Suburban Philadelphia Trolleys

Kenneth C. Springirth

Aug 2007 · Arcadia Publishing

About this ebook

The Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company prospered through the hard times of the 1930s and was the last privately-owned trolley system in the United States. Aerodynamically designed Bullet cars of the Philadelphia and Western Railway dramatically reduced travel time on the Sixty-ninth Street to
Norristown line. The Presidents Conference Committee trolley cars of the Philadelphia Transportation Company linked the boroughs of Darby, Colwyn, and Yeadon with Philadelphia. Photographs of Medias 1977 town fair feature vintage trolleys in the only suburban community in the United States with a trolley line ending in its main street. Suburban Philadelphia Trolleys covers the history of the trolleys that served Philadelphias western suburbs.

About the author

Kenneth C. Springirth, author of Greater Erie Trolleys, Johnstown Trolleys and Incline, and Pittsburgh Streamlined Trolleys, has a vested interest in rail history, as his father was a trolley car motorman in Philadelphia and his grandfather was a motorman in Washington, D.C. A native of Philadelphia and a 1957 graduate of Lansdowne Aldan High School, Springirth commuted by trolley to attend classes at Drexel Institute of Technology. He has walked the lines, photographed, and ridden trolley cars in the United States and around the world.