Dayton Trolleys

Apologies for lack of updates. I guess maybe it means loss of regular visitors. Life unfortunately for me, has been intervening.

For those who don't want to read: 4, 7, and 8 run as trolleys every day

The trolley system in Dayton is alive and well. In many ways, it's going thru yet another metamorphisis.

The brutal reality is that the system architecture is fundametally built to accomodate 180 1930s-1940s Marmons and Brills operating 8 trolley routes in an urban environment, all under wire. Such a setup implies relatively light trolleys needing more power closer to downtown to support closer headways. Those light trolleys with GE1213 motor-controls don't mind low voltage too much -- they just will operate a little bit slower at the far reaches as the voltage goes down. Thus the system's optimal design is to put a large power source in the center, with a few substations located halfway-ish to the very edges of the network.

Dayton's six streetcar / seven interurban (some of the interurbans ran city streetcars) started with big power stations near downtown, and accepted that the voltage would be low as you got further from downtown. Think early 20th century interurbans. As streetcars changed to trolley bus, the main power source in the city for the various lines became the Fourth St Sub, built in 1913 to put single wire operation downtown, and operated until the 1980s by Dayton Power and Light -- the companies and later the RTA bought their 600V power from DPandL. As the various companies folded and eventually consolidated into City Railway, substations around town were built, particularly where there was no corresponding interurban power source. Over time, and thru the 1980s, a good chunk of the power came from 4th St, with a few medium sized subs (Wyoming [replacing the D&X sub at Smithville], Conover [City Railway], Hillcrest [replacing power from People's Railway], Huffman [City Railway]) feeding the network.

By the 1990s, this too became inadequate. New extensions to lines were being built, and the trolley buses to operate them (Skoda-ETIs) would need better power further out, and so a few new subs were installed (Stroop, Germantown, Delphos, Fauver, Fairgreen), Conover was taken off line [and the building demolished literally in the middle of the night], and Hillcrest, Wyoming, and Huffman were refreshed by the turn of the 21st Century.

With the next iteration in design either a diesel-electric or battery-electric vehicle capable of significant distance and speed operation off wire, allowing the network to expand even further, the system's architecture would also have to evolve. With the decision in favor of a modern battery-electric fleet, this brings several challenges.

A modern transit vehicle is a rolling computer ... it boots more than it "starts". Such vehicles do not tolerate low voltage at all. Further, they're far heavier vehicles with tons of battery packs as compared to their Skoda, Flyer and Marmon predecessors, and with off wire operation, the newer vehicles need their best power available at the ends of the lines where they will be returning to wire with depleted batteries. Moreover, to support in motion charging, the power has to be every bit of 600V everywhere, as not only are you charging big battery packs on the fly, you also need to propel heavy vehicles who don't like low voltage under wire.

Aside from potentially the old Route 5S, where the Stroop sub went in at literally the end of the line, and 8N Dayton's power system was not very well situated to support good power at the edges of the system AND to keep the power level high. And ... parts of the system have been hanging in the air used many years in daily operation, but not having been refreshed in 75+ years. While all the first generation trolley bus infrastructure from 1936 has been removed in the past 5 years, there is still a bit of relatively undisturbed streetcar infrastructure still in the air. Chunks of the system are ... old.

It's a relatively long way to go to say that we're currently living thru the system being changed/updated. That's one of the things the Federal Money is for. Here's the current status:
- Route 4E was rebuilt in the early 1990s. It had then "experimental" "feederless" 4/0 trolley wire strung with no feeder. Larger running wire should not need feeder. Consider that a debunked myth -- feeder was later reinstalled, but the running wire is still there.
- Route 4W was rebuilt in the 2010s, as it was expanded. Everything from McGee/Third west is new -- whether the former 3W portion built in the 1990s, or the inner section. Trolleys operate Route 4 every day.
- Route 7N at the far north end is rebuilt after the 2019 tornado, and has had regular trolley operation since the summer of 2024. Inner sections almost to downtown have new poles, feeder and running wires.
- Route 7S inner end, from Wayne/Watervliet north to Main/US-35 is all new over the past two years. Many of the 1900s era original DaytonAndXenia interurban line poles (yes, there were several out there that old) were replaced with modern poles. All the wire was replaced as well. South/East of Wayne/Watervliet are being rebuilt now, with remaining DandX infrastructure being removed and replaced. Trolleys operate this section, on the battery, all the way to Eastown Hub.
- Route 8N still is under construction -- driven by the City of Dayton. Salem Ave had not had major construction done in perhaps 60 years, and that is looking like it's beginning to wrap up in the next few months. There are a lot of new poles, feeder and overhead from Hillcrest southward. North of Hillcrest is not too old, having been rebuilt in the early 1990s with infrastructure from the old Route 2W. - Route 8S is in OK shape. A good chunk of the inner parts from downtown to Gettysburg/Broadway are new due to US-35 construction in the 1990s, as well as the western edge on Gettysburg to Third. At some point, the portion on Lakeview will need to be rebuilt. Trolleys operate on Route 8
- Route 1E has wire removed from the section insulator at Jersey eastward due to an accident and later cleanup. East Third St remains a veritable pole museum, where we find a few 1894 poles still holding trolley wire in the air.
- Route 1W also needs to be rebuilt. The diesel-electric trolley demonstrators, 1401-1402 operated on Route 1 for several weeks in the summer of 2024, but the unwired distance in the east end does not permit revenue trolley operation. Not enough time/distance to give the batteries a good IMC.
- Route 2W and 2E are not able to support modern power hungry trolleys and need rebuilding on both ends

BOTTOM LINE: what's running: 4, 7 and 8. And they operate most every day.

The RTA Trustees approved purchase of up to seven new subs. One has been installed at the garage in order to provide adequate power to charge buses coming in out of service. Waiting to hear where new or replacement subs might go in.

That's it for infrastructure

Kudos as always to the Trolley Shop. Marmon 559, ex-Columbus 643, the World Famous Christmas Trolley, is operable.

559 appeared in the Children's Parade on Nov 29. On Saturdays and Mondays from Thanksgiving to Christmas, 559 ran downtown with Santa to run the public around a loop to celebrate the season. After the conclusion of this service, 559 ran around a little bit for a few fans on Dec 30.

Those keeping score would note this to be the fourth operable historic trolley in Dayton, joining Flyer 937, BBC 110, and Skoda 9835.

We look forward to a productive 2025. I'll try to do better on updates, but no guarantees.

As always, RTA Ridetime is an awesome online resource to find where trolleys are at any given time on the system. If you are Facebook capable, there is also an active Facebook private group at Dayton Trolleys Fans

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.