Talk:Streetcars in North America/Archive 2

Plots of U.S. census data
The number of streetcar companies, total track miles, passenger cars, and fare paying passengers (in 1000s) in the United States from 1890 to 1937 as determined by the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission and reported by the U.S. Census Bureau when plotted looks like the following figures:

Perhaps by thinning the bars and using different colors it might be possible to combine the four onto one timeline (presumably with no y axis annotation - (?)). The drop in the number of companies as early as 1922 was attributed to consolidation. The drop in the number of passengers shows some sign of decline in 1927 (perhaps due to automobiles and reliable bus service) but the dramatic drop in passengers for 1932 and 1937 seems to show evidence of the impact of the great depression. The decline is evident before the period of the great American streetcar scandal. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could find statistical data from Canada, Mexico, or Central America for combining into these for a better summary of all North American streetcars. 67.86.73.252 (talk) 03:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is a combination of the above plots with separate colors. The text, contrast, or bar layout may need further modification: 67.86.75.96 (talk) 19:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

As its a timeline, this suggests the use of line-plots, which would certainly be cleaner, especially if attempting to show the relationship between multiple lines. Theblindsage (talk) 20:37, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

What about a list of defunct lines?
I have looked and I can't fine a list of defunct street car lines in North America. There are so many that existed before World War II that are of historical interest. For example: http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/534419.html?nav=5006. Would that be appropriate in this article or does it warrant a new one? Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Possibly might be a good idea, but as a separate list-article. It's worth nothing that a number of defunct lines are listed at the articles on the individual streetcar systems. But I don't think a "centralized" list of such lines exists on Wikipedia at the moment. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:51, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Dunno that it would be a good idea at all, especially if it is for "lines" as well as systems. That would be thousands, most of which of little import to an encyclopedia, or even something that is trying to impersonate one. Anmccaff (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I did say "possibly"...   --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Good point. They were common in quite small cities: the North Jefferson Street Historic District in Huntington, Indiana was developed along one, and when I was in college, I saw the old streetcar lines during a repaving project in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.  Nyttend (talk) 02:09, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

70% sourcing of the cars -note plural- is claimed in the source.
....not of the first example. It also begs the question of what is a "modern streetcar"; the new New Orleans Perleys are modern cars, as much US built. Anmccaff (talk) 05:32, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

From u|SJMorg's otherwise un-discussed revert :

Widely, maybe, but neither universally nor unambiguously; "a modern (fill-in-the-blank) with traditional appearance" can be seen for almost everything that rolls, floats, of flies. The New Orleans cars are modern streetcars with a traditional look, and as US-made as the Portland version. Some of the currently built, or recently ended PCC runs look, stylistically, more moderne than modern. This language should go. Anmccaff (talk) 18:23, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This talk page post is confusingly covering two different things (and is also very cryptic at the start). My "undiscussed revert" only changed "US-assembled" back to "US-built" (nothing else), which I felt needed no discussion because sources cited in other WP articles made it clear that even the 2009 prototype (the only car being referred to in the sentence being edited) had around 70 percent U.S. content. Regarding usage of the term modern streetcar: except for you, I have never heard anyone in the 21st century refer to a replica Perley Thomas or Birney car as a "modern" streetcar, only as a [vintage-style, replica-vintage, historic-style, whatever] streetcar "with modern propulsion". The phrasing in this article is referring to the entire car, not just what makes it run.  That includes having a low floor with bridge plates extending from the doorways (and no, the wheelchair lifts in New Orleans' replica PT cars are not equivalent to having a low floor with bridge plates at most doorways; the latter is a distinctly more modern design). Sure, modern meant something else 50 years ago, and it will mean something else 50 years from now, but in my opinion the term modern  is, in context, not so ambiguous that it needs to be avoided.  SJ Morg (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Avoided, no; but endorsed neither. Take a look at how few usages you see outside of Portland itself, or references to Portland, and look how ambiguous some of the claims are.  Many indisputably modern -both in appearance and internals - designs are high-floors, many modern designs form a continuum with PCCs, and the intermediate cars were indisputably contrasted to their elders as "modern streetcars" with each design iteration. Low floor cars date back to the early 1900s; there's very little conceptual difference between a Boont or Brill low floor and the new stuff.
 * Getting back to the assembled/built question, it would be nice to see this from a decent secondary or tertiary source, not from something that reeks of press release, boosterism, and foamerdom, and also compares the cost to direct foreign purchase. Within wiki's own articles, it is possible to find different versions of what the 70% meant in the references. It's very easy to get higher content numbers by doing something needless and expensive - look at the different sourcing numbers for the Transit Connect, for instance. Anmccaff (talk) 21:17, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Houston is a Streetcar
Houston has more in common with streetcar systems than light rail systems.

New Orleans is street running with a dedicated lane for the majority of the historic lines. they run historic and mock-historic vehicles it's a streetcar system

St. Louis has light rail. their system is within it's own ROW for the entire system but it has wide stop spacing and the stops are not at the street It's definitely light rail

San Diego Trolley is light rail. They're adding the Siemens S70 streetcar models to their system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Trolley#Fleet_specifications Even when median running the system has long segments with wide stop spacing like St. Louis that's not along side a street, making them clearly a light rail system But not entirely, they have one line that's a streetcar.

Atlanta is running the same Siemens S70 streetcar vehicle as San Diego in mixed traffic they're a streetcar system because it's mixed traffic and stops are at the street So Atlanta and San Diego shows us using a streetcar model train (or not) isn't defining for what a system is

Salt Lake City's S-Line is running Siemens S70 light rail vehicles from the light rail system it has it's own ROW for most of the system It's in a dedicated railroad row, runs light rail vehicles but it has the stop spacing of a streetcar at the street itself stops are at street level so it's a streetcar

Toronto is a streetcar system, they bought trains that may be the longest in N. America at almost 100 feet. they mostly have shared lanes but are adding dedicated ROWs and some tunnels stops are at the street at street level

Boston is buying the CAF light rail vehicle. The order is said to be for a streetcar They're buying some of the shorter rail vehicles in the country for their new trains. given the street running is a minority and the stop spacing is long, this is clearly a light rail system

Boston and Toronto shows vehicle length tells nothing about the type of system

Philadelphia has a streetcar in tunnels, showing that's not a defining characteristic of light rail. going underground doesn't make something into light rail

Kansas City and Cincinnati both are going to use the CAF Urbos 3 streetcar with mixed vehicle street they're clearly streetcars

Detroit Streetcar has some middle of the street running but not dedicated. so running at the street edge vs not isn't a defining characteristic

The DC streetcar H St line has some segments with dedicated lanes The K-street line will have dedicated lanes http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/20612/ddot-picks-streetcar-transitway-for-k-street/ so having it's own lane is not a difference between light rail and streetcar

So then what defines the Houston ystem as light rail or streetcar?

For the type of train tghey have half Siemens S70, some are even originally for Utah Trax, the same the S-Line streetcar has. The other half are almost the same Urbos 3 KC and Cincinnati are getting (70% low floor instead of 100% and slightly longer) their downtown stop spacing is effectively same as Kansas City's system stop spacing on average but further out is wider. Some of the DC streetcar will have it has it's own lane so that's not a reason to call it light rail. The wider spacing segments are mostly street running. St. Louis' and San Diego have stops that are at some other grade with elevators and stairs and paths to get to them. They run single trains frequently like KC, Atlanta, etc on their wide stop spacing. so it's not running multiple vehicles together that makes it light rail in some parts of the system the mixed use lane becomes a short dedicated lane or vice versa. there's shared lanes in the one-way segment south of downtown Houston and part of the new E-W line in downtown.

The defining characteristic for Houston that makes it different from other light rail systems is the stops are at the same grade as the street and follow the street, mostly taking away a lane of traffic. Most the major light rail systems put the track into a dedicated row with fences, embankments and such between the track and any street.

Houston is more properly called a streetcar than light rail, no matter what they named it

really, it's a system that shows the difference between names is largely irrelevant. It's time to merge this article into light rail and do a compare-contrast within the single article — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flyingember (talk • contribs) 15:18, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's the problem: you haven't produced a source categorizing Houston's systems as predominantly "streetcar". As far as I know, no one does, even after Houston opened its new lines with the downtown segment that can legitimately called "streetcar". METRORaill certainly "self-categorizes" as "light rail" - e.g. . Thus, including Houston here strikes me as pure WP:Original research. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081224140007/http://www.chsgeorgia.org:80/roundhouse/photos2.cfm?view=109 to http://chsgeorgia.org/roundhouse/photos2.cfm?view=109

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Views of New Orleans streets??????????????
There are many photos of New Orleans street cars from the 19th century, why do we have no street views. I would add images however people who live on this site remove them because we are not all allowed to edit. --Margrave1206 (talk) 21:55, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Adding images to articles like this is tricky – you want enough images to be informative, but not so many that it becomes a "gallery" (WP:NOTGALLERY) or so many that it messes up the page layout... Perhaps a single image from New Orleans would be sufficient?... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Streetcar Traffic Jams
Per the article: "Declining ridership and traffic jam crowding of city streets by streetcars were often cited as reasons to shut down remaining lines.[citation needed]"

This is a highly contradictory statement, and limited run street cars would not jam city streets. Overall, this is illogical and I will remove the sentence unless citations are provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.194.140.57 (talk) 21:29, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There's nothing at all contradictory about it. Declining passenger traffic does not lead, in large vehicles, to decline in number of vehicles on the road.  The streetcar takes up as much of the road empty as loaded, as do buses.  Anmccaff (talk) 23:39, 7 March 2017 (UTC)