Dayton Trolleys

It's been awhile since I put out an update. For about a year or so, not much changed. Only Route 4 running and construction.

On Jan 9 2024 a large retrenchment in the trolley service in Dayton was announced. Wires in Oakwood on Oakwood Ave and Far Hills Ave in Oakwood would be removed. This was Route 5, which had been stood down due to low ridership and limited driver availability (along with Route 3) in Summer 2021.

Nary a peep was heard in response to this original action in 2021. Frankly, diesel Route 14 (since replaced with a new Route 6) covered any ridership needed in Oakwood, and had been doing so since Route 5 had been cut back from a 3-bus-all-day route in 2007 to a single bus morning and single bus evening route. A "franchise run".

And now, after 118 years of electric service, the wires are being removed in Oakwood.

Let's be very blunt and realistic ... downtown Dayton has lost a lot of businesses in the 50+ years of the RTA's presence in Dayton. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a great deal of traffic on Far Hills Ave, as it served as an arterial street to bring large numbers of residents from the south of Dayton (Oakwood, Kettering, Centerville) downtown. It was difficult to make a left turn from a side street onto Far Hills Ave from about 630AM to 10AM and from 3PM to 7PM due to the heavy traffic. Route 5 then was doing a good business northbound in the morning and southbound in the evening. Being tied at the time with Salem Ave (now 8N), a decent "reverse" commute also occurred where domestic workers from the north side of Dayton would ride south in the morning and north in the evening.

Starting in the 1990s, as downtown emptied, the amount of street traffic began to shrink. Parking became far easier and cheaper downtown, and there was accordingly less need for residents to ride the bus downtown. One could make left turns thru much of the day, even in mornings and evenings. Route 5 service was cut back.

In spite of "old" Oakwood having been built in part by the existence of the Oakwood Street Railway streetcars and in 1936, trolley buses, and being a founding member (that is "funding" member) of the Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority in 1970, "new" Oakwood is not exactly friendly toward the RTA. They have tolerated, but made it no secret that they do not appreciate the presence of wires above their streets and ridership shows residents do not regularly use transit.

The City posted the following on Jan 9 2024.

Oakwood's Press Release.

Seems like a bland, generic press release. Those who wish to complain, can do so at the referenced email spitler@oakwoodohio.gov as written in the press release.

But Oakwood left a "tell" I guess they forgot about. Go to this link on their website:

Oakwood's other statement. This one was out there before the one above. And it's not been scrubbed, but no doubt it will be in order to complete the memory holing and to cloud what happened. Fortunately, the pages have been screencapped when the city discovers this, and we'll keep reminding them. Note the operative words:

"GDRTA will then systematically remove the span poles throughout the rest of the year, leaving the entire corridor much less cluttered and more aesthetically pleasing to residents and commuters."

Pay no attention to the commuters part -- concentrate on the "more aesthetically pleasing". Occam's Razor would indicate "the simplest explanation is probably the most correct." We gotta get rid of those eyesore wires.

The City of Oakwood is a bit too cagey and quick to jump to conclusions with their (alleged) facts. While their words are that the overhead is "obsolete", the brutal reality is that approximately 1/3 of the wire in question (Irving to Beverly Place) is new as of 2014 (with very little wear due to the franchise run), and the south third of that wire is new as of 1999. There's a lot of wire now in the garbage with a lot of life left.

Oh, and the costs to maintain this overhead? We didn't hear what the bill would be to reactivate the line, but we do know that the RTA received $19.6M in FY23 from Federal 5337 State of Good Repair Grants. which are used to build and maintain the trolley lines. This follows $19.5M in similar FY22 funding. Lack of funds would not appear to be a major issue.

As for the RTA ... as a part of ongoing labor disputes, for the last two years, the tree branches on Route 5 have not been trimmed by the Overhead Line Dept, their argument being that because of personnel shortage due to COVID, they are confining their maintenance to only lines in service. Because no buses are running, the Stroop sub has also been used as a parts source to maintain other subs in the network. Again, a funding shortage is not the problem here.

Historically, we offer several examples where the RTA has left abandoned wire up previously, only to restart trolley service years later, as they did with Route 1 and Route 3E. They've also left wire up for in some cases many years -- wire on the old 8N on Kiser was last used in revenue in 1987, and the wire was only removed in 2023. Some of the old wire on 9S, last used as a trolley in 1988 (and seriously considered for re-activation in 1995-1996) stayed up thru the mid-2010s. 8S wire on Nicholas Road stayed up 10 years after the last trolley ran in revenue there in 2007. Route 2 has been a minor trolley route since 1987, but the wire still hangs in east and west Dayton.

Bottom line is that the RTA has many examples of leaving unused wire up. How about Route 5? The "tell" for them is that they fully rebuilt the line from downtown (Washington and Main) all the way to the top of the hill on Far Hills Ave (past Patterson Rd) in the mid-2010s. Most of the poles from Irving north to Washington are brand new and hardly used. As stated in the press release, the concept that the "overhead trolley system through Oakwood is obsolete" is pure bovine scatology. That aside, the RTA has tied off the wire one pole north of Irving Ave (still in the City of Dayton). Were **all** the wire on Route 5 to be removed ... the RTA would've cut it down all the way to Wyoming. Furthermore, the City of Kettering (south of Oakwood) has been silent on this matter. Presumably the wire would also be removed there, as if not, the wire would be orphaned.

But let's get back to Oakwood. While I make it a point to steadfastly avoid mentioning politics on my websites, I'm going to make an exception here. Oakwood is a very affluent community, and since founding as a village in 1908 and after the flood of 1913, had been populated with the leadership (executive, senior and middle management) of the myriad of companies which were based in Dayton. As such, Oakwood was about as "ruby red" as one could get. To wit -- George Bush's aunt lived in Oakwood.

Those bosses and managers have departed (along with Bush's aunt), along with their businesses, and their politics. If we look at the results from the 2020 election from the Montgomery County Board of Elections, we see that 6021 people in Oakwood voted. 3800 of them voted for the Democrat candidate. We can safely say Oakwood is now an affluent Democrat enclave.

Let's be clear. The largest polluters on the street then and now are diesel powered vehicles. Many of the residents echoing their political affiliation would be glad to fervently provide you a lecture on the dangers of fossil fuels, particularly the worst of the worst, the diesel, and the need for the country writ large to shift to electric powered vehicles (a key platform). These individuals have lifted ... nary ... a ... finger to provide any voice or comment on removing modern battery electric buses from Oakwood. For those who proudly unfurled "DO SOMETHING" signs (among others) in their yards four years ago letting all who paid attention to note their virtue, be very happy -- your same city leadership who brought you the peanut roundabout six months ago, has now pushed another government entity to do something.

Using the language supplied, it would appear that the majority believe "aesthetics" trump any worries over using dead dinosaurs for fuel. Your actions (or rather lack of actions) indeed speak volumes and they are noted.

We said goodbye to a longtime friend, Harvey Hylton in Jan 2023. The RTA graciously offered an opportunity to remember Harv, and to allow us to run around on 110 (Harv's all-time favorite trolley) and 9835 (one of the buses Harv was the program manager for while he worked for the RTA) and to stop in some of Harv's favorite places and to remember Harv and all his contributions to the system and to the other enthusiasts. He is sorely missed.

Several enthusiasts from Great Britain came to visit in July 2023, and the RTA ran them around on 110. They provided a nice writeup in Trolleybus Magazine.

BOTTOM LINE: what's running: 4 and 8.

Route commentary:

1 (Third St). Still remains diesel. We understand that it's next in line for rebuilding. The Delphos Sub is at Brooklyn and Third, and serves the entire west side of 8S, 1W, and 4W. The loop at Third and Iona is nearly three miles from the sub. On the Hoosier Traction Meet 2021 fantrip, with five buses running under wire on Lakeview, we brought the sub to its knees (put the diesel-electric on diesel, and run on the battery with the battery-electric and we could run again). System needs some TLC, and rebuilding is a good start.

2. (Fifth-Lexington). Still remains diesel. Has some of the largest concentration of old overhead in Dayton. RTA still considers it a trolley line. No telling on when it might be rebuilt.

3. (Wayne Ave). Not run as a trolley since 2021. While there was water/sewer work on Watervliet, Route 7 ran down Wayne, and ran on the battery on Smithville to Watervliet. Wayne Ave has been sat down as a trolley before (1988-1993) and came back. The RTA rebuilt about 10 blocks of it on Wayne Ave between Wilmington and Wyoming within the last few years.

4. (Hoover-Xenia). Runs three trolleys all day 7 days a week. ~45 minute service.

5. RIP on the south end. The north end wire is still incomplete on the north end of Valley, Bickmore, Brandt, Stanley and Leo as far as Alaska. It'd be great to see this somehow come back as a trolley.

7. Construction on the north end completed. At some point, a new sub augmenting Hillcrest will go in at Maplewood, which will be a little more than a half mile closer to the beginning of the electric portion at Main and Elm Hill, and should address some of the power issues on the 7. On the south end, the overhead has been taken down on Wyoming from Wayne to Arbor, and on Arbor and Phillips to Wayne. As of this writing, many of the pole bases have been replaced, some new line poles are up, and even spanwire is up in a few places. I suppose we could anticipate the route to return to electric in 2024. Unless of course, somebody decides to tear up Watervliet again. This was another example of ancient infrastructure -- some of the line poles on Arbor and Wyoming dated from when the Dayton & Xenia interurban installed them in the early 1900s.

8. In late December, Route 8 came back as a trolley (four trolleys on the line all day), after being down for street and overhead rebuilding since 2021 on the north end. Bluntly, many of the line poles on the inner end (to Grand Ave) dated from the Oakwood Street Railway, and the poles from Neal to Philadelphia dated from the Dayton Street Railway, so it was in dire need of rebuilding. As it stands now, the buses run on the battery from downtown to Hillcrest, where a pan has been installed. There are a few blocks of overhead needing to be installed now that the road construction is complete.

The Barn. Trolley storage was moved across the street to the 601 Longworth garage, with the installation of a new substation there, and wired tracks in the garage. Previously, the 600 building was powered from the Wyoming sub, about a mile and a half distant. Significant numbers of power depleted trolleys would return the barn between 5PM and 7PM, and the power system couldn't adequately handle the charging. With the new sub next to the barn, ample power is no longer a problem.

Transforming a system originally built by five separate companies, which completed all the mergers in 1956, into a system which effortlessly supports In-Motion-Charging doesn't happen overnight. Hint: centralized subs are often not the right answer, as vehicles in most need for charging are at the far ends of the wire, where voltage is low. Substations need to be closer to the ends of the lines to better support charging. If you are visiting Dayton this spring or summer, drop me a line and I might be able to escort you around and answer your questions about the history of the system.

As always, RTA Ridetime is an awesome online resource to find where trolleys are at any given time on the system

Dayton Ohio's public transit history started in 1869, when construction of the horsecar line on Third St, the Dayton Street Rail Road, was begun. This horsecar line began operations in 1870, running from King St (today JH McGee Blvd) to Linden, with an extension to Findlay St opened later in 1870. Four more horsecar lines subsequently opened (Dayton View, Oakwood Street, Wayne and Fifth, and Fifth St) and extensions were added to serve the city before the first electric operation in Dayton in 1888.

The first electric operation was the White Line, which ran from N Main and Forest to Home Ave and King, which was an interchange with horsecars and the Home Ave RR (a steam railroad to the National Military Home -- today the VA Home). Last Dayton horsecar extension was in 1890. The last horsecar line ran up the Wayne Ave hill to the Asylum in 1899, and to the relief of the riders was converted to electricity. At this point, electric streetcars served Dayton's transit needs.

Electric operations grew from the White Line in 1888, with the Red Line (King and Fifth to the VA Home in 1890), Third (1894), Fifth (1894), Oakwood and Dayton View (1895), Wayne and Fifth (then People's Railway -- 1896) and the Dayton Street Railway (1909).

From 1909 to 1933, counting the city streetcar services of two of the nine interurbans which served Dayton, there were six independent streetcar companies in Dayton. After a disastrous carbarn fire on the Dayton Street Railway in August 1932, that line, extending from Linden and Santa Cruz to Salem and Catalpa, was converted to trolleybuses in April 1933, the first such operation in Ohio. Over the next 14 years, the remaining streetcar operations were converted to trolley and gasoline buses. Last streetcar operation in Dayton was on the far west end of Third St in November 1947.

Meanwhile, by 1956, those six streetcar companies turned into a single bus company, City Transit, whose operations were in turn purchased in 1972 by the Miami Valley RTA, renamed the Greater Dayton RTA in 2003. Electric operations in Dayton have grown to follow population movement, diesel bus operations were inaugurated, trolley operations were contracted, diesel operations expanded, and in the late 1990s, a renaissance and expansion of the trolleybus system. Dayton has seen four generations of trolleybuses since 1947, with the most recent fifth generation, the dual-mode "NexGen" trolleys, capable of on-wire and extended off wire operation. These new trolleys, whose demonstrators were built by Vossloh-Kiepe, arrived in 2014, and the production fleet, built by Kiepe, was put into service in 2020.

The utilization of trolleybuses make Dayton a part of a unique set of transit operators in North America; there are only five trolleybus cities in the US (Dayton, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia and Boston) and one in Canada (Vancouver), although trolleybuses are operated extensively in Europe and China. The uniqueness of this mode of transit is the focus of this website. This website is not affiliated in any way shape or form with the Greater Dayton RTA.

Info and material to share is always welcome.

www.trolleybuses.net Dayton page Older Dayton trolleybus photos	Cory's Dayton page	www.newdavesrailpix.com Dayton page Dayton streetcars and interurban photos	Off-site Links to Dayton Transit info
Pictures (mostly recent) Vosslohs, ETIs, BBCs, a few Flyers and a few diesels	Historical items: Interurbans, streetcars, maps, signs, rosters, dates, reports, studies	Dayton Railway Historical Society	Harvey Hylton's Historical Docs Trolleybuses: A Dayton Local Legacy Dayton Public Transit: 1870-Present The Washington St Calamity
Greater Dayton RTA website GDRTA Facebook page
*Why does it appear you have four websites containing nearly the same information?* Answer: I control three of the sites, and provide webspace to host the fourth. Material is nominally segregated: - www.daytontrolleys.net contains photos of Dayton I own, or material I've created. Mostly recent photos, with some historical material covering history back to 1869. If it's a historical writeup, illustrated with pictures, it's likely here. - www.trolleybuses.net contains trolleybus photos from cities all over North America taken by or owned by others. Primarily older photos and ads. If somebody besides me took the photo in Dayton, it's likely here. - www.newdavesrailpix.com is a site originally built by Dave, which contains photos of electric rail transit from all across the country, including Dayton. With Dave's passing, I host that material. If I don't possess the physical Dayton streetcar/interurban photo, it's likely here. - Cory's page is my friend Cory's page on Dayton buses which I host in my webspace. That site contains his photos.