Talk:List of town tramway systems in North America

Division
I have split the Oceania, North America and South America list into three parts: "North America", "Central and South America", and "Oceania" in order to reduce file size Ldemery 18:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

U.S. Entries
U.S. data on hand vary greatly in quality between states. I believe that I have listed "most" of the electric town tramways, but it is possible (in fact, likely) that some non-electric systems are "unknown." It is also likely that some of the electric town tramways in certain states (e.g. Kansas) were preceded by horse tramways.

The tramway history of certain states has been very well researched and excellent books published (e.g. Louisiana, Minnesota and North Dakota). Histories for certain states have been divided among two (or more) volumes (e.g. Wisconsin). Excellent histories have also been published for individual tramway and interurban systems (e.g. Milwaukee, New Orleans). However, information for certain states - Southern states in particular - is scarce and that for certain systems is almost nonexistent. A booklet published almost 50 years ago explained that the author could find very little information for horse tramways in small Kansas towns; local newspapers, he wrote, were silent about openings and closings.

Another obstacle facing researchers is geography - libraries in western states, for example, seldom hold collections of published material on tramways in eastern states. U.S. tramways were not regulated at the national (federal) level, and so there is no "central" depository for tramway-related materials in Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress holds many tramway publications from the U.S. and overseas, but its U.S. holdings are not "comprehensive." Many private individuals collect tramway and railway memorabilia, and certain notable collections have been conveyed to libraries open to the public (e.g. the papers of Rod Varney, now at the Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin).

Much information regarding opening dates for U.S. railway and tramway lines was lost through destruction of company records, but a surprising amount was not recorded. This is true in particular for railway lines opened prior to 1887, when the Interstate Commerce Commission was created. Two examples serve to illustrate this point:

-More than a century ago, an employee of the Chicago and North Western Railway attempted to find opening dates for each segment of line operated by "his" company. He did not succeed - and did not record his name.

-The Strasburg Rail Road near Lancaster, PA, has been owned by railway enthusiasts and operated as a tourist railway for more than half a century. The owners know that the company was organized in 1832, for this event was documented. However, the owners do not know when the line opened, for no record of this event has been found. A schedule dated 1861 is the earliest tangible evidence of operation.

Completion of listings for New York (U.S.), Brazil and Chile will wind up my contributions to this section. I have tried to include all town tramway systems for which I could find documentation. I hope that others will fill in the "blanks," for Eastern states of the U.S. in particular. Ldemery 04:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Daly City, CA
When T-Third opens in San Francisco there will be regular service to almost Daly City. There are tracks live overhead wires, but no stations. Light rail trains when they change direction will do so partially in Daly City.

Does Daly City belong on this list?

--Jmohler1970 18:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say "no." This was started as a list of streetcar systems, not a list of municipalities served by streetcar. Daly City will not have its "own" streetcar system once the T line opens. Ldemery 02:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

"Unreferenced" flag removed
I have removed the "unreferenced" flag because references are listed, although on a separate page because of length.

"Delinking years" and "Cite needed for fake date" removed
I have removed the "delinking years" edits, and the "citeneeded for fake date" flag on the Aberdeen, WA, table entry, both by Ardric47. The "Delinking years" is - apparently - contrary to policy (or at least practice) on other "Wikipedia" lists. Ardric47 took this on apparently at random.

As for Aberdeen, WA: The town tramway closure date of 31 June 1932 is obviously incorrect, but it is not "fake." The phraseology is not helpful.

Renaming...
Can we rename this to a shorter alternative? --HappyCamper 05:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Why not; what can you suggest? "Streetcar" is rather flagrantly an "Americanism" (also used in Canada) that is also imprecise - there were such things as "town tramways" with little or no track built in streets. "Urban tramway" is more generally recognized worldwide but not in the U.S. (and perhaps not in Canada). "Town tramway" and "town tramway service" are used by some specialist historians in the UK. There must be some reasonable compromise. Ldemery 05:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

A different renaming
I think the article needs something like "all-time" in the title. When I saw the title, I was expecting a list of systems existing now -- which would also be worth having, whether as a section of this article, or a split off it, or a separate article repeating content from this one. 207.176.159.90 05:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * New title: yes, why not, please see above. Do you have any suggestions ? Systems existing now: See "List of light-rail transit systems."  Ldemery 05:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Hawaii moved from "North America" to "Oceania"
Reasons are outlined in the "Discussion" section of the "Oceania" page. Ldemery 02:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

How should this page be divided?
The time has come to divide this page - but exactly "how" is not clear. In order to bring the size of the resulting "pieces" within the Wikipedia size guideline, a "division scheme" would need to sub-divide the U.S. and also Mexico (Morrison and Peschkes both state that Mexico had roughly 1,000 tramways). Subidividing the U.S. and Mexico might be done alphabetically by groups of states, or by geographic region. Suggestions? Ldemery 05:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Subdividing the U.S. by region might be done simply by using census regions and divisions. Availability of the map on Wikipedia also helps.

I would suggest using the four census regions - with the "census divisions" as internal subdivisions - at first. Then, if further division becomes necessary, the "census divisions" themselves could become separate articles.

Thus:

--Northeast, including "New England" (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI and VT) and "Middle Atlantic" (NJ, NY and PA).

--South, including "South Atlantic" (DC, DE, FL, GA, MD, NC, SC, WV and VA), "East South Central" (AL, KY, MS and TN) and "West South Central" (AR, LA, OK and TX).

--Midwest, including "East North Central" (IL, IN, MI, OH and WI) and "West North Central" (IA, KS, MN, MO, ND, NE and SD).

--West, including "Mountain" (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, and WY) and "Pacific" (AK, CA, OR and WA), with HI remaining in the "Oceania" list.

As for Mexico, I would suggest a division scheme such as:

--Northern (Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas)

--Central (Aguascalientes, Guanajuanto, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Hidalgo, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico, Federal District, Morelos)

--Pacific (Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas)

--Southern Gulf of Mexico and Yucatan Peninsula (Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, Quintana Roo). Ldemery 01:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Another way I've seen it done is into country pages, and then long sub-country units into their own pages. Realistically, the Northeast US will probably be very large.  In any event, unless someone objects, I propose to split them at least to the country level.  Mbisanz (talk) 04:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)