CLANG, CLANG, WENT THE TROLLEY

TEXT BY SAM LOWE

Electric cars of the Phoenix Street Railway System survived statehood, two world wars, and the Great Depression. Motorman William H. Scott (RIGHT) pulls back on the band brake of Car 51 on its way to Eastlake Park (then spelled East Lake) in 1925.

CLANG, CLANG, CLANG WENT THE TROLLEY

Hear the roll call of the extinct: the saber-toothed tiger... the triceratops... the dodo bird... the St. Louis Browns... the Phoenix trolley system. Victims of progress, echoes of another age, now only memories in a museum.

They all have descendants, of course, survivors existing today that somewhat resemble them. The Bengal tiger... the rhinoceros... the flamingo...the "modern" Baltimore Orioles... the American Trolley Lines of Phoenix.

But the originals are long gone. The descendants function better than their ancestors, and they have adapted well to their environments. But they're still not the real thing.

Take the Phoenix trolleys, for instance. Once upon a time, long before such developments as freeways and oil crises, there were "streetcars"-benevolent steel behemoths, originally horse-drawn, that traversed the young city and charged only a nickel for a ride that extended all the way to the perimeters of town-from Eastlake Park to the Capitol, a distance of some three miles.

(RIGHT) Tools of the trade were simple during the trolley era a coin changer, a transfer punch, and a pocket watch to aid in strict adherence to the schedule. Conductors and motormen wore billed caps emblazoned with their badges. In later years, fare collecting became semiautomated with the use of fare boxes. The box counted the coins and tokens separately and made change for the customers.

(LEFT) As the city grew, so did the railway system. After some lean years in the 1930s and early '40s, gasoline rationing during World War II brought electric transport back into vogue along the palm-lined streets of Phoenix. ROBERT T. MCVAY (BOTTOM) This photograph is believed to record the inaugural run of the Arizona Improvement Company line in late December, 1887, near what is now Washington Street and Seventh Avenue. No known picture exists of the actual first test run in November, 1887; but since there was only one trolley car in town at that time, we can assume that this car made that run as well.

Of course, they didn't roam at will. They were confined to rails along definite routes and followed specified schedules -when, as was usual, everything went right. Sometimes in later years, when the rainy season descended upon the desert, the rails tended to separate, halting any unsuspecting car that ventured along the track. And schedules might go awry because the drivers synchronized their watches with the big clock on City Hall, so if the clock erred, so did the trolleys.

Today, most of the country's streetcars have either adapted to new environments or gone the way of the dinosaur. The Phoenix system is an example of the latter. In 1948 the system was ushered into the pastureland of nostalgia, there to survive only as the answer to a trivia question.

But such a fate certainly was not a consideration when the Phoenix Street Railway System was inaugurated in 1887. John T. Dennis and General Moses H. Sherman both applied for the franchise. Dennis won, but the city attorney overturned the contract award. Eight days later, Sherman announced that the Arizona Improvement Company had been formed. Three days after that, the Arizona Improvement Company was granted a permit to operate a street railway.

To no one's surprise, once the railway was put into operation most of its route ran directly past real estate prominently displaying "For Sale" signs, all of it owned by General Moses Sherman.

Certainly the new system was better than nothing, but it was plagued by inadequate equipment and tormented by the forces of nature. Sherman was a shrewd businessman who thrived on "good deals." Thus the equipment for the line consisted of hand-me-downs from California. In the mid-1880s, a depression hit the Los Angeles area, and Sherman capitalized on it, buying up abandoned streetcar equipment for the Phoenix line. Furthermore, since there were no local construction codes for street railways, no ballast was used to secure the tracks as they were laid. So after twenty years of regular use, rain would cause the tracks to sink or spread, and foot power once more supplanted the railway.

By 1892 the system-eight miles of track, five cars, and twenty-five horses and mules-earned an annual income of 6041 dollars. But across the country, electric cars-the true trolleys, with their long pole-like devices that carried electrical current from an overhead wire-were forcing out the horse-drawn cars. In Phoenix the electrics received an enthusiastic welcome, and the local press hailed the venture: "Electric cars are the biggest advertisement that any city in the West ever had. Phoenix is two, if not five, years ahead of most cities in this important enterprise.

COMING YOUR WAY IN THE MONTHS AHEAD

Curious about the earliest Arizona residents, the world's oldest dinosaurs? Crave to explore ancient ruins and uncover the mysteries of the earth's first flowering plants, in a garden of ancient trees turned to stone? Come with us to the Petrified Forest. In July.

Escape to Arizona's high-country campgrounds; trek the backcountry in search of the "impossible" orchids of the desert, and learn what frustrations orchid fanciers experience; meet the folks whose particular madness is collecting Arizona Highways. And join us as we explore the intriguing world of gourmet Mexican food. In August.

Geronimo! A swift and deadly raider, even his name evoked a cry of fear from potential victims on both sides of the border. Others saw him as one of the greatest of guerrilla leaders and wrote best-selling novels around him. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Geronimo's surrender, author-historian C.L. Sonnichsen brings us a closer look at the life and times of the man some called "the worst Indian who ever lived." In September.

SHARE THE ARIZONA ADVENTURE: start an Arizona Highways subscription. Call us today at (602) 258-1000, or write to Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009.

TREASURES OF THE HEARD

Navajo Woman by R. C. Gorman $35 matted 30(h) x 24(w) inches $25 unmatted 24(h) x 20 (w) inches Hopi Jar by Jerry Jacka $35 matted 30(h) x 24(w) inches $25 unmatted 24(h) x 20 (w) inches The internationally acclaimed Heard Museum in Phoenix recently released a limited edition series of fine art prints. These treasured works of art are now available for purchase from Arizona Highways to enrich your home or office. Each lithographic print is available double-matted and dry-mounted on sturdy backing or unmatted for your display preference. Treasures of the Heard prints can be ordered through the attached order form or by writing Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85009. Phone orders may be placed by calling (602) 2581000 or dial toll-free within Arizona 1-800-543-5432.

Denver did not have a rapid transit line 'til five years ago. That city then had seventyfive thousand people; but with all Denver's industry, she was behind the times. Phoenix is up with the times.

The electric cars remained in vogue decade after decade. They witnessed the arrival of statehood, the coming and passing of ostrich farms, two world wars, and steady municipal growth, clanging over routes bearing such names as the Hollywood Line, the Glendale Line, the Orangewood Line, the Eastlake Line. And, most of the time, the fare was only a nickel. In January, 1917, there came a harbinger of change. A jitney bus line went into service between Phoenix and Glendale. Although a small operation, it, along with the advent of the family automobile, had a grim effect on the street railway: it wiped out the Glendale Line.

In 1922 the system was valued at 361,225 dollars but was in serious decline. By 1925 it was bankrupt, and the City of Phoenix purchased it as salvage for 20,000 dollars and empowered the Citizens Transit Company to operate the service. CTC soon ran into funding problems and dissolved; and on a cold, wintry day in December, 1925, the city went into the street railway business.

The press hailed the move as "The City's Christmas Present," but city fathers weren't so enthusiastic; initial expenditures to upgrade the system were estimated at 1.3 million dollars. But they set about their task with remarkable fervor, obtaining the passage of two bond issues to generate the required cash. They also insisted on quality workmanship.

In 1930 the trolley system announced its first fare increase. It was almost a disaster. Hit by the Great Depression, many citizens could not afford the higher fare, and revenues fell from 298,000 dollars in 1929 to 156,000 dollars in 1930, forcing cutbacks in service and a return to the five-cent ride. Shortly after came another step toward the eventual doom of the trolleys: the city purchased a fleet of buses and put them into competition with the streetcars.

Net profits of the street railway continued to fall until World War II. Then came a reprieve. With government controls on the use of gasoline, the electric cars regained much of their old popularity. But once the war ended, the end was in sight. Hastened by a carbarn fire that destroyed all but six trolleys, the last day of service came on February 17, 1948.

That last day, the seven-cent fare was waived. Everyone rode for nothing. Dignitaries and nostalgia buffs gathered in Cars 508, 511, and 513 to bid farewell to an era and escort it into history.

Will the streetcars ever come back to Phoenix? Will the rumble of steel wheel against steel rail ever be replayed in the cacophonous symphony of the street?

Mayor Terry Goddard, who was a year old when the last real trolley cruised the streets of the city he now governs, doesn't hold out much hope.

"Phoenix has some trolley tracks under the asphalt paving, but the lines have been substantially destroyed, and it would be very difficult to restore the system," he said. "Also, the tracks don't go to the right places. It might be a good idea for a private group to resurrect the trolley as a display at a museum or in a historic location, but the city government doesn't have any plans to do so."

Goddard's assessment is echoed by David Shumway, but for different reasons. Shumway owns the American Trolley Lines, whose vehicles patrol a few of the streets of Phoenix and Mesa looking for the bargain-hunting shopper. The trolleys are rubber-tired, gasoline-powered, nonrestricted vehicles; to change lines, Shumway merely changes lanes. No need to dig up the streets, to install power lines, or retrain the mules.

Small enclosed cars like the one passing the Maricopa County Courthouse (LEFT) at First Avenue and Washington Street in 1896 served the purpose in Phoenix's early years. But as the city and the railway grew, large open metropolitan-style cars (FAR LEFT) dominated the Berryhill corner at First Avenue and Washington, bub of street railway activity in the early 1900s. (RIGHT) After World War II, automobile ownership rose steadily while trolly ridership dropped, hastening the end of the Phoenix street railway. ROBERT T. MCVAY "Return to the old steel-wheeled cars? Ridiculous," he said. "You can get the same atmosphere with rubber-tired trolleys. They're much more usable, and we're much more flexible."

Meanwhile, the entire rapid transit situation in the Valley of the Sun is under study by the Maricopa Association of Governments. A trolley or "light rail" system is one of the transportation modes under consideration.

But trolley fanciers ought not get their hopes up.

"MAG has completed the first phase of rapid transit planning, looking at corridors that have potential for intensive transit treatments," said Dick Thomas, transit director for the City of Phoenix. "The term intensive includes everything from increased bus service to bus lanes to various types of fixed guideway systems."

The trolleys were fixed systems. Could this mean...?

"It could mean anything from light rail transit like San Diego's trolley to monorail to an automated elevated system to any of the new techniques."

Costs, though, are sobering. San Francisco's bill for refurbishing its cable car system was twenty-five million dollars. The initial grandiose plans for resurrect-ing the historic Tucson trolley line carried a price tag of 5.1 million dollars. Goddard's suggestion of the museum trolley may be the only hope for the purists.

Lawrence J. Fleming, who traced the history of the Phoenix trolleys in a book entitled Ride a Mile and Smile the While, is an activist who envisions laying about 300 feet of track near the Arizona Historical Society Museum and hauling passengers from the parking lot to the museum in one of the cars from the old street railway.

But even such a minor attempt to return to days of yore was nearly foiled by that archenemy of yesterday, progress. The Papago Freeway took the space originally allotted for the project. But the parking lot and track site were relocated west of the museum, and work continues on the line.

So let us be grateful for this modest effort. It doesn't seem likely that either municipal government or private enterprise is going to provide us with a leisurely forty-minute ride all the way from Eastlake Park to the Capitol and back.

For the sum of five cents.

Sam Lowe is a daily newspaper columnist for the Phoenix Gazette and author of If I Had An Elephant, a collection of his columns.

Conductor William Van Debogart (LEFT) collected fares by hand in the 1920s when discarded hand-brake cars were purchased from the San Diego Electric Railway and became the backbone of the Phoenix system. William H. Scott and Herman R. Thompson (RIGHT) posed proudly in front of a "40" class car in the early 1920s. Thompson later became superintendent of the system.

Selected Reading

Ride a Mile and Smile the While: A History of the Phoenix Street Railway 1887-1948, by Lawrence J. Fleming. Swaine Publications, Inc., Phoenix, 1977.

Trolleys: Riding and Remembering the Electric Interurban Railways, by Ruth Cavin. Hawthorn, New York, 1976.

Trolley Car Treasury: A Century of American Streetcars, Horsecars, Cablecars, Interurbans, and Trolleys, edited by Stephen D. Maguire. McGrawHill, New York, 1956.