Talk:National City Lines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Trains Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. See also: WikiProject Trains to do list
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale. (assessment comments)
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale within the Trains WikiProject.
	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Streetcars.

Revision ostensibly for a neutral pont-of-view:

Old version: Apologists for corporate interests generally claim that the conversion to buses would have occurred anyway, but NCL's illegal practices while carrying out this conversion are court documents.

DavidLevinson's version: Transportation historians note that the conversion to buses would likely have occurred anyway, and the streetcar ridership peaked in 1920 before the existence of NCL and was steadily declining.

Neither is very NPOV. What do real historians do? Do real historians ever note that an event would likely have occurred anyway? Or is that what apologists do?"

Can anyone tell the difference any more? What do Wikipedians think? My POV isn't N enough here... Wetman 19:22, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

"Real historians" should note whether an event would likely have occurred, yes. A principal duty of the historian is to determine whether a correspondence was the result of a chain of causation. In the case of the streetcar conspiracy theory, a "real historian" would have a duty to point out the gaping holes in the chain of causation put forth by Snell, Kuntsler, and all the other "juicefans." Any serious student of transportation history is going to be well aware of the changes that were taking place long before the "conspiracy" could have reasonably come into being. --Slightlyslack 08:51, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I have always felt that their are 4 gaping holes in the National City Lines Conspiracy theory:

1. St. Louis started buying buses almost 20 years before National City Lines (NCL) bought interest in the property. No new streetcar lines were built in St. Louis after 1917 and any expansions to the system were made with buses. NCL did not buy their interest in St. Louis until around 1942.

2. Many of the non-NCL cities got rid of their streetcars before the NCL cities did. St. Louis' cross-state rival, Kansas City, was not an NCL property. Yet they discontinued their streetcars in 1957; nine years before NCL owned St. Louis did.

3. The last property NCL owned was El Paso, Texas. At the time NCL sold El Paso, they were still running streetcars. Furthermore, at the time NCL sold St. Louis, they were still running streetcars. Ultimately the cars in St. Louis were discontinued after the Bi-State developement agency took over the transit system.

4. Philiadelhia, Pennsylvania was an NCL property. Yet, to this day, THEY ARE STILL RUNNING STREETCARS! If it was the goal of NCL to kill the streetcar, as many insist, how come they are still running in Philiadelphia? Those who support the NCL conspiracy theory have never come up with an adequate answer to this question. Reason number 4 is the main reason why I personnally do not put much credit in the NCL conspiracy theory. wcheger St. Louis

Los Angeles is evidence of the conspiracy. Before the NCL takeover, Pacific Electric was one of the largest railway companies in the world, operating across over a thousand miles of mainline track. Within twenty years, all of it was gone, replaced with General Motors built buses.

[edit] Which 100 lines were bought by National City?

It would be nice to add the Streetcars that were bought out by National.

NATIONAL CITY LINES DID NOT DIRECTLY OWN THE PACIFIC ELECTRIC. They did own the Los Angeles Railway Company which ran the city streetcars. Another conglomerate, Metropolitan coach lines, took over the Pacific Electric Lines. This group owned the PE passenger lines from 1953 until 1958. At that time, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority took over what remained of both systems. The LAMTA ended the Pacific Electric Service in 1961 and the remainder of the Los Angeles Railway Company lines were discontinued in 1963. National City Lines was out of the transit business in Los Angeles by 1958. They did not make the final decision to end service. The final decision was made by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority. wcheger St. Louis

Yes, which exactly are the "100 electric surface-traction (streetcar) systems in 45 cities"? Orange Mike 19:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)Orangemike