• daytontrolleys.net
• Local Legacy Title Page / Table of Contents
• The Story
  • Title Page / Table of Contents
  • Background
  • Enter the Electric Streetcar
  • Enter the Electric Trolley Bus
  • Company Overviews
    • Dayton Street Railway
    • Oakwood Street Railway
    • Peoples Railway
    • Dayton-Xenia Railway
    • City Railway
    • City Transit
    • City Railway
    • The Christmas Bus -- A Dayton tradition
  • Transition from Public to Private
  • The Fight to Keep the Trolleys
• The Dayton Trolley Fleet
  • Dayton trolleybuses purchased new
  • Dayton's used trolleybus fleet
  • Dayton's seasonal trolleybuses
• Dayton Trolley Routes
  • Don Brabson's trolley route history
  • City Transit trolley routes circa 1958
  • MVRTA route changes in the 1980s and 1990s

People's probably was the weakest of all the car properties in Dayton; they were the only one not controlled locally. They had badly deteriorated trackage and an aging fleet of cars. They also had many rail crossings with the steam railroads, which they had to maintain.

After The People's observed the success that the DSR and OSR were having with their new ETBs, they moved rapidly to convert their three crosstown streetcar lines with ETBs. PRC had only Brill coaches, 18 T-40 models, and 26 of the larger T-44-S models.

The first line converted, on October 11, 1936, was their #9 route, Cincinnati-Valley. On August 14, 1938, the #8 line, Lakeview-Leo, became ETB operated. The final PRC rail line, #7, N. Main-Wayne, commenced ETB service on August 18, 1940. This line was extended on Wayne about a mile to a new loop at Fauver at that time. Until then PRC rail cars "wyed" at Epworth and Wayne, one city block short of the D-X rail line at Phillips. During WW II, wartime tire rationing authorities directed PRC to cut this line back to Wayne and Wilmington Pike, to conserve rubber. The thinking was that the PRC Fauver extension could be served by the closely paralleling D-X line. PRC's Lakeview line was also cut back considerably during the war.

On March 9, 1945, the entire PRC, system, with all 44 red and cream Brills, was sold to the larger City Railway Company. Now only D-X and OSR remained outside the City Railway/City Transit Co. fold.