New Streetcar Plans Dust Off History

The crinkle of a protective tarp being removed almost drowned out Paul Grether?s excitement. Almost. This as he uncovered a piece of history in the back lot of the Southeastern Railway Museum, and he was a bit giddy.

It is a piece of history that played a huge part in the growth of the city of Atlanta -- history that the city is turning to in preparing for the future.

"All the way up," said Grether.

Grether pulled rope and inched the tarp up, unveiling one of three streetcars that still exist that used to roll the rails around Atlanta. The trolley he uncovered used to run between Atlanta and Decatur in the 20s or 30s. It?s car number 269 and the faded triangles on the sides show it was a five cent trolley. The five cent fare would get you from Atlanta to Decatur with several stops along the way.

A demolition crew found it in Hiram five years ago. It was being used as part of a house. The seats are gone. The motor and wheels are gone. The old body is rusty and wooden parts are weathered and full of holes. The glass is mostly gone except the remains of a few shattered panes. There?s not much left to remind people that it was streetcars like this one that helped build communities like Virginia-Highland, Inman Park, and even Marietta Square.

Now city leaders are turning to them again to help with another growth crisis.

?Atlanta had a very extensive streetcar system. It reached from as far as Marietta out to Stone Mountain. Down as far as East Point, Forest Park and in it's heyday in the 20s the majority of people moved around the city by streetcar," said Paul Grether of the Southeastern Railway Museum.

Film footage from the 1940s shows streetcars operating in Atlanta. According to archivists at the Georgia Power Corporate Archives the first streetcar in Atlanta was pulled by horses or mules and it was built in 1871. Joel Hurt built the first electric streetcar line in 1889.

Just over ten years later, the company that would become Georgia Power consolidated ownership of all the street railway transportation and the streetcar system grew from there. Streetcars reached their peak in Atlanta in the 1920s with more than 200 miles of single track. Buses started stealing business in the late 20s. Cars and trackless trolleys had pushed streetcars out by the late 40s. The end of true streetcars in Atlanta was 1949.

?Automobiles became cheaper and cheaper, more affordable. Government got into the business of building roads and so you had private industry competing with government that made it very challenging for Georgia Power Company," said Grether.

Federal court rulings forced Georgia Power to get out of the streetcar business for good, and since then, the trolleys have been sold overseas or scrapped. Most of the track has been ripped up or covered over.

There are only a few spots where the old system is visible at all. There?s a section of the old track on Lee Street, south of downtown and there are the two old trolleycar bodies that Grether showed to 11Alive's Blair Meeks in Duluth. One more Atlanta streetcar exists, in Connecticut, where enthusiasts have restored it to working order.

Even with so few ties to that past, it is the streetcar that some city leaders now point to as Atlanta?s future.

The first phase of the Peachtree Streetcar would be 10 miles of track from the Woodruff Arts Center to the north to Garnett Street Station to the south, and from the Aquarium to the King Center east and west.

?Congestion in this city is driving a lot of things. People want to be able to walk places and streetcars extend the places you can walk. If you think about those neighborhoods streetcars helped build, they are walkable, small-scale, pedestrian oriented neighborhoods,? said Grether.

Lessons from the past that some community leaders say we can use to solve problems now, and build a better future for Atlanta.