intended purposes.....

 

 

View looking east toward the Kingsbury Shops and the East 55th Street bridge in April 1954. The eastbound track for the new CTS Rapid (today's Red Line) is shown under construction to the left of the tunnels but to the right of the two-tracked NYC Food Terminal tracks, which paralleled the Shaker Rapid as far east as the NYC Belt Line near East 92nd and Holton Ave. One of the Shaker tracks that goes into the tunnel at left was temporarily removed as part of the Red Line construction. EDIT: BTW, that looks like a new PCC car being delivered to the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit's Kingsbury Shops, having been delivered by the Erie Railroad to the transfer track just east of the East 55th yards where this boxcab electric coupled onto the flatcar for final delivery....

 

 

And then there's this gem of an aerial photo looking east from above Broadway Avenue in about 1930, based on the newness of the double-tracked electrified Cleveland Union Terminal right of way to the left of the Nickel Plate Railroad's East 55th Street yard. The yard that occupies today's GCRTA Central Rail Facility is New York Central's staging yard for the Northern Ohio Food Terminal (which stood where the USPS Main Post Office was built in 1982). The long bridge in the center of the image is East 55th Street while the more distant long bridge is for Kinsman Avenue. Note how many structures stood along Kinsman and East 55th back then. Many still stood up until the late 1970s, early 1980s. Anyway, the west end of the tunnels is visible, and if I remember right, one of those tunnels split in two directions halfway down the tunnel....

 

Didn't the Red Line run left-handed before 1985?

Didn't the Red Line run left-handed before 1985?

 

On the east side, yes. At CUT/Tower City, the direction of running flipped using the duck under that drops below the other tracks. But when that descending track was built in the late 1920s, its purpose was so the eastbound traffic for the Huron Subway could diverge and cross below westbound traffic on other transit tracks.

KJP, the tunnels were still there, but additional tracks have been added. One even goes into the old yard.  And at CUT/Tower City there is a flyover that send the Shaker trains into the Shaker station and swtiches the Cleveland rapid to a "normal" running.

KJP, the tunnels were still there, but additional tracks have been added. One even goes into the old yard.  And at CUT/Tower City there is a flyover that send the Shaker trains into the Shaker station and swtiches the Cleveland rapid to a "normal" running.

 

Yes, that was redone sometime between 1990-92 while I was taking the Green Line downtown for classes. It coincided with or followed shortly after the consolidation of the light-rail and heavy-rail services onto the same tracks at Tower City in 1990, so that the Red Line no longer had reverse-run on the east side, and the Shaker lines no longer had to reverse run between Terminal Tower and East 55th.

 

BTW, one of the tunnels (the right-hand one in the middle image above) served no apparent purpose. Since the Van Sweringens were always looking ahead, it had to serve some purpose. My guess it may have been part of their proposed Southeast entry point for interurbans like the Northern Ohio from Akron. GCRTA still owns some of this right of way in the ravine to the west of the Garden Valley Estates and is now the mixed-income Heritage View community. Interurban trains would travel southeast across East 79th and Bessemer Avenue to alongside the Pennsylvania RR mainline and Broadway Road to Bedford. There, the Northern Ohio had already begun buying private right of way to reroute its trains off Broadway north of Bedford so its trains could operate at 80 mph north into Cleveland as they did south of Bedford to Cuyahoga Falls. In later years, most of Route 8 south of Walton Hills was built on the Northern Ohio's right of way.

KJP, the tunnels were still there, but additional tracks have been added. One even goes into the old yard.  And at CUT/Tower City there is a flyover that send the Shaker trains into the Shaker station and swtiches the Cleveland rapid to a "normal" running.

 

Yes, that was redone sometime between 1990-92 while I was taking the Green Line downtown for classes. It coincided with or followed shortly after the consolidation of the light-rail and heavy-rail services onto the same tracks at Tower City in 1990, so that the Red Line no longer had reverse-run on the east side, and the Shaker lines no longer had to reverse run between Terminal Tower and East 55th.

 

BTW, one of the tunnels (the right-hand one in the middle image above) served no apparent purpose. Since the Van Sweringens were always looking ahead, it had to serve some purpose. My guess it may have been part of their proposed Southeast entry point for interurbans like the Northern Ohio from Akron. GCRTA still owns some of this right of way in the ravine to the west of the Garden Valley Estates and is now the mixed-income Heritage View community. Interurban trains would travel southeast across East 79th and Bessemer Avenue to alongside the Pennsylvania RR mainline and Broadway Road to Bedford. There, the Northern Ohio had already begun buying private right of way to reroute its trains off Broadway north of Bedford so its trains could operate at 80 mph north into Cleveland as they did south of Bedford to Cuyahoga Falls. In later years, most of Route 8 south of Walton Hills was built on the Northern Ohio's right of way.

 

IIRC, the express train used this tunnel as well.

Yep, I've read that those Kingsbury tunnels were in part for expansion of the southeast interurban line into Terminal Tower.  But how could the Rapid have capacity for all those lines: Blue, Green, Red and SE line on just 1 pair of tracks?

I knew I had more pictures.  Here is some history for you whippersnappers by some who has been riding the Shaker Rapid continuously for 45 years.

 

Here is a large picture of the area:

 

and the below is how things worked at 34 Street.  The Shaker Rapid, on the left, going to TC and the Cleveland Rapid, on the right, going to Windermere or UC.

 

This guys picture shows the use of the tunnels.  http://chuckzeiler.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3416348  You can see the Eastbound train on the bottom, where the SH & CTS trains split.  On the top you can see the SH train on the bridge where the shared local tracks are.

 

From left to right, the tunnel on the left went to the yards, the middle tunnel was the eastbound express bypass track, the track with the car on it was the eastbound the local trrack.  The train on top is on the Westbound local track and to the right of that was the express bypass track which is still in existence today.  It's the

 

 

 

Yep, I've read that those Kingsbury tunnels were in part for expansion of the southeast interurban line into Terminal Tower.  But how could the Rapid have capacity for all those lines: Blue, Green, Red and SE line on just 1 pair of tracks?

 

I'm surprised you dont remember this, but there used to be a track on the outside of the old 55 street station.  South of the westbound track.  You can still see the poles.

This is great stuff, thanks guys. I knew I could count on you for the info! I really wish I could have seen all this history in person

Yep, I've read that those Kingsbury tunnels were in part for expansion of the southeast interurban line into Terminal Tower.  But how could the Rapid have capacity for all those lines: Blue, Green, Red and SE line on just 1 pair of tracks?

 

I'm surprised you dont remember this, but there used to be a track on the outside of the old 55 street station.  South of the westbound track.  You can still see the poles.

 

OK, yes, but I never thought this was more than a short, auxiliary track (mainly to deliver equipment to/from the adjacent old Erie Lackawanna RR)  and not one to be converted into a revenue track in the future.

This is great stuff, thanks guys. I knew I could count on you for the info! I really wish I could have seen all this history in person

 

You're seeing the present history in person. Fifty years from now, some young person using a technology you cannot now imagine will ask you questions about what was it like at the turn of the century. Unfortunately there will always be things you'd wished you had photographed or paid attention to, because you cannot pay attention to everything or know what will change most significantly over time. So pay attention to the things you know about and care about, and document what you're seeing. Some day you will become a walking, talking history book.

 

EDIT: great photos MTS! I videotaped (using a Betacam!) from the East 55th Street overpass looking east in 1985 and caught the Kingsbury tunnels area before the operation was changed. I think I still have that tape but have yet to convert to DVD.

This is great stuff, thanks guys. I knew I could count on you for the info! I really wish I could have seen all this history in person

 

That's your parents fault!  Damn kids!  :P

 

I can honestly say, I've ridden on three types of Shaker Rapid cars.  The PCC, the center door cars (during the reno, when they couldn't use the loop at Shaker Square as only east bound trains could use the Shaker Square loop) and Breda cars.  I can honestly say, the pcc cars would run in any type of weather, those were tough built cars.  Even when RTA renovated them for special occasions, those puppy's would run like nobody's business.  IMO, their only fault was little, which felt like "no" heat and no air conditioning.

 

When I was a kid and attended Byron Jr. High (I will never refer to it as Shaker Hts. Middle School ::) ::) ::) :x ) during the mid morning for car movements/placement, the trains would turn at the Warrensville loop, instead of Green Rd. providing us kids with the perfect opportunity to pelt the car and the driver with snow balls or rotten crab apples!  Ahhhh......the good old days.

 

I wish I had a Shaker Rapid token!

I wish I had a Shaker Rapid token!

 

They occasionally pop up on eBay.....

 

 

RTA doesn't still own any of its old PCC fleet, does it?

 

EDIT: I mean a car or two, for special events. I know it doesn't have any old cars in any significant quantity.

I wish I had a Shaker Rapid token!

 

They occasionally pop up on eBay.....

 

 

 

I know but they are gone in 60 seconds.  Some guy donated his collection to the Shaker Historical Society.

This is great stuff, thanks guys. I knew I could count on you for the info! I really wish I could have seen all this history in person

 

That's your parents fault!  Damn kids!  :P

 

 

 

I've been riding the Rapid for as long as I can remember. My dad was a Cleveland Cop, and when I was little, he used to work security at W. 25th and Triskett, and he would take me to work sometimes and I would ride the Rapid to Tower City and back just for fun. Not much has changed since the early 90s though. My only "memories" are of the old Red Line stations and when they used to have ticket agents and actually enforce fare collection...those were the days

RTA doesn't still own any of its old PCC fleet, does it?

 

EDIT: I mean a car or two, for special events. I know it doesn't have any old cars in any significant quantity.

 

Not that I'm aware of. They do have an old interurban car which is uses as a work car.

This is great stuff, thanks guys. I knew I could count on you for the info! I really wish I could have seen all this history in person

 

That's your parents fault!  Damn kids!  :P

 

 

 

I've been riding the Rapid for as long as I can remember. My dad was a Cleveland Cop, and when I was little, he used to work security at W. 25th and Triskett, and he would take me to work sometimes and I would ride the Rapid to Tower City and back just for fun. Not much has changed since the early 90s though. My only "memories" are of the old Red Line stations and when they used to have ticket agents and actually enforce fare collection...those were the days

 

I would do the same.  My mom was a flight attendant, so my brother and I would convince my dad to ride the rapid, just so we could stay on and ride the loop in "Cleveland Union Terminal".  If it was a weekend, sometime my dad would take us all the way to the airport as riding the "Cleveland Rapid" was a big deal.  Once there we would get ice cream and plane spot for my moms flight from JFK or Miami.

 

I remember the fare gates at East 55, 34 street and CUT.  I also remember the way the Shaker Terminal was set up compared to the Cleveland Rapid station in Tower City.  On the Shaker terminal at CUT was much nicer than the Cleveland Rapid, granted the outer stations of the Shaker Rapid were god awful shacks.

Does the old Shaker station still exist? (I believe it was the CTS station that was renovated to become the current TC station, right?). I remember my dad would take us across the tracks and went behind the north wall to some RTA administrative offices, but it was so long ago I can't remember what it looked like. Are there remnants of the station still there and does anyone have any recent pictures of it?

Does the old Shaker station still exist? (I believe it was the CTS station that was renovated to become the current TC station, right?). I remember my dad would take us across the tracks and went behind the north wall to some RTA administrative offices, but it was so long ago I can't remember what it looked like. Are there remnants of the station still there and does anyone have any recent pictures of it?

Yes, the old shaker station is on the other side of the westbound track wall.  If you're in TC, you can see the stairways down to the old station.

^ Do you mean westbound track wall? Where about in TC are the stairways to the station located?

^ Do you mean westbound track wall? Where about in TC are the stairways to the station located?

 

Sorry.  Yes westbound track. 

 

Now if I tell you where the stairways are what fun will you have?  You whippersnappers!  Go to the avenue and explore and post pictures.

Does the old Shaker station still exist? (I believe it was the CTS station that was renovated to become the current TC station, right?). I remember my dad would take us across the tracks and went behind the north wall to some RTA administrative offices, but it was so long ago I can't remember what it looked like. Are there remnants of the station still there and does anyone have any recent pictures of it?

 

Yes. It's virtually untouched since it was abandoned circa 1990.

 

For some 1978 photos of the Cleveland Rapid system, check out: http://viewoftheblue.com/photography/cleve.html

^ Do you mean westbound track wall? Where about in TC are the stairways to the station located?

 

Sorry.  Yes westbound track. 

 

Now if I tell you where the stairways are what fun will you have?  You whippersnappers!  Go to the avenue and explore and post pictures.

 

I would, but sadly don't live in Cleveland. I never knew they still existed which is why I never went looking for them in my previous explorations of Tower City.

 

Edit: Another question (sorry, but just have a lot today), before RTA was created and the rail lines were all consolidated to the Red, Blue, and Green, how were the Shaker lines and the CTS line referred to in the common vernacular? Obviously today, saying the "Rapid" refers to all three lines in the system, but I imagine that probably wasn't always the case. Were there separate ways of referring to them to make the distinction?

My memory is that the Shaker lines (the Van Aken and the Shaker lines) were collectively called the "Shaker Rapid." Others simply called it "The Rapid" since it was the original Rapid -- the CTS line was only 20 years old when it was absorbed into GCRTA. The Shaker lines were in their 60s. So meanwhile the Red Line was called the "CTS Rapid." CTS was owned by the City of Cleveland and the Shaker Rapid was owned by the City of Shaker Heights and operated by its own transportation department.

^^Oftentimes the lines would simply be referred to by their destinations + the word Rapid; ie. the Van Aken Rapid; the Airport Rapid and the Windermere Rapid; and even the Green Rd. Rapid... Some people, usually older, still do this.  Some people would refer to the Red Line collectively as the Airport Rapid whether to the Airport, Windermere or anyplace in between.  I think that's because the Airport extension was so groundbreaking and a huge point of Cleveland pride.  Others called it the CTS or Cleveland Rapid...

I would, but sadly don't live in Cleveland. I never knew they still existed which is why I never went looking for them in my previous explorations of Tower City.

 

Edit: Another question (sorry, but just have a lot today), before RTA was created and the rail lines were all consolidated to the Red, Blue, and Green, how were the Shaker lines and the CTS line referred to in the common vernacular? Obviously today, saying the "Rapid" refers to all three lines in the system, but I imagine that probably wasn't always the case. Were there separate ways of referring to them to make the distinction?

 

Well I wont spoil it for you!  HA!!  Explore on your next visit.

 

My memory is that the Shaker lines (the Van Aken and the Shaker lines) were collectively called the "Shaker Rapid." Others simply called it "The Rapid" since it was the original Rapid -- the CTS line was only 20 years old when it was absorbed into GCRTA. The Shaker lines were in their 60s. So meanwhile the Red Line was called the "CTS Rapid." CTS was owned by the City of Cleveland and the Shaker Rapid was owned by the City of Shaker Heights and operated by its own transportation department.

 

As a Shaker resident we all referred to the trains as "the Shaker Rapid".  We had the "Shaker Rapid" and the "Van Aken Rapid" and we referred to the CTS as "the Cleveland Rapid".  My recollection is westsiders called the Rapid the "CTS".  I'm old school, my family members and people I grew up with still call it the "Cleveland Rapid".  I've never said "Red line" or "Blue line".  GTFOH!

 

Also the Shaker lines had so many variations, you had to actually pay attention to your end terminal.  These are some of the services I remember

 

What we have today

CUT to Green Road

CUT to Van Aken (and Warrensville)

 

What we had

CUT to Shaker Square

CUT to Warrensville (and Shaker)

CUT to Drexmore, Lee Rd, VA/Warrensville Express

CUT to Shaker Square Express, then local to Warrensville

CUT to Shaker Square, Lee Rd, Warrensville, Green Rd. holiday train. [The Halle's train]

 

an old schedule

 

God I feel old  :|

As a Shaker resident we all referred to the trains as "the Shaker Rapid".  We had the "Shaker Rapid" and the "Van Aken Rapid" and we referred to the CTS as "the Cleveland Rapid".  My recollection is westsiders called the Rapid the "CTS".  I'm old school, my family members and people I grew up with still call it the "Cleveland Rapid".  I've never said "Red line" or "Blue line".  GTFOH!

 

 

You may be forgetting that I was an east-sider for my first 26 years, and lived in the Heights for 11 years until 1978. My church was on Shaker Boulevard. One of my first memories is from 1969, going with my oldest brother (he was 20) to drop off his girlfriend at the Green Road Rapid station so she could take the trains to the airport.

 

God I feel old  :|

 

You are.