Baltimore Streetcars: The Postwar Years - Tapa dura

"The book is a delight."

"Herbert Harwood Jr.... is a critically acclaimed rail and transit historian... His book really is a two-tier production. Not only does it chronicle the changes in mass transit in Baltimore in the years after World War II, it also offers a glimpse of the variety of streetcars that once served 425 miles of trolley trackage."

"In this book Herbert Harwood, a noted rail historian and photographer, has brought to us the Baltimore streetcar system in the autumn of its life, a survivor of the past but still an important transportation asset. This book should fascinate not only Baltimoreans but also anyone interested in a mid-twentieth-century American city with most of what had been one of the nation's larger and better-run street railway systems still largely intact."

Herbert H. Harwood here gives us a glorious picture of Baltimore in the heyday of the streetcar, combining the story of lines and equipment with a nostalgic view of Baltimore when so many of her people relied on street railways. From the late 1800s through World War II, streetcars transported Baltimore's population to and from work, play, and just about everything else. Bankers and clerks, factory workers and managers, domestics, schoolchildren, shoppers, all rode side-by-side on the streetcars regardless of economic status, level of education, or ethnic background. In a city where residences and schools were segregated, streetcar passengers sat wherever they could.

In addition to being a truly democratic institution, streetcars considerably influenced Baltimore's physical growth, enabling families to live farther than ever before from workplaces and thus encouraging early suburbs. Despite rising competition from the private automobile, streetcars remained the mainstay of Baltimore's public transportation system until after World War II, when gas rationing ended and family cars multiplied.

Environmentally friendly and for the most part comfortable and reliable, streetcars also had their peculiar charm. Today some people in Baltimore miss them.