1964 St. Louis Streetcar Clip Is So Interesting
Streetcars rolling along track in the road and connected to overhead cables bring a smile to my face. Â This short film from January 1964 keeps me grinning and watching over and over.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Q7HomBkmo
I hope you like it as much as I do, have a great weekend!
– Steve Patterson
I think my favorite part is watching it turn through the center of traffic, even as I half expect to see a pedestrian to get hit in the crosswalk. Thankfully, this doesn't happen.
Doesn't happen because we tore up our streetcars. This video is depressing as ever. Stop posting as it only makes us touch ourselves while most St. Louisans think of how many unsightly minorities patronized such transport mediums as well as ponder how they undermined personal freedom.
Honestly if we look at how great St. Louis once was we must be entirely disgusted as to what it is today. Living in Toronto, we had the built environment they wish they had and still probably would tear down even if they had it. If only the domestic plebs appreciated what remains — for St. Louis' past remains integral to the future.
I rode the very last run of the Hodiamont car in 1966 along with my mother and older sister. I was about 2 at the time and my mother did it so we could one day say we rode a streetcar in St. Louis. She says that a lot of city people were very sad about the end of the cars.
Have the fuzziest memories of streetcars from when I was very small. What a mistake it was to get rid of these trollies! Also struck by how much more vibrant and “urban” the street scenes looks than many of them would today. How unfortunate that so much of St. Louis was knocked down and replaced by quarter acre parking lots all over the city. Still, downtown is much more lively than it was 20 years ago. Long live the MetroLink! Thanks for posting.
The streetcars are cool, as is the vintage soundtrack, but I liked all the vehicles (of my youth) in the background, as well.
The streetcars are still running in Toronto!
Until the Mayor throws them into Lake Ontario.
70 of the St. Louis streetcars were sold to San Francisco in the late 1950's, where they ran until 1982. A few of these have been preserved in museums or kept by the SF Municipal Railway for possible rebuilding. For further information, check the Market Street Railway site at http://www.streetcar.org.
If you like street cars, you should attend this lecture series by Mark Goldfelder.
http://www.ci.clayton.mo.us/Fi…
I agree with the notion that the video is interesting for many reasons: the soundtrack, the streetscape, the other cars on the road, and the streetcars themselves.
The greatest thing about frequent and far reaching public transit for me is the freedom to read, think, talk or gaze outside that it provides. Auto congestion in urban areas turns the car into a four-door prison cell IMO.
Plus, I agree with the post that trolleys or streetcars are just plain fun to ride!
For those of you interested in the soundtrack, it's “Jupiter” from Gustav Holst's “The Planets.”
Ah, yeah. High school humanities is coming back now…
Does any one have the numbers on street cars to tell area they traveled in?
What are you looking for? Broadway 40, Delmar 10, Forest Park 51, Grand 70, like that or detail of where the lines actually went? There was 11 lines left around the time of this clip.
Detail of Southhampton line 50 for instance-starts at Mackland & Devonshire, E. on Devonshire, N. on Kingshighway, E on Arsenal, N on Grand, E on Lafayette, N on 12th, E on Washington to 3rd. Return: Reverse route.
Bring Them Back, Save Gas.
Bring Them Back, Save Gas.