Mass Transit and Railroads

When I gather with other octogenarian rail enthusiasts in Rhode Island, either in person or online, we always come around to the same topic: the Younger Generation. Invariably, three observations …
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I don’t know if I was actually conceived on a train, but my mother was carrying me when she went back and forth on a Southern Pacific train between home …
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In the fall of 1963, I left my native New York City and became an undergraduate freshman at the University of Rhode Island. I chose URI for several reasons. First, …
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Before 1830, travelers from Boston to New York rode by stagecoach down the old Post Road, or sailed around stormy Cape Cod, down along the unpredictable waters of Point Judith …
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Rhode Island once had a mass transit system that crisscrossed the state. Workers took horsecars and electric streetcars from their tenements to the mills and factories during the week. On …
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The pioneering Union (Horse) Railroad Company, Rhode Island’s largest mass transit carrier, survived several competitive scares in the late 1880s. The town of Woonsocket had hosted the first regular electric …
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Building of the Providence Cable Tramway in 1889 fascinated Rhode Islanders. A power house on South Angell Street, near the Seekonk River, pulled 17,000 feet of cable more than an …
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The character and deportment of the Union Railroad’s drivers and conductors won the carrier legions of patrons. The horsecar enterprise, however, was an urban system that operated within a few …
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Passengers and carmen enjoyed a close, personal rapport during the horsecar period. Despite a company prohibition against “unnecessary conversation with passengers,” both drivers and conductors cultivated a clientele almost like …
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The Sprague Brothers’ Union (Horse) Railroad decided to hire the best available personnel by paying generous wages. Horsecar workers received a two-dollar-a-day salary at the inception of service in 1864. …
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