I’ve been working on this on and off for awhile now,  but after seeing  Taken for A Ride I was inspired to finish it off and post it.

 

So, a look at the development of transit in Dayton, via maps and some pix.   The base map here is from the early 1900s, and its detailed enough for me to locate the lines and also the development of the city along with the lines.

 

The first line in Dayton was the east-west Third Street Railroad, a horse car that went in in 1870.  This line was a joint venture between  real estate developers active on the east and west ends of the line.

 

 

And the platted area of 1869.  Not all of this area was built on, but more the limits of platting activity at the time, representing the end of the “walking city” era.

 

 

In  1871 two other lines go online:  the Oakwood Street Railroad and the much shorter Dayton View line.  Oakwood takes over the Dayton View line the same year it opens.  The interesting thing about the Oakwood line is its length and that it passes through mostly open country to a new real estate development of Oakwood (which remains mostly dormant through the 19th century…the line generates business here via a picnic grove)

 

 

In 1872  a steam dummy line opens to the Soldiers Home.  This line terminates at the end of the Third Street line, just west of Western Avenue.  Also, a horse car starts to operate up 5th and then Wayne to the Insane Asylum.   

 

 

In 1876 the Wayne line is extended through what is now the Webster Station area to the car works on Keowee Street.

 

 

Platted area in 1875

 

 

 

In 1877 the Dayton & Soldiers Home railroad makes a connection to a mainline steam road, permitting it to steam to Union Station (though a transfer station remains at Third Street.

 

 

In 1881 the 5th Street Street Railway extended west on 5th to make a connection with the steam dummy line.

 

 

And, finally, in 1888, the first electric streetcar comes to Dayton via the White Line, which runs from North Main,  through downtown, and then out Washington Street, Germantown Street, and then on its own right of way up to the Soldiers Home, making a loop around the Soldiers Home Lake.

 

 

”The White Line was really an experiment by Cincinnati investors to see if electrification would really work and they apparently preferred to “open out of town”. Of the company’s 2,000 shares, Daytonians owned only 350.”—Virginia and Bruce Ronald, in The Lands Between the Miamis, A Bicentennial Celebration of The Dayton Area

 

Shortly after the White Line opened Dayton’s second electric streetcar opened from the 5th Street transfer station just west of Western to the Soldiers Home.  This line ran down the median of Home Avenue (or National Avenue) and terminated in a loop on the grounds of the Soldiers Home.  By this time the Wayne Avenue line had extended across the Mad River into North Dayton, along Valley Street.

 

Also, by 1890, the Green Line extensions to the 5th Street line improved transit service in East Dayton, with lines east on 5th to Findlay, and branch down Richard to Linden (which we saw on that Newcom Plain thread).

 

 

Developed area in 1890, showing the beginning of impact of the transit lines on opening up areas to development.

 

 

The 1890s was an era of electrification of the horse cars, and also an era of mergers in the many systems, leaving the Citizens and Peoples systems as the two major systems.  The steam dummy to the Soldiers Home would cease operating as a passenger line by 1897.

 

 

 

By 1901 the systems get some extensions and the interurbans arrive.  There are two that I know of that had local “city car” operations..the Dayton-Xenia (DX) and the line to the south to Miamisburg, which went under various names (most famous as the Cincinnati & Lake Erie).

 

 

Developed area as of 1901.  The strong east-west orientation of the 19th century shows up here, result of platting activity following the car lines to some extent, particularly in West Dayton.

 

 

By 1907 there are more extensions to the systems, with branch lines into  developing areas like Edgemont and Westwood.  The last streetcar company in Dayton is operating new, the City Railway Company, on a convoluted route from East Dayton to the Five Oaks /Salem Avenue area.

 

 

Interurban Interlude

 

I briefly mentioned the interurban upthread.  There were eight lines coming into Dayton, all told.  Some of these, like the Xenia Rapid Transit, didn’t last long.  Others lasted into the 1930s, with the last line (to Moraine) shutting down in 1940 or 41.

 

As you can tell from the above map it was quite a knot downtown. The following graphic was from a streetcar system improvement study of the 1920s, and shows how the lines entered the city and made their various loops (one line, the Dayton, Covington, & Piqua, didn’t loop at all, but must have did some sort of reverse switching operation at the end of the line.   All these lines had their own stations and ticket offices.

 

 

And the following two graphics show how trackage connections into the city could get complex.  The Xenia Rapid Transit was taken over by its competition D-X, and rerouted through what is now Linden Heights to connect with the D-X on Wyoming.  But when the D-X shut down the Rapid, the trackage was taken over by the Dayton Street Railway, to Smithville.

 

 

 

The impact of interurbans was actually greater than one would expect, given how short their life span was.  These lines really kicked off leapfrog development, early sprawl, along the various lines.  Some of the first “traction plats” were Drexel, Fort McKinley, the Southern Heights plats of Carrmonte and Berkley Heights.

 

Some of these subdivisions ended up getting partially replatted after the Depression (Green Meadow, near the Precious Blood convent on Salem, is an example), and some where only partially built-out, having to wait till after WWII for substantial construction activity.

 

 

 

Independent villages and towns from the 19th century like Miamisburg, West Carrollton, New Lebanon, Vandalia, and Englewood also became more suburban due to interurban service.

 

 

By the 1920s some lines have been replaced by bus service, and bus service came into play on other radial highways outside of Dayton, some in competition , others not.

 

 

This was a Dayton & Western car, which provided service out west on Third (eventually to Richmond and Indianapolis).  Built by the Cincinnati Car Company. 

 

 

Dayton & Western interurban plats.  The oldest was Drexel, which was “stop 4” out of Dayton on the D&W.  The D&W stopped operations in the 1930s, after which the City Transit extended the 3rd Street car line west of Residence Park to the current loop.

Interestingly, there was no new platting here after 1930…the real estate market here collapsed in the Depression and never recovered.

 

 

A Dayton & Troy car from the very early 1930s.  D&T was a safe line and could operate at high speeds, as it was double tracked and had private ROW pretty far into the city (street running started on Keowee around where McCook shopping center is).  This sharp looker is a more modern version of the D&W car, more streamlined looking.  D&T went under in the early 1930s, due to a bridge failure that couldn’t be repaired.   D&T was also called the “Lima Route” due to connections north to Lima and ultimately Toledo.

 

 

As with the D&W, a number of interurban plats occurred along the line, resulting in today’s North Dixie Drive strip.   

 

 

Back to Transit

 

By 1924 the system nearing its greatest extend before trolley busses.  Not too much new here.  The Westwood line has been extended out along Hoover Avenue deeper into booming Westwood, 3rd Street line to loops in Residence Park and the Soldiers Home,  N Main line north to Forest Park, and the Oakwood line penetrates deeper into developing Oakwood, following the Far Hills cooridor.

 

 

Developed area in 1924.  By this time the auto was probably influencing development, too.  The 1920s and early 30s was probably the last time Dayton had a true “multi-modal transportation” system.  By this time there were buses coming on line, extensions of the streetcar systems and independent operators. as well as car ownership.

 

 

The 1920s study of the transit system looked at overlapping routes and unserved areas.  Interestingly, this study did not recommend elimination of the street cars with buses, but just to supplement the system.

 

 

And a look at the dense downtown circulation of the various streetcar lines (and also recall that there is an interurban system superimposed on this)

 

 

Main, Third, Fifth, and Ludlow look like the busy streets here for car lines

 

 

….and a look at the various mergers of the streetcar companies.  Dayton is a bit unusual as there were multiple companies operating fairly late, into the postwar era even.   The Oakwood line is unique here as it had no branches, but remained independent into the postwar era.  And then there is the D-X, which stopped running trains to Xenia in the mid 30s, but retained the D-X name, as if it was still a railroad.

 

 

And some track diagram maps

 

 

I’m not sure where I found these,  but the railfan who put them together did a pretty good job as he or she notes the car barns, too.  There was a lot of plant associate with these lines….

 

 

What’s Left

 

 

City Railway

 

I think this might be one of the oldest relics of Dayton transit history.  The old Third Street Street Railroad horse car barn on West Third, just beyond McGee.

 

 

Back in the 1890s this was the site of a spontaneous strike by car operators, who walked off the job, and were joined by large crowd, over 1,000 people, who tried to prevent the cars from going into operation.  This was one of the more violent labor actions in local labor history.

 

More detail..perhaps the blocked up arched openings are the doors where the cars entered.

 

 

Two horse cars, from the 5th Street line.  A bit of exaggerated advertising here as this line didn’t run horsecars to the Soldiers Home: one had to transfer to the steam dummy and later the Home Avenue electric car at the end of the line.

 

 

 

The replacement car barn was this structure, built by 1918.

 

 

You can see the roll up doors where the cars, later busses, pulled in….

 

 

And here is a car entering the barn…or leaving it (one can see one of the new trolley busses in the background).

 

 

Home Avenue running…note that this line didn’t operate in traffic, but in a median.  The Oakwood Line had a similar private ROW operation.

 

 

Oakwood Street Railroad

 

Oakwood car barn head shed

 

 

Heavy industry on Brown Street?  I really like the composition on this pix.  It tells a story of the capabilities of this operation, which was such that they built their own equipment.  These little single truck cars where custom-built in the Oakwood shops.

 

 

Sanborn of the big shop building behind that brick head shed.

 

 

Shops visible behind the brick head shed

 

 

The finished product

 

 

And the end of the line in Oakwood.  Again, private ROW down the median (in this case of Far Hills).  This reminds me a lot of how German cities have their tram lines.  Here, the line is stubbed off and the car turns around in a loop.  I guess the idea was to keep on extending the line down Far Hills, following development.  This never happened as the Oakwood line converted to trolley bus. They did extend the line as a trolley bus to Stroop, though, during the 1940s or 50s.

 

 

Dayton Street Railway

 

The last streetcar company in Dayton, also the first to convert to trolley bus (after a car barn fire destroyed their rolling stock)

 

 

The rebuilt car barn with one of the first trolley busses…they where made by Brill, which used to make streetcars and interurbans.  This one does look a bit like a street car.

 

 

The car barn today (off Loraine Avenue in East Dayton), heavily modified.

 

 

Peoples Railway

 

Just a few of these central-loading cars.

 

 

 

And downtown.  Dayton’s very wide streets easily accommodated these little waiting platforms or islands.

 

 

Dayton-Xenia

 

One of the original city cars, for local service to Ohmer Park and Belmont.  The interurban ran to Xenia, but also had a branch to Bellbrook and Spring Valley 

 

 

Incoming from Xenia, maybe on Watervleit near Patterson, at the edge of Belmont?

 

 

I think D-X converted to trolley bus around 1940 or so.  Funky “flying D-X” logo on that bus

 

 

D-X car barn/shops was originally in Beavercreek, off of Shakertown road.  I guess after they converted to bus they built this new car barn in the heart of the Belmont business district.

 

 

Even though there where different companies in Dayton, apparently when Dayton Transit converted to trolley bus it was a convincing demonstration, and all the other companies adopted the technology, making Dayton the “trolley bus city”

 

 

I recall these Marmon Herrington busses from Chicago, as they where the ones we used in my neighborhood.  CTA kept the busses until 1971, 72 or so.  Good question why Dayton, as a private sector system, kept this technology when it was being discarded throughout the US.

 

Most of the B/W pix are from:

 

Dave’s Railpix

 

Tom’s Trolley Busses

 

(cool sites to surf around in if you are interested in transit history or are a traction buff)

Wonderful job!

way cool :clap:

 

I've always loved Dayton's trolley buses & the oregon district

Wonderful thread!

 

I think I read somewhere in the early 90s that a gentleman who had headed one of the private companies and then served on the board after the transit system became a public entity, had fought hard to keep the trolley buses, and had managed to rally enough support to thwart every effort to eliminate them. After his death, at age 93, I think, the anti-trolley-bus folks headed up by some developers, thought they would finally succeed.

 

They got as far as cutting short the catenary on at least one of the longest lines before a virtual citizen/rider uprising headed them off. It seems to me that one of the issues was air quality, and that a study determined it would be foolish to get rid of a paid-for, successful electric transit system in the face of impending stricter controls on air quality.

 

I remember going to Dayton in 1991 to get what I thought would be last-chance photos of the trolley buses. I think that was in September, and the service was slated to end in November. I was delighted to learn some time later that plans had changed, a line had been extended, and new buses had been ordered.

I remember an attempt to shut down the trolley bus system in the very early 1990s, too. 

 

The way I recall it was the general manager of the time (who was actually a pretty good manager) wanted to convert to all-diesel as he didn't want to run two maintenance shops and that there was a maintenance-of-way cost associated with trolley busses (the power system). It was strictly an economic argument. 

 

There was public opposition to this.  At that time I was a member of the Sierra Club, and went to a SC meeting, I think, at Cox Arboretum on the subject, where the anti-conversion forces where making their pitch.  I think the argument used was indeed air quality (though there was some scepticsm on that from the audience).

 

One of the side discussions was that the RTA manager didnt have the experience with running a trolley system, so he wanted to simplify things for himself by only having one type of technology to deal with, diesel busses.  Another side discussion that I overheard was that an influential local heiress didn't like having the ugly wires on the streets downtown, and was pushing from the behind the scenes to get the trolleys removed (this sounds unlikely).

 

I am not sure about the hidden agenda angle, but wouldn't be suprised as the reasons for what happens here in Dayton often gets unsaid, leaving one scratching ones' head and asking "Why did they do that?".

 

The trolley bus angle here is somewhat interesting in light of the "Taken for a Ride" movie, as bus conversion happened here as elsewhere, but via this "compromise" trolley bus technology, apparently originally built by a streetcar/interurban carmaker.  Gas or diesel busses where introduced by the traction companys to suburban areas to supplement the streetcar, later trolley bus, system, not as replacements, though some trolley-to-bus conversions did happen later.

 

I guess we got lucky due to the management of the line keeping the busses before public sector takeover, which is quite contrary to what happened elsewhere.  I know I take these trolley busses for granted, but they are very rare in the US.

 

The interurbans, of course, couldnt compete with private bus companys and auto use, which is unfortunate as the framework for a pretty good rapid transit system was in place here as late as the 1930s.  Yet, the regional bus companies that put the inteurbans out of buisness themselves fell victim to car use, leaving the auto as the really only true regional mode of transport left in the area (by this I mean there are no public transit options to go to outlying communities like Xenia or Lebanon or Troy to or from Dayton).

 

 

Awesome, Jeffrey.

 

One of Jeffrey's maps shows a line from Warren -> Burns -> Morton -> Johnson -> Clover (Twin Towers). If you ever go through South Park, swing through Morton Ave. It is the last brick paved street in the district, except for some alleys (I think). I understand it was once asphalted and uncovered, and rebricked removing the old rails. But at the Johnson-Morton T instersection, look for the road depressions of the old rail tie logs. They are in a turning pattern. They rotted under the pavers and sunk the road. Be warned, Morton is a bumpy road, thanks to all the ties rotting under this street, and you may lose a filling.

I’ve been working on this on and off for awhile now,  but after seeing  Taken for A Ride I was inspired to finish it off and post it.

 

And where in the world did you watch this? It's not available on Amazon in either DVD or VHS format, nor is it available in the best public library system in the country. It's sad that a documentary on such an important yet overlooked topic is not available while some truly horrible movies are easy to find.

Great stuff, Jeff.  The movie really got me thinking about transit in Dayton so this information is not only fascinating in its own right, but also very timely.

 

 

And where in the world did you watch this?

Grassroots Greater Dayton held a screening of it as a fundraiser.  http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=11779.0

Jeff:  I too remember the 1991 attempt to dump Dayton's trolleys, actually I think a lot of it originated from RTA bus drivers themselves with the encouragement of then-director (who was since terminated).  What saved the system at the time was the fact that the infrastructure improvements and new power stations had already been contracted with the Federal funds obligated, so they were really past the point of no-return with the system modernization. 

 

In 2009 they are talking about using Federal economic stimulus money to do some short extensions, probably routes 3 4 & 7.  It will be very interesting to see how this plays out at this point as RTA has been very non-committal about the future of the trolly system.

See my posting under the Dayton transit thread for the status of electric trolleys as of 2012.

Yes I know I'm dredging up a super old thread but this one is just too valuable a resource to leave floundering in the archives.  Also, I have published photos and updated history of the Dayton & Western Traction Company to my website as well. 🙂