Mass Transit and Railroads

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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Providence was ready to experiment with a new form of transportation at the end of the Civil War, a means of travel popularized in several other Metropolitan areas. New York …
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As the stagecoach disappeared from the urban scene with bittersweet memories for drivers and passengers, it was replaced temporarily by the next stage in the evolution of local mass transit—the …
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Most public bus routes that crisscross Rhode Island today overlay track beds that once supported-electric trolleys and horsecars. Before the railways, the rickety omnibus and its rough and tumble predecessor, …
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Railroads came to Rhode Island in 1835 with the Boston & Providence line, initially using crude horse-drawn carriages (looking like stagecoaches on rails). The line actually started operations several …
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