  Aiw Member Username: Aiw Post Number: 6370 Registered: 10-2003 |
A good friend of mine recently digitized some old DSR movies and put them up on youtube. This DSR film "Getting Around" has three parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =WYTH3AtAko0 This is part one. Click "More from this user" to see part 2 and 3. Also there is a driver training film online too... That one is called "Safe Coach Operation". Check them out, some neat old city shots and behind the scenes stuff too. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 757 Registered: 12-2006 |
Does anybody know where someone could find old DSR timetables, if such things existed? I am curious to know what the level of service was during the peak of the streetcar era, say from 1915 to 1930 or so. That's not completely related, but this seemed a reasonable place to post the request, rather than starting a whole new thread for it. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3985 Registered: 10-2004 |
Considering that most, if not all, of the streetcar routes had to share single tracks combining several lines for stretches meant that keeping any such routes to timetables would be nearly impossible. Streetcars, unlike buses, cannot pass slower streetcars and would necessarily have to follow in serial fashion. I would expect any possible timetables to be confined to the fiction stacks in any library collection... | ||
Stinger4me Member Username: Stinger4me Post Number: 50 Registered: 08-2007 |
Thanks for posting the video, brought back a few memories of by-gone days in the Motor City. Stinger | ||
Ragtoplover59 Member Username: Ragtoplover59 Post Number: 136 Registered: 09-2006 |
Aiw, Any chance of these being available to us on DVD or Disk in the future? or is some other project in the works? | ||
Gibran Member Username: Gibran Post Number: 1101 Registered: 02-2007 |
just think how amazing the work ethic, and the pure determination of those people...and how our city grew in twenty years... amazing times... | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3986 Registered: 10-2004 |
And where were the unions back then during those amazing times? What most Detroiters just don't want to accept was that Detroit peaked during the late 1920s and slipped slowly away over the past eighty years. WWII brought it back for a very short bit, and the global devastation resulting from that conflict enabled the US and Detroit to benefit for a couple decades or three until the rest of the planet rejuvenated themselves and surpassed us. We're now living in the Pacific Rim era. Face it. Wishful thinking won't change that. | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 1950 Registered: 01-2005 |
Great shots of the Dexter bus. Someone page Jjaba.  | ||
Mdoyle Member Username: Mdoyle Post Number: 208 Registered: 10-2006 |
I agree Livernoisyard, the population decrease has been going on for a long time, not just since the uprising. I like how that video gives the foreshadowing of what would become the great sprawl that was to come. Stating that while the city lost 20 some percent pop the outlying areas gained 70 something and this is in the 30's. By the 40's with the introduction of the GI bill sprawl just became rampant and birthed suburbia. sigh. | ||
Terryh Member Username: Terryh Post Number: 535 Registered: 11-2006 |
Great footage Aiw. I have a book about the streetcar era you mention Professorscott. I believe it covers the history of the DSR 1880-1925. Did anyone recognize any streets or buildings. Some of the footage in part 1 looked like Oakman-Grand River. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3987 Registered: 10-2004 |
Another piece of evidence of "what Detroit was and now is" was all the former Catholic high schools scattered all over Detroit, including the largest, naturally, in Michigan. Many parishes had their own high schools--Ste. Hedwig's, St. Gabes, the one near Fort and Springwells, Holy Redeemer, etc. were just the ones very close to here. Their parishioners surely would not have put up all that money if they thought that Detroit would decline so rapidly. Ditto for the even larger number of parochial K-8 schools. | ||
Jimaz Member Username: Jimaz Post Number: 3308 Registered: 12-2005 |
Aiw, please thank your friend. This is very important work. | ||
Aiw Member Username: Aiw Post Number: 6372 Registered: 10-2003 |
From what I understand, copies have been floating around for years. A friend got a copy from a friend's friend on VHS, converted from an original 16mm copy, which my other friend converted to digital format. I don't believe that there are any plans to make copies. This is more of a "share with the transportation nerd crowd" thing. Enjoy them online, it's better than nothing. ----- Jim I will thank him. | ||
Irish_mafia Member Username: Irish_mafia Post Number: 1042 Registered: 10-2003 |
and everyone of them was heated by a Peter Smith Heater company heater! | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 758 Registered: 12-2006 |
LY, Believe it or not, they mostly can keep to a schedule, though not precisely. I don't know how they managed it in Detroit, but in some streetcar systems they handled the schedule vs. reality problem according to a couple of simple rules: 1. No vehicle could leave its starting point ahead of time under any circumstance. 2. If a streetcar was so late that its arrival times started to be closer to the next trip than its correct trip, they would trip-shift all the cars. So let's say you had a line with a streetcar every 10 minutes, if the 9:10 was delayed to 9:17, they would make the 9:10 become the 9:20 and every trip after it would shift "down" one trip. Toronto, by the way, doesn't do any of this so far as I can tell. It's a nice system but very odd. The streetcars "bunch" and you'll have a line where there's supposed to be a streetcar every 10 minutes; you'll see three go by, one right after another, and then nothing for a half hour. Now a question for everyone since we're strolling down streetcar lane. I think the only cities in North America that have had continuing streetcar service throughout the 20th century up to now are: Toronto, Pittsburgh, New Orleans. Am I missing any? Still would like to see a timetable by the way... | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 339 Registered: 10-2003 |
Still...Boston, Cleveland? up to very recent...Newark, Philly all the mighty PCC | ||
Missnmich Member Username: Missnmich Post Number: 614 Registered: 11-2004 |
Muni Metro has been rolling along in San Francisco for years. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 760 Registered: 12-2006 |
Does SF operate streetcars or just cable cars? I knew about the cable cars. My dad was a contestant on Jeopardy, the original one with Art Fleming and Don Pardo that was on NBC in the 1960s, and he didn't win but he got the consolation prizes, one of which was "a year's supply" (two 24-box cases) of Rice-a-Roni, which of course has a picture of a SF cable car on the box. My mom is Italian, and has never cooked a rice dish in her life, so as far as I know the 48 boxes of Rice-a-Roni are still in the garage of her house, back in Noo Yawk. | ||
Cman710 Member Username: Cman710 Post Number: 370 Registered: 07-2006 |
I wouldn't consider Boston's Green Line to really be a street car system. While the cars themselves may be streetcar-like (I don't know enough about streetcars to know for certain whether they are actual streetcars), they do not actually travel on the street. Rather, they travel (a) underground, or (b) in the middle of medians of streets, set off by fences from normal traffic. | ||
Missnmich Member Username: Missnmich Post Number: 615 Registered: 11-2004 |
The cable cars run on two steep lines in the central city, they are largely for the tourists. The street cars start as subways(riding a layer above BART) until they get to Upper Market, where they surface and scatter to points south and west. The lines left are lettered J,K,L,M,N. I lived near the N Judah line for years, and the clustering of cars was like Toronto's. Everybody loved to hate Muni. Thanks Andrew, I never get tired of those old flicks! | ||
Rustic Member Username: Rustic Post Number: 3170 Registered: 10-2003 |
Anyone else click on this thread reading it as "1930's DSR Porno Movies"? I reckon 1930's streetcar porn be the opposite of Auto-erotica ... | ||
Rhymeswithrawk Member Username: Rhymeswithrawk Post Number: 904 Registered: 11-2005 |
Thanks for sharing!!! Neat! | ||
Cheddar_bob Member Username: Cheddar_bob Post Number: 1294 Registered: 10-2003 |
Rustic, Yes. Dammit. | ||
Jrvass Member Username: Jrvass Post Number: 222 Registered: 01-2007 |
Seattle just began a streetcar system called South Lake Union Transit. You too, can ride the SLUT! Google it! | ||
Rustic Member Username: Rustic Post Number: 3171 Registered: 10-2003 |
OK I finally watched all 3 movies. Two comments: (1) Gannon and Mauser might be interested in seeing thermite welding in movie 2 (2) In movie 3, I think, the narrator states that Detroit's central core had depopulated while the overall city grew (my words not his). This was in 1930! Detroit's trends run DEEEEEP. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 772 Registered: 12-2006 |
Curious how much it costs to ride the SLUT. Just wondering. Can you get a pass and ride all day? Is there a senior discount? I better stop... | ||
Ookpik Member Username: Ookpik Post Number: 333 Registered: 01-2007 |
Check out this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =OzvSgCm5WOM&mode=related&sear ch= Safe Coach Operation - Part 1 At about 2:37 Jjaba steps off the Dexter bus - Rare footage! Ookpik | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6555 Registered: 02-2004 |
DSR Railcars, those were the days. We missed them so. |
