Evening Bulletin

PHIA,

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1922

having proved unable to negotiate the hills on the Germantown branch. Their use was confined to that portion of the route between the Berke street depot and Arrott street, save for a brief period in the fall of 1872, when an epidemic of Epizootic, or "horse disease", incapacitated the steeds and the "dummies" were operated through the business district. The Frankford and Southwark was thus enabled to maintain a partial service. while some other lines were temporarily abandoned. The original double-deck cars were used as trailers to the dummies, eleven of which were constructed, eight of them being used in later years to furnish frequent service. The old depot was abandoned in January, 1872, in favor of a new one at Cumberland and Kensington avenue, which thereafter was the terminus of the "dummy" service.

Frankford Spirit

Northeast Inspired First Street Railway in Philadelphia IIANKFORD cars first ran between the central city and its northeast outposts on March 15, 1858. Prior to that time the principal means of communication with the central city had been by means of oimnbus lines, which had succeeded the earlier "flying coaches" and stages, the first bus being put into operation in 1833, on a route starting from the old Navy Yard, at the foot of Washington avenue in Southwark, and running, via Second street, to Kensington, with its upper terminus at Deschamps Hotel, on Beach street, near Shackamaxon. Later extended to Frankford, at a fate of twentyfive cents, they served their purpose On July 26, 1966, a second line of until the era of the Consolidation of all communication with Frankford was the municipalities within the county, opened when the Frankford and Phlawhich turned the 'attention of citizens delphia Railway Company, chartered to the need of linking up the various four years before, began to oper1it quarters of the town more closely with route which extended from the depot Y the hub. Urgency, was given to that the Second and Third street line, movement on the part of Frankford by Cumberland and Frankford averni, I along Frankford avenue'to Paul stre the fact that its population, which in 1840 had been but 2,800, doubled in the though Its charter covered rights as f next fifteen. years. Sentiment of this north as Cedar Hill Cemetery, or Brid sort crystallized, at a meeting held in street. This company was virtually December, 1855, in resolutions looking a part of the Second and Third street to the establishing of a railway to con- line; it used the horses and cars of nect Frankford with the central district, that line, and the officers of the two and also led to the attempt to inapgur" companies were identical, an actual flierate a system of water transportation, by .ger coming abOut in the course of a way of Frankford creek and the Dela- year or so. The relations of the comware, touched upon in these columns on peting lines appear to have been amicable throughout, and on January 1, 1,893 Saturday. the Second and Third was leased to thePetitions in favor of a railway be- Frankford and Southwark. But the' era of the horse fn urban tween the northeastern suburb and Southwark were freely circulated dur- transportation, was fading.- On July ing the first two or three months of 1 of the same year,- both companies 1856. Advocates of the line declared were absorbed by the Electric Tracthat the project was in the interest of tion Company, and' on Nevember 15, Working men add meant cheap rents, 1894, the dummies -were replaced on speedy transit and pure air. Its op- '-Old,Maiii 'street by the more silent ponents were not long in making them- and efficient tro1lsys selves heard, and in a meeting on March 26th, at which Dr. W. Jewell, J. Altamont ,Phijlips and others were the pDiticlpal movers, the proposed route wasattacked on the ground that Fifth and.ixth streets were too narrow, and it was intimated that the enterprise was the offspring of the Camden & Amboy Railroad, then the arch-fiend among corporations in the" local mind. It was alleged, too, that the project was an adroit scheme to connect the factories and mills of Southwark, Kensington and Frankford for the easy and direct interchange of freight. For twelve months the battle raged in the newspapers, and in swarms of pamphlets, but finally the Legislature of 1857 was persuaded to grant the Philadelphia and Delaware River Railroad the right to use Fifth and Sixth streets. The corporation had been - originally chartered three years before to lay a railroad from Fifth and Montgomery avenue (then known, as Cherry street) through Frankford, Hatboro, Riegeleville and Easton to the Delaware Water Gap. It never exercisd its franchise, however, and its corporate rights within the city were acquired by the promoters of the street railway.

Work was rushed by these bold spirits and the laying of tracks completed, from Berks street on the north to Morris street on the south by the close of the year. On the 8th of January, 1858, the trial trip was made, but difficulties arose with the proprietors of the omnibus lines, whose rights the new company was required to purchase, and the line was not thrown open for public travel until twelve days later. Fifteen ears, built by the Desehanip Omnibus Shops at a cost of $600 each, were put into service at dawn. - . Fifth and Sixth streets presented a gala appearance as the citizens gathered to look at handsomely painted vehicles, moving swiftly and smoothly along. The conte'ast with the lumbering sad jolting omnibuses pitching over cobblestone streets was sq great tint the success of the venture was immediate, and Martin Thomas, the first president of the road, was elated when, at the end of the -first twentyfour hours, each car had turned in an average of forty dollars. The cheap fara, five cents in either direction, contributed to this result, the fare on the omnibus varying with the comfort of the vehicle and the length of the trip, ranging from six cents upward. Commentators predicted that this demo,, tration of the utility of urban tram. says would dispel the opposition which was still manifested in some quarters. To this road belongs the honor of being the first rEnl passenger street railway in Philadelphia, though the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company had, three years previously, laid traCks from Front and Willow streets to its rail station, the "Cohocksink depot," at American street and Montgomery avenue, on which it placed four "omnibus coaches" drawn by horses. That enter'orine, however, was chiefly for the conveniences of travellers bound ovei the -railroad. On March 15th, 1858, the Frankford and Southwark City Passenger Railway, as it came to be - known, opened the upper part of its route, extending from the depot at Fourth and Chatham (now Barks) street to. Frankford, traversing Berke, Front and Kensington avenue to Adams street, at which point I'ensington avenue then came to an end. not being cut thrOugh to its junction with 'rankford avenue until ,18&' Not long 4fter its opening the route was 'extended, by 4ien,ls of, a narrow r1ght. of way, to' Frnkford avenue, and 'the terninias -transferred to An-ottstreet. The cars. originally used on the Frankford branch, four in number, were doubledeckers, built by Thomas Castor, in Frankford, and an appe1 to local pride was made in the pictures which' decorated the interior portraying familiar Frankford scenes. The fare remained at five cents until the advent ofthe Civil War, when the scarcity - of horses, on account of the requirements of the army, and the "high cost of horse feed"ft term which afterwards acquired a derisive significance 'because of the frequency with which It was met In justifying Increased 'farescaused a revision. In a curious work, entitled 'Project of a New System of Arithmetic," by John E. -Nystrom, 0. B., published in '1862, and to which Mr. John J. L. Houston, of the Department of City Transit, has called attention, the rates of fare on the Frankford and Southwark are stated as follows: Southwark to Front. and York eta........................ 50 Southwark to Frankford...... lOc Germantown road to Frankford 7c Southwark to Episcopal Hospital ... ..............,. To Berke at. to Harrowgate..... Sc Frankford to Hart Lane.... Sc There was, too, no thirty-one Inch rule for the guidance of conductors,' for the management liberally construed chil4ren to comprise all persons under twelve years of age, for whom a fare of three cents was stipulated. The long route of the Frankford and Southwark proved to be too much for the horses; the Legislature of 1863 conferred upon the company the right to use steam, and as the outcome of the search for an inoffensive use of that power, the "dummies", long distinctively associated with Frankford, were adopted, the first being put into service on November 17. 1863. This combination ciiv6no and coach, the fore-runner of the modern gasoline tractor car, christened the "Alpha", wag bought in New York; another,- the "Sea-Gull"; was procured from the Fourth and Eighth line,,