Third Avenue Railway
The Third Avenue Railway System (TARS) was a street railroad system in New York City in the 19th and early 20th century.[1]
History
The principal company was the Third Avenue Railroad Company from 1853 to 1910, when it was succeeded in reorganization by the Third Avenue Railway Company. The main line was in Park Row, Bowery, and Third Avenue in Manhattan but the Third Avenue companies controlled others with routes in Manhattan and the Bronx and outside the city in Westchester County.[1] By 1915 Frederick Wallingford Whitridge was president of the company.[2]
Due to a ban on overhead trolley wires in Manhattan, streetcars collected power from a conduit in between the rails, by means of a plow, a method also used in Washington, D.C. and London. Some cars were equipped with trolley poles for operation on lines outside Manhattan into the Bronx.
All lines were converted to bus operations by 1948.
After the system's abandonment, 42 cars of the largest and newest type, built by TARS itself in 1938–1939 (on Brill trucks), were sold to the operator of the Vienna, Austria, streetcar system, Wiener Stadtwerke Verkehrsbetriebe (now Wiener Linien), for operation there.[3] They were renumbered, designated Vienna type "Z" and fitted with pantographs in place of their trolley poles. They did not use conduit current collection in Vienna. They entered service there in 1949–1950 and were retired in 1969 when track brakes became mandatory.[3]
Lines
Manhattan
The following lines existed in later days:
Yonkers
The following lines operated in Yonkers, New York:[4]
- 1 Broadway-Warburton
- 2 Broadway-Park Ave.
- 4 McLean Ave.
- 5 Nepperhan Ave.
- 6 Tuckahoe Road
- 7 Yonkers Ave.
- 8 Riverdale Ave.
- 9 Elm-Walnut Sts.
Surviving equipment
A number of cars formerly operated by TARS have been preserved.[5]
- 24, Brill open car, Electric City Trolley Museum
- 220, converted cable car, Shore Line Trolley Museum
- 316, American standard, Shore Line Trolley Museum
- 629, lightweight, Shore Line Trolley Museum
- 631, lightweight, Seashore Trolley Museum
- 634, 640, lightweight, Mariazell, Austria
- 637, lightweight, Graz, Austria
- 674, lightweight, National Tramway Museum
- 678, lightweight, National Capital Trolley Museum
- 4208 (ex TARS 679), lightweight, Vienna, Austria
- 830, 844, Shore Line Trolley Museum
- 1043, Brill semi-convertible, Western Railway Museum
- 1779, Peter Witt streetcar, Sorocaba, Brazil
- 1789, 1791, Peter Witt, São Paulo, Brazil
- 1799, Peter Witt, Bertioga, Brazil
References
- ^ a b Ballard, C: "Metropolitan New York's Third Avenue Railway System", Arcadia Publishing, 2005
- ^ "Whitridge's Return Halts Wage Debate. Maher Postpones Conference with Union Men as Third Avenue President Arrives. Silent About Car Strikes. His Coming from England Revives Rumors of Changes in Management of Company". New York Times. August 29, 1916. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10917F7355B17738DDDA00A94D0405B868DF1D3. Retrieved 2011-03-12. "Frederick W. Whitridge, President of the Third Avenue Railway Company, who was blamed by the Public Service Commission for the street car strikes that spread recently from Westchester County to Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island, returned from Scotland on the American liner New York yesterday in response to urgent messages from the directors of his company."
- ^ a b Middleton, William D. (1967). The Time of the Trolley, p. 325. Milwaukee: Kalmbach Publishing. ISBN 0-89024-013-2.
- ^ "Error: no
|title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". http://world.nycsubway.org/us/tars/index.html.
- ^ "Preserved North America Electric Railway Cars". http://www.bera.org/pnaerc.html.
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Operators
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Routes
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Defunct
operators
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