Paul Ward's Collection
In 1929 Louisville Railways ordered 3 sample cars from Brill, St Louis Car & Cincinnati Car - the idea being to test the 3 samples and then place a large order for new cars - Louisville operating many types of old cars and a large number of modified Birney cars.  This photo shows the StLouis car called a Rail Sedan which was a popular car used by several different companies including the East StLouis & Suburban Ryls.  The St. Louis rail sedans only ran on the East St. Louis system, and one additional car went to Louisville. There were no other cars built. The MSRy 400s were the most modern ever used by the system, and they were bought when MSRy was able to one-man the "south of Market" lines. A Market Street Railway official was asked
why the 400s were exclusively assigned to such an insignificant line (35-Howard & 24th), and he replied that it would have been embarrassing to the company to intermingle the cars on more well-patronized lines, with older equipment. He added that the company would have bought as many of the cars as they could.
Happily, they also purchased some 1928 cars from the E. St. Louis & Suburban for use on the same "south of the slot" lines. After the SF court ruled their use illegal, and mandated the company to go back to two-man operation, all of the ESL&S cars were scrapped at Funston Yard in 1940.
Louisville wanted to order more of the Brill cars but was unable to do so due to financial problems - and the 3 sample cars remained until the end of streetcar services in about 1949. The Louisville car spent much of its life as a "hanger queen".
Caption data by Paul Ward, Bill Volkmer and Wayne Roberts Back to Paul Ward's page
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