Evening Bulletin

PHIA, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1922

Frankford Spirit Northeast Inspired First Street

Railway in Philadelphia

FIIANKFORD cars first ran be-tween the central city and its northeast outposts on March 15,

1858. Prior to that time the principal means of communication with the cen-tral 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 ex-tended to Frankford, at a fate of twenty-five cents, they served their purpose until the era of the Consolidation of all the municipalities within the county, which turned the 'attention of citizens to the need of linking up the various quarters of the town more closely with the hub. Urgency, was given to that movement on the part of Frankford by the fact that its population, which in 1840 had been but 2,800, doubled in the next fifteen. years. Sentiment of this sort crystallized, at a meeting held in December, 1855, in resolutions looking to the establishing of a railway to con-nect Frankford with the central district, and also led to the attempt to inapgur" ate a system of water transportation, by way of Frankford creek and the Dela-ware, touched upon in these columns on Saturday.

Petitions in favor of a railway be-tween the northeastern suburb and Southwark were freely circulated dur-ing the first two or three months of 1856. Advocates of the line declared that the project was in the interest of Working men add meant cheap rents, speedy transit and pure air. Its op-ponents were not long in making them-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 inter-change 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, Hat-boro, Riegeleville and Easton to the Delaware Water Gap. It never exer-cisèd its franchise, however, and its corporate rights within the city were acquired by the promoters of the street railway.

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 per-iod in the fall of 1872, when an epi-demic of Epizootic, or "horse disease", incapacitated the steeds and the "dum-mies" were operated through the busi-ness district. The Frankford and South-wark was thus enabled to maintain a partial service. while some other lines were temporarily abandoned. The orig-inal double-deck cars were used as trail-ers 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 ter-minus of the "dummy" service.

On July 26, 1966, a second line of communication with Frankford was opened when the Frankford and Phla-delphia Railway Company, chartered four years before, began to oper1it route which extended from the depot Y the Second and Third street line, - Cumberland and Frankford averni, I along Frankford avenue'to Paul stre though Its charter covered rights as f north as Cedar Hill Cemetery, or Brid street. This company was virtually a part of the Second and Third street line; it used the horses and cars of that line, and the officers of the two companies were identical, an actual flier- .ger coming abOut in the course of a year or so. The relations of the com-peting lines appear to have been amic-able throughout, and on January 1, 1,893 the Second and Third was leased to the-Frankford and Southwark.

But the' era of the horse fn urban transportation, was fading.- On July 1 of the same year,- both companies were absorbed by the Electric Trac-tion Company, and' on Nevember 15, 1894, the dummies -were replaced on '-Old,Maiii 'street by the more silent and efficient tro1lsys

Work was rushed by these bold spir-its and the laying of tracks completed, from Berks street on the north to Mor-ris 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 om-nibus lines, whose rights the new com-pany 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 hand-somely 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 twenty-four hours, each car had turned in an average of forty dollars. The cheap fara, five cents in either direction, con-tributed 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. Com-mentators 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 ave-nue, on which it placed four "omnibus coaches" drawn by horses. That enter-'orine, however, was chiefly for the con-veniences of travellers bound ovei the

-railroad. On March 15th, 1858, the Frankford and Southwark City Passen-ger Railway, as it came to be - known, opened the upper part of its route, ex-tending from the depot at Fourth and Chatham (now Barks) street to. Frank-ford, traversing Berke, Front and Ken-sington 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-ott-street. 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 famil-iar 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 signifi- cance 'because of the frequency with which It was met In justifying Increased 'fares—caused a revision. In a curious work, entitled 'Project of a New Sys-tem of Arithmetic," by John E. -Nys- trom, 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 Hos-

pital ... ..............,. 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 chil-4ren 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 con-ferred 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 adopt-ed, the first being put into service on November 17. 1863. This combination ciiv6no and coach, the fore-runner of the modern gasoline tractor car, christ-ened the "Alpha", wag bought in New York; another,- the "Sea-Gull"; was pro-cured from the Fourth and Eighth line,,