Springfield Street Railway

The Springfield Street Railway Company (SSR) was an interurban streetcar and bus system based in Springfield, Massachusetts that that once connected much of the greater Springfield metropolitan area with its 208+ mile streetcar system, which connected Springfield with its various neighborhoods like Brightwood, Forest Park, Indian Orchard and the South End, nearby cities such as Chicopee, Westfield, Holyoke, Agawam, West Springfield, Ludlow, Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, Palmer, Monson, Wilbraham and Ware and even nearby regions like Worcester, Hartford and the Berkshires. At the peak of is operations, the Springfield Street Railway served as many as 44 million annual passengers across more than 208 miles of track.^[6][7]

Springfield Street Railway
Logo of the Springfield Street Railway Co., c. 1940
Cars of the Springfield Street Railway on Main Street, c. 1910
The 'Trolley Barn', Former Main Street headquarters of the Springfield Street Railway, pictured in 2018.
Overview
Owner	New York, New Haven & Hartford
Area served	Greater Springfield Springfield Agawam Chicopee East Longmeadow Longmeadow Ludlow West Springfield Westfield Division Westfield Russell Huntington Palmer Division (former Springfield & Eastern) Palmer Bondsville Brimfield East Brimfield Monson Ware Wilbraham Through Routes (jointly operated) Holyoke Northampton Southbridge Worcester Hartford East Hartford Thompsonville Hazardville Windsor East Windsor Windsor Locks Somers Suffield
Transit type	Light rail Horsecar (1870–1893) Interurban (1891–1940) Bus (1923–1981)
Annual ridership	44 million (1916)
Chief executive	George Atwater (founder)
Headquarters	2257 Main Street Springfield, Massachusetts
Operation
Began operation	March 10, 1870[1]: 915  June 6, 1890 (electrified)[2] 1923 (bus)[3]
Ended operation	June 24, 1940 (rail)[4] November 3, 1981 (bus, merged with PVTA)[5]
Infrastructure manager(s)	Worcester, Holyoke, Northampton and Hartford & Springfield Street Railways (through routes only)
Character	At-grade, some private rights-of-way.
Number of vehicles	500~
Headway	12-60 minutes
Technical
System length	208+ miles
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge[1]: 915
System map Show interactive map (greatest extent)

With the first modern streetcars appearing in 1891, by the time it was acquired by the New York, New Haven and Hartford in 1905,^[8] the system actually had more miles of electrified track than the fledgling New York City Subway did at at the time, boasting a vast regional network that included one-seat-rides to the downtown hubs of the Holyoke/Northampton, Worcester and Hartford Street Railways on routes it operated jointly with those railways,^[9] in addition to the numerous local routes it operated within the Pioneer Valley and even a connection to the Berkshire Street Railway in Huntington at one point.^[10][11][7]

Today the former headquarters of the Springfield Street Railway Company, known colloquially as the Trolley Barn, is the home of a roofing company, and was formerly used by Peter Pan Bus Lines.^[12] Following prolonged negotiations, in 1981 the company, its property, and employee payroll were absorbed into the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, forming what is now known as its Springfield Area Transit Company (SATCo) division.^[5]

The Springfield Street Railway's final two tram runs returned to the Trolly Barn for the very last time in the pre-dawn darkness of June 24th, 1940.^[6] Following several decades of municipal bus operations, the former railway company was formally dissolved on November 15th, 1984.^[13]

Origins & Expansion

Originally founded as an independent horse railway on March 16th, 1868^[13] by local businessman George Atwater, the namesake of Springfield's Atwater Park,^[14] the Springfield Street Railway Company was not at first taken seriously, with the city's aldermen laughing as they approved its charter, some even making a facetious 11-cent investment in Atwater's venture, which he registered nonetheless.

Track construction would begin by 1869, however the process was complicated by the existence of an at-grade steam railroad crossing on Main Street then used by the Boston & Albany, which vehemently objected to the nascent street railway crossing their tracks.^[15] However, despite their earlier skepticism towards the street railway, the city's aldermen overruled the objections of the railroad and allowed construction to proceed.^[6]

The first line, which ran from the horse railway's stables (near the present-day PVTA Administration building at 2808 Main) to the intersection of State and Oak Streets, was operational by March 1870. By 1873, a second route had been built which continued from the existing tracks on Main Street to Mill River in the city's South End.^[6]

The Springfield Street Railway served over a million passengers for the first time in 1883, though annual ridership would soar by more than 44 times that as a result of the rapid expansion that was to come. In 1887, residents of West Springfield would petition for an extension of the railway across the Connecticut River into their city, one which they would receive within just a few years.^[16]

Route Description (1800s)	Color
State Street Line	Yellow Trams
Maple Street Line	Red Trams
South End/Mill River Line	(unknown)
Walnut & King Street Line	White Trams
Worthington Street Line	White Trams
St. James Avenue Line	Blue Trams
Chicopee Falls via Chicopee	Green Trams
West Springfield Line	Orange Trams
Indian Orchard Line	Brown Trams
Tatham Line (via Mittineague)	Tartan Trams

By the time the system was fully electrified (a process begun in 1890), and since at least the 1880s, each of the by then 8+ lines opened before the turn of the century had been color-coded, a practice far ahead of its time, only introduced on contemporary rapid transit systems nearly a century later.^[17]

The early use of this practice was owed to the specific paint jobs used on the street railway's horsecars, and later, electric trams that were used on any one of the particular routes that had been built by that time, which by the mid 1890s were as listed (and color-coded) in the adjacent table.

By the turn of the century, as further extensions of the now fully electrified system would continue to be planned, built and opened, the Springfield Street Railway's colorful trams were by that point being used so interchangeably on the various different routes that the early color-coded line system was ultimately abandoned.^[7]

The last horsecar line, the newly built line into West Springfield that had been petitioned for by that city's residents, was electrified by June 1893. By 1895 the Springfield Street Railway's network already included more than 40 miles of track.^[18]

A yellow Springfield tram passes beneath the former Boston & Albany's Main Street Arch.

In 1897, a new auxiliary 'trolley barn' was built for the storage and maintenance of the Springfield Street Railway's growing fleet of electric trams, directly across the street from its Main Street headquarters, the latter of which still stands, unlike the auxiliary trolley barn, which was demolished and is now a gas station.^[19]

The vast majority of the SSR's trams were built just over a mile away on Wason Avenue in the Springfield neighborhood of Brightwood by the renowned Wason Manufacturing Company, nationally renowned for crafting some of the most best and most reliable trams on the market.

By 1890 the Springfield's intersection with the Boston & Albany was finally grade-separated with the construction of Springfield's famous 'Main Street Arch' railroad overpass.^[20]

Rivals & Acquisitions

Palmer & Monson Street Railway / Springfield & Eastern Street Railway

See Article: Springfield & Eastern Street Railway

Springfield & Eastern railway workers in downtown Palmer, 1905, the first year of its lease to the Springfield Street Railway. All of these buildings on Main and Walnut streets have been demolished.^[21]

East of Springfield, the Palmer & Monson Street Railway Company would receive its charter on May 10th, 1897 and quickly set about construction of a new electric railway, which would enter service within a year of incorporation, three years before the Springfield Street Railway would finish electrifying its own routes.^[22][7]

By July 1900, the Palmer & Monson had completed the interurban tram line from downtown Palmer to Main Street in Ware along a fast, mostly grade-separated private right-of-way through the Palmer neighborhood of Whipples.

By the time the Palmer & Monson renamed itself the Springfield & Eastern Street Railway on June 5th, 1901, the company had built and was already operating multiple interurban tram lines from Ware and Palmer to Bondsville, Three Rivers and of course, Monson.^[7][22]

That same year, the Springfield & Eastern would also build a line through North Wilbraham to the Ludlow-Springfield bridge, where it connected with the existing tracks of the Springfield Street Railway's Indian Orchard line.^[7]

Attempts to extend the Springfield & Eastern's own tracks into Springfield proper were made through at least December 1904, but were ultimately rejected by the city's board of aldermen, who by the turn of the century had learned to take the rapidly expanding Springfield Street Railway much more seriously, and were presumably warding off the potential competition on its behalf at that point.^[23]

The following year, any pretense of rivalry was given up, and the Springfield & Eastern Street Railway was leased to the Springfield Street Railway in 1905.^[24] In 1910, that lease would become permanent, and the former Springfield & Eastern would become the new Palmer Division of the Springfield Street Railway following its official absorbtion into the Springfield on November 6th of that year.^[22][25]

Ware & Brookfield Street Railway / Worcester & Warren Street Railway

See Article: Warren, Brookfield & Spencer Street Railway

In Ware and nearby Warren across the county line, the Springfield's line connected with the Ware & Brookfield Street Railway on Main Street, which, along with the Worcester & Warren Street Railway (as the Warren, Brookfield and Spencer Street Railway was known in its final years) operated the other tram lines in Ware and neighboring towns.^[26][27][28]

While at one point, the Springfield Street Railway had made use of the Ware & Brookfield's tracks for an early route to Worcester requiring multiple transfers (not shown), and also operated trolley express (freight) service using its tracks,^[29] neither the Ware & Brookfield nor the Worcester & Warren would ultimately be absorbed into the larger Springfield Street Railway interurban system. Both remained independent until ceasing operations more or less simultaneously in early 1918, at least in part due to wartime austerity.^[30]

Woronoco Street Railway

Trams in the Westfield Historic District around 1910, by which time the Woronoco, Highland and Western Massachusetts Street Railways had all been consolidated into the Springfield Street Railway's new Westfield Division.

Meanwhile, at the time the Springfield Street Railway was being electrified around 1891, across the river in Westfield, horse railways were still going strong. A new horse railroad had been chartered as the Woronoco Street Railway Company and opened in 1891, after constructing a new horsecar line from its stables and future trolley shed at 265 North Elm (still standing today) to Court Square in the present-day Westfield Center Historic District.^[31]

Highland Street Railway

By March 6th, 1894, another local horsecar operation, the Highland Street Railway Company, had taken it upon itself to construct tracks from the terminus of the Woronoco Street Railway near Court Square to what was then "Woronoco Park", a popular horse racetrack directly east of present-day Highland Elementary School (today a residential neighborhood), after the Woronoco had refused to do so.^[32][33]

The Woronoco, which was by then already using self-propelled experimental trams powered by compressed-air on its route(s), subsequently also refused to allow the horse railway, the last of its kind formed in Massachusetts, to use its tracks,^[34] and the government refused to intervene.^[35] Within a year, however, the two companies would merge, and by 1895, the older and now larger Woronoco Street Railway, would absorb the little Highland and its two miles of track, after which the combined system was electrified in short order.^[7]

Western Massachusetts Street Railway

Western Massachusetts Street Railway tram on route to Russell, Massachusetts from Westfield along present-day Route 20 circa 1906.

By 1902, the Western Massachusetts Street Railway Company (WMSR), a third would-be street railway operation in the Westfield area, had been described in the press, and had existed informally and granted franchises at some point as part of an ongoing effort to connect Westfield (and ultimately Springfield) with the Berkshire Street Railway in Lee, and thus to Pittsfield.^[25][36]

That task was ultimately divided between the Berkshire, which would complete the line from Lee to Huntington more than a decade later, and the newly former WMSR, which was formally organized on December 10th, 1904,^[37] after which it rapidly began construction of a ten-mile route between Westfield and Russell, Massachusetts via the neighborhood of Woronoco (ironically not one of those served by the earlier Woronoco Street Railway) which opened as an already fully-electrified line by 1905, with plans to extend the route further west along its chartered route to Lee via Huntington.^[36][7]

These ambitions were realized by Spring 1907, when the line to Huntington was opened.^[38] But before the Western Massachusetts Street Railway had been operational for a full year, it was leased in its entirety to the Woronoco Street Railway.^[37] However, the WMSR subsequently proceeded to petitioned for and was granted permission to absorb its former lessor, and on April 26th, 1907 it did exactly that.^[39]

Due to the more rugged terrain between Lee and Huntington, the Berkshire Street Railway's portion of the Berkshire-Springfield route, which became known as "The Huckleberry Line", that would connect with what, by the time of its completion, had become the Springfield Street Railway's Westfield-Huntington route, due to the Berkshire's line taking until August 17th, 1917 to complete and open for service, at which time the Westfield-Huntington route had been open for 10 years.^[40] This was because on November 30th, 1909, all three Westfield-area tram systems had been officially absorbed by the Springfield Street Railway, and from that point became the SSR's newly formed Westfield Division.^[37]

It was no accident that the Springfield, Berkshire and Worcester interurban systems all shared the same consolidated ownership.^[39] By the time it acquired the three consolidated Westfield companies, the Springfield Street Railway, along with most of the street railways in the region, had already been under the control of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad for some time, at least two years in the Springfield's case, through one New Haven holding company or another.^[7][41]