Dallas Streetcars 1955

8mm film footage is showing streetcars in Dallas before they were removed. My father shot this film in December 1955 as he knew the streetcars were about to be eliminated. The film was recorded on Jefferson Boulevard in Oak Cliff and in downtown Dallas.
www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4X81J4M

[@timetable5245]

Great video. Thanks for posting. We've lost so much railroad and traction in Dallas. Streetcars and interurban service would help everyone now.

[@GOAT_CUSTOM]

Wow what a change and I know these streets

[@rhondautley2009]

Back in time to the 40s and 50s! Heaven on Earth

[@kerrajohnson3203]

For who??

[@audreywilborn2018]

For White People .

[@carollewis3912]

My mom loved the street cars. She didn't want to see the buses take their place. I have rode the McKinney street car in uptown Dallas and enjoyed it immensely.

[@theoldgronker]

I remember my dad taking me downtown to ride the streetcars just before they were eliminated.

[@danielthoman7324]

nice looking street cars!

[@timosha21]

As a train I approve seeing my siblings in action

[@texomajohn2916]

Road them with my mom up and down Jefferson in the early fifties

[@robertsawa3407]

A number of them went to Boston and ran until around 1980. Other pcc streetcars are still used on the Mattapan Trolly line in revenue service in 2022.

[@WubiWatkins]

I was born in Oak Cliff on Jefferson. Trolleys were gone by my time but I enjoyed a bus ride with my Great Aunt. Fun days

[@raypeters4525]

NEWEST CARS SEEN THIS FILM 1955 FORD, BUICK !

[@paulcastillo9323]

Cool video of the PCC cars

[@190roverk]

Before it all turned batshit crazy....

[@ronniewhite8498]

I used to play on the street car Tressels down by the Jefferson drive in. After they removed the actual trolley cars. 70s
In Cockrellhill.

[@ventusky308]

Early generation PCC cars, no standee windows as later productions had....I recall a trolley line to a Dallas shopping area....any thoughts, ideas ?

[@Poisson4147]

You may be thinking of the Leonards subway, later bought by Tandy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Center_Subway

[@369tvp6]

Now it is clear where the design of the Riga tram RVZ-6 comes from.

[@Poisson4147]

The PCC design was licensed all over the world. I saw similar cars in Sweden as well.

[@gsinstrumentalmusic5203]

I love this country god bless 🙏 America 🇺🇸 gs instrumental music 🎶

[@insight5593]

Ютуб комментарии можно с переводом?

[@James_BAlert]

Could they of kept a few for the downtown area?
Were they run down on purpose, or were they financially viable up to the end? 🤔

[@Poisson4147]

I can't speak about Dallas specifically, but a lot of systems were really threadbare after the war. Because they were privately operated they didn't have access to enough funds to fully rebuild. Even the Red Arrow system in PA, one of the financially-strongest systems in the country, had to shut down lines for lack of funds.
Trolley lines also faced competition from growing suburbs and the road-building boom under the Eisenhower Administration.
And then National City Lines (q.v.) further accelerated the decline by buying up weak systems in order to put them out of business as well as weakening more-substantial operations.

[@Madronaxyz]

During the Great depression, the rubber tire companies bought up most of the intracity and intercity railways like these Street cars. Because the depression was so severe, everything was very cheap. So the rubber companies bought up the streetcars into an investment in the future. But maybe not an investment in the way one usually thinks of an investment. Owning the streetcar systems was not what the tire company stock would make them the most money after the depression.
They knew that the depression was going to end sometime. By letting the street cars run down and cutting service, a huge demand for cars would be created. Unlike most Street cars, which don't have tires, cars have tires and routinely wear tires out. So it would be much more business for the tire companies if we switched from streetcars to automobiles.
A friend of mine did his master's thesis on the subject of goods moving across American cities from 1900 to 1965. He
completed his Master's thesis in the late 1970s. I learned all this information from his successful Master's thesis.
What he found was that the average speed of a goods or service moving across a US city in the 1920s, at the peak of streetcar traffic, was 12 mph. With individual cars clogging up the streets since there was no longer much mass transportation, by the 1970s the average speed of a good person package or vehicle moving across a major US city had fallen to 3 to 4 mph.
This shows why you cannot just let individual decisions rule how the society is planned. Businesses are in the business of making a profit and they will only keep the air and water clean, and keep their workers safe if there are regulations was adequate enforcement to compel business to do this.
And some Democratic socialist countries, such as much of scandinavia, the parts of the economy that are essential to survival or heavily socialized. Healthcare, education, and utilities are things that are run as nonprofits. In the parts of the economy where you will not die if you don't have the good or service, private for profit businesses function.
I lived in a suburb of Dallas from 1955 to 1973 until I graduated high school. My dad worked in Dallas at the Canada Dry plant. My dad was a photography buff and he took some great pictures on the last night the streetcars were running in dallas. Unfortunately they burned up in a house fire in about 1975.

[@Madronaxyz]

@@Poisson4147 I don't know about Dallas specifically but the tire companies had a plan to increase the demand for tires. During the Great depression when all everything was very cheap, the tire companies bought up the inter and intra City railways. The tire companies cut the schedules on the mass transit and did not maintain them very well. They wanted to people to be eager to have their own car so as soon as the depression was over people would buy a lot of cars. Cars use a lot more tires than trolleys or even the city buses because it is so much more efficient to move people by mass transit.

[@James_BAlert]

@@Madronaxyz Thanks for the detailed reply, the politicians were very open about dismantling the city & suburban rail systems claiming it was ancient technology and that there would be more room and routes for cars and trucks, l'm sure there were boffins and visionaries who could see by using computation that the streets would turn into a slow moving jam with so many cars and the anti social aspect of cars highjacking cities and their streets further adding to the disconnect in society, for many of us has it really contributed to our independence if we are stuck in traffic going to and from work and the shopping mall!?🤔

[@kwstas13]

Ωραία ρομαντικά χρόνια 🇬🇷🫂👍🙋‍♂️🇺🇸

[@user-vo9wd6tx6c]

Back before public transit was a "yankee" or "democrat" thing.