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  #81  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 5:47 PM
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ceramembersblog.files.wordpress.com

a station somewhere in the st. louis area, there was a hodgepodge of trainsets.
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  #82  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 5:52 PM
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underground station entrance downtown st. louis:


ceramembersblog.files.wordpress.com

el platform in north st. louis city (looking for more st. louis el platform photos as it was used like local transit sort of like an in-between CTA and METRA in the urban sections):


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  #83  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 6:04 PM
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yet another trainset in st louis. ironically these were built, was was much of the twentieth century passenger rail stock, in st louis. i believe the new york subway is still running st louis cars.


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  #84  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 6:58 PM
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photos.smugmug.com

here's the hodiamont line (one of the dedicated ROW electrified lines) which ran until 1966, outlasting all of the others. both the illinois terminal (north/south) and hodiamont (east/west) transected the densest swath of st. louis which was the northside, at least after the clearance of the near westside but before it started to really empty out.

part of it is a busway, now, in north st. louis.


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  #85  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 7:22 PM
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Based on photos, it looks like pre-decline Detroit is Minneapolis' closest urban analogue in terms of architecture and fabric. The cities have gone in different directions over the last 50 years but aesthetically they are cut from the same cloth. If Detroit hadn't declined it would probably be similar to today's inner south side of Minneapolis but a bit denser and going on for miles.
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  #86  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 7:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Chef View Post
Based on photos, it looks like pre-decline Detroit is Minneapolis' closest urban analogue in terms of architecture and fabric. The cities have gone in different directions over the last 50 years but aesthetically they are cut from the same cloth. If Detroit hadn't declined it would probably be similar to today's inner south side of Minneapolis but a bit denser and going on for miles.
or Kansas City...I often compare Detroit to Kansas City so there's something going on there. They both (KC and MPLS) are kinda-sorta river cities with an orderly grid system that boomed primarily during the apartment building/single family home streetcar era.
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  #87  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 8:10 PM
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thanks for all of the historical pics centropolis, but most of that stuff looks way more inter-urban (which every city had a lot of back in the olden days). i want to learn more about the grade-separated "super-streetcar" routes of st. louis that would have functioned more like chicago's el system as intra-urban mass transit. got any old maps, timetables, brochures, etc. of those routes?




Quote:
Originally Posted by Centropolis View Post
i believe the new york subway is still running st louis cars.
you're right. according to wikipedia, the MTA is still running ~100 St. Louis Cars from the late '60s/early '70s.

i'm a little surprised the MTA is still running equipment that old. the CTA retired the last of its St. Louis Cars (the old green & white 6000 series that i not so fondly remember from my childhood - no A/C) back in 1992. the oldest cars in the CTA's fleet are the 600 cars of the 2600 series from the '80s, and those are all due to be replaced by the new 7000 series cars starting next year.
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  #88  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 8:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
thanks for all of the historical pics centropolis, but most of that stuff looks way more inter-urban (which every city had a lot of back in the olden days). i want to learn more about the grade-separated "super-streetcar" routes of st. louis that would have functioned more like chicago's el system as intra-urban mass transit. got any old maps, timetables, brochures, etc. of those routes?
we have to remember that a lot of transit lines back in the day sort of functioned in their own world as if other transit systems and authorities didn't exist before we had more clearly defined parameters like what a "metro" system means, and st. louis was an incredible privatized hodge-podge at the end since it didn't get its act together with a rapid-transit system to bring everything under one authority/funding.

depending on your destination/distance from city center you took whatever made sense. the illinois industrial satellites were a functioning part of metro st. louis (with the dirtiest industrial intentionally downwind of the city),the streets of which were often laid out by st. louis city engineers. the system serving that industrial corridor was a bit more than a typical interurban system it seems like. it should have been wrapped into some kind of regional rapid transit system, of course, but it wasn't, and this is how these various lines evolved out after the early 1900s after not being wrapped into a CTA or METRA type system. because these lines weren't all brought under the control of one authority they all sort of stayed within their own "transit worlds" before shutting down.

another tier/station type (within city limits), which should have been wrapped into a st. louis version of metra or el.

farm6.staticflickr.com
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Last edited by Centropolis; Nov 11, 2019 at 8:40 PM.
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  #89  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 9:29 PM
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milwaukees version of "interurban plus" or whatever you want to call it..."rapid transit line that half-upgraded the cars and platforms and then canceled service"

Milwaukee also had interurban rapid transit that connected our city with nearby towns in Southeastern Wisconsin. This history is explored in Larry Sakar’s book “Speedrail: Milwaukee’s Last Rapid Transit?,” which was published in 1991. On a recent Saturday at the Milwaukee Public Library Central Branch Sakar told the story of the interurban lines with new pictures not featured in his book. [Read below for more.]



https://radiomilwaukee.org/story/art...ansit-history/
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  #90  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 9:34 PM
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apologies for the oversized image, can't find a smaller one.

here's another image, with multiple cars like the illinois terminal lines:


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  #91  
Old Posted Nov 11, 2019, 10:47 PM
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^ i've read up a little bit on milwaukee's speedrail, and it also comes across to me more in the interurban/commuter rail vein vs. a true intra-city rapid transit system like the chicago el, boston T, or new york subway. it ran on a set schedule as opposed to continuous headways. the vast majority of stations were in the burbs as opposed to the city, with station spacing >2 miles as opposed to <1/2mile. if you lived within milwaukee proper, you likely never used it on a frequent basis, you rode the streetcars instead.

and i think that was ihearthed's point about st. louis being the only top 5 city in 1900 to never never expand beyond streetcars for rail transit within the city.

if st. louis had followed chicago, boston, and philly in building a proper elevated/subway rapid transit system back in the heady days of the late 19th/early 20th century, how might have that impacted st. louis over the course of the 20th century? would downtown have remained more "central"? would that have correlated with a lower degree of urban abandonment in core neighborhoods? would the city of st. louis today be closer to 70% of its 1950 population instead of 35%?

it's impossible to definitively answer any of those questions because there are so many other variables that would have also been in play, but it's interesting stuff to ponder none-the-less.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Nov 11, 2019 at 11:00 PM.
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  #92  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 12:20 AM
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I’m glad that this thread has largely remained focused on the OP. I’ve learned a lot by reading about rail plans for Detroit and St. Louis. Was surprised that Philly was on its way to declining long before the post-war period.
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  #93  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 12:24 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post

and i think that was ihearthed's point about st. louis being the only top 5 city in 1900 to never never expand beyond streetcars for rail transit within the city.

if st. louis had followed chicago, boston, and philly in building a proper elevated/subway rapid transit system back in the heady days of the late 19th/early 20th century, how might have that impacted st. louis over the course of the 20th century? would downtown have remained more "central"? would that have correlated with a lower degree of urban abandonment in core neighborhoods? would the city of st. louis today be closer to 70% of its 1950 population instead of 35%?

it's impossible to definitively answer any of those questions because there are so many other variables that would have also been in play, but it's interesting stuff to ponder none-the-less.
pre-war rapid transit would have made a difference in the case of st. louis. the economic fundamentals were/are such that there would have been a decent amount of building downtown, as opposed to clayton, which shows that there is a desire (and enough economic power) for building a chunk of class A office space in an urban format. regional planning was absolutely in the toilet. the light rail lines that were built were built too late in some ways, but may have been a tourniquet after the wound. the central west end is weirdly becoming a residential district of a city with twice the downtown it has.
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  #94  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 12:34 AM
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When I play Cities Skylines I always end up with what I guess is something like a pre-war St. Louis system.

"You can take the bus or the train or the subway. There's also a bus that kind of goes in a tube and then doesn't. Plus if you don't mind waiting for the freight train jam to clear, I have this one-station line going to a few apartment towers.

Fuckin funicular on the edge too. BLIMPS."
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  #95  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 12:53 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Centropolis View Post
pre-war rapid transit would have made a difference in the case of st. louis. the economic fundamentals were/are such that there would have been a decent amount of building downtown, as opposed to clayton, which shows that there is a desire (and enough economic power) for building a chunk of class A office space in an urban format. regional planning was absolutely in the toilet. the light rail lines that were built were built too late in some ways, but may have been a tourniquet after the wound. the central west end is weirdly becoming a residential district of a city with twice the downtown it has.
Don't forget St. Louis also dropped the ball in the 60s when discussions of a subway system came up again. Then we finally built Metrolink in the early 90s, which has been halfway successful. Only problem with Metrolink is typical St. Louis politics driven by fragmentation, racism, and classism has probably led to stagnation of the systems growth.
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  #96  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 2:43 AM
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Originally Posted by jd3189 View Post
I’m glad that this thread has largely remained focused on the OP.
Midwest threads generally go pretty well around here.

For as much as us fly-over creatures love our rusty old towns, 7 decades of relative economic decline does have a way of breeding a healthy degree of realism/cynicism not always found in the "it" places ("well golly gee, we can always just grow our way out of any old problem or issue").

It's kinda like being a Cubs fan (pre-2016). It matters, but it actually really doesn't.

"Shut up and drink your beer"
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  #97  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 2:50 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
^ i've read up a little bit on milwaukee's speedrail, and it also comes across to me more in the interurban/commuter rail vein vs. a true intra-city rapid transit system like the chicago el, boston T, or new york subway. it ran on a set schedule as opposed to continuous headways. the vast majority of stations were in the burbs as opposed to the city, with station spacing >2 miles as opposed to <1/2mile. if you lived within milwaukee proper, you likely never used it on a frequent basis, you rode the streetcars instead.
Milwaukee's Rapid Transit Line definitely had stops within the 1/2 mile range, and sometimes closer, and were absolutely used in place of streetcar lines for those who lived/worked/needed to get someplace near the line:

8th, 16th, 26th, 35th, Soldier's Home/Mithcell Blvd, Hawley Rd, 62nd, 65th, 68th, 72nd, 76th, 79th, 84th, 92nd, Adler Ave, Schlinger Ave, Greenfield Ave, West Junction

It was built in the 1920s by The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Transit Company to relocate interurbans of the west and southwest hinterlands off the streets and onto a grade-separated right-of-way. Service included longer-distance interurban runs (like out to the aforementioned hinterlands), as well as abbreviated short turn runs (Downtown to West Junction Loop). And in fact, some projects to transform the northern and southern interurban lines to rapid transit were also started, but never completed to the extent of the West Side Line due to the Great Depression.

So while it was not an el, an L, a T, a subway, or metro, it was a pretty substantial operation for a city like Milwaukee.
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  #98  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 3:12 AM
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^ thanks for the correction. I looked (admittedly not very rigorously) for a route map, but couldn't find anything for the west side line. I didn't realize the station density was that high.

But didn't it run on a set schedule more like commuter rail as opposed to continuous operation like a true rapid transit system?
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  #99  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 12:41 PM
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Originally Posted by kool maudit View Post
When I play Cities Skylines I always end up with what I guess is something like a pre-war St. Louis system.

"You can take the bus or the train or the subway. There's also a bus that kind of goes in a tube and then doesn't. Plus if you don't mind waiting for the freight train jam to clear, I have this one-station line going to a few apartment towers.

Fuckin funicular on the edge too. BLIMPS."
someone say BLIMPS?


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  #100  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 12:43 PM
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