Nostalgia & History > Baltimore Streetcars Story

Marty Bernard has posted quite a few streetcar photos from various cities; however, he has not posted anything from the Baltimore, Maryland area.  Baltimore had a great streetcar system until two things happened.  First, the Baltimore Transit Company was purchased by National City Lines which was a pro-bus company.  There are many stories about this company, and many people say it is true while others say it is a conspiracy.  I personally believe that National City Lines, as a corporation, was primarily owned by Shell Oil Company, Firestone Tire, and General Motors Corp.  The second thing that hurt the streetcar system was that Baltimore City hired a traffic consultant named Henry Barnes to deal with the traffic congestion in the city.  Mr. Barnes hated streetcars period, and did everything in his power to get rid of them.  Who knows, he may have been getting kick-backs from National City Lines? 

Mr. Barnes felt that streetcars caused the traffic backups in the city, especially in the downtown area, and he wanted to make most streets one way.  That was easy to do since most of these streets had streetcar tracks on them.  So the streetcars could have gone one direction on one street and the other direction on the other, no real problem.  Out in the suburbs, most of these streetcars already had their own private right-of-ways, which meant that they did not impede the traffic at all.  Plus these streetcars were comfortable and most people who took public transit loved them.  But Henry Barnes made it known that he hated them and did not even consider keeping them at all.  When these lines were converted to bus operations, many people refused to ride on them, instead, auto traffic increased significantly.  Yes, it was a real crime to watch these streetcars, many not very old PCC's, 10 to 15 years old, being sent to the scrap yards and in many cases, being replaced by buses older than those cars.  The buses were extra hot in the summer and riders complained of the bus fumes.

The photo attached is a prime example of a streetcar line that basically ran on private right-of-way.  I hope that this history is not too long, but it needs to be told.  Thanks Marty for all the streetcar photos you have posted on here.
John in White Marsh, Maryland



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/22 08:13 by ClubCar.

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John,
Do you know the location/date of the photo you posted?
/Ted

WM_1109 Wrote:
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> John,
> Do you know the location/date of the photo you
> posted?
> /Ted
The location is somewhere along Dundalk Avenue going into Sparrows Point and the date is unknown, but these cars operated until 1958, and my guess is that it was around 1957 or 58.  Sorry, I did not take the photo, it was given to me.
John