Transportation Deployment Casebook/2021/Vermont Streetcar

Streetcar Urban Areas & Systems
Below are a list of urban areas and their respective streetcar systems (‘McGraw Electric Railway Manual’, 1897–1920,):


 * Barre-Montpellier
 * Barre & Montpelier Traction & Power Co. (Barre to Montpelier)
 * Bellows Falls
 * Bellows Falls & Saxton’s River Electric Railroad Co. (Bellows Falls to Saxtons River)
 * Bennington
 * Bennington & Woodford Electric Railroad Co. (Bennington to Woodford)
 * Bennington & North Adams Street Ry. Co. (Bennington to Pownal and further North Adams, Massachusetts)
 * Brattleboro
 * Brattleboro Street Railroad Co./Twin State Gas & Electric Co. Brattleboro Street Railway Division (Brattleboro Centerville to West Brattleboro)
 * Burlington
 * Burlington Traction Co.
 * Military Post Street Railway Co. (Burlington to Essex Junction and Winooski)
 * Burlington & Southeastern Railway Co. formerly Burlington & Hinesburg Ry. Co. (Burlington & Hinesburg)
 * Rutland
 * Rutland Railway, Light & Power Co./Rutland Street Railway Co. (Rutland to West Rutland, and Rutland to Fair Haven and Bomassen)
 * St. Albans
 * St. Albans & Swanton Traction Co./St. Albans Street Railway (St. Albans to St. Albans Bay Park and Swanton)
 * Springfield
 * Springfield Electric Railway Co. (Springfield to Charlestown, New Hampshire)
 * Stowe
 * Mt. Mansfield Electric Railroad Co. (Stowe to Waterbury, Palisades Park)

Streetcars
It is important the note that the term 'streetcar' is used almost interchangeably with other terms such as 'trolley', 'tram' and 'light-rail vehicle' (LRV) depending on the time periord, geographic region and preferencial language use. However, in Vermont during the streetcar era ranging 1885 (first streetcar) to The streetcar as a transportation mode typically describes a vehicle that moves along rails in urban environments. This includes vehicles hauled by horse, rope/cable systems and later, electric motor powered. They were primarily used for passenger transportation and occasionally, mail and industrial goods.

Advantages
The streetcar showed several advantages during its use. Assuming the horse motive power has also been substituted, it was cheaper than horse drawn wagons, removed the pollution effect of manure; and the risk of disease reduced from animal to human interaction.

Streetcars could compete with the existing omnibus systems due to increased productivity with increased speed and larger capacity (Garrison & Levinson, 2014, pp. 120). Furthermore, the streetcar system could easily scale up in capacity to fit the market demand of the local area by deploying subsequent streetcars on a given system.

Setting the Scene
Other modes that were available during the streetcar era include horse-drawn wagons (or 'omnibus'), canal systems, and steam railways.

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Figure X - Horses dragging a large log to the Sawmill in Vermont

The weight capacity of a wagon was low compared to that of a car on rails. The speed of horse-drawn wagons was limited also. Typically the horse would move about 3 mph when hauling a load, and attempts to increase horse speed could lead to the frequently occurring accidents, such as overturned wagons and runaway horses (Davis, 2002, pp. 41).

Current Market Evolution
By 1910, there were approximately 80,000 horses on Vermont farms, and many more in the cities and small towns (Davis, 2002, pp. 40). At this time, it was the main form of transport that provided sufficient power for the ‘short to medium’ length trips.

For longer trips where the limited speed of horse-drawn wagons would be too costly, so travellers would transfer at a stream railway station where available, although not every town was connected to the steam railway network (Davis, 2002, pp. 41).

Given the impracticalities of horse-drawn transport for long distances, and the issues preventing steam railways to run through the urban areas, the need for an intermediary or ‘hybrid’ form of transport was apparent.

Early Stages
What were the initial market niches?

What roles did functional enhancement (serving existing markets better) and functional discovery (serving new markets) play in market development?

Assess the role of policy in the birthing phase

Describe how policies from precursor models were borrowed, and how other policies were innovated;

Identify policies that were embedded, and those that were imposed/sanctioned by government;

Identify policies that were ‘locked in’ during this time;

Growth
The first streetcar line to open in Vermont was the Burlington to Winooski line, opening in November of 1885. At this time, horses were used to haul the streetcars.

The streetcar was not only planned to be used for commuters to workplaces, as special services would be run for theatre events and baseball games.

The Burlington to WInooski line was converted to electricity in 1893, with another line between Rutland and Fair Haven also being electrified the following year.

Early in the 20th century, Vermont had a capital investment in streetcars of more than 4.5 millions (US) dollars, with 137 cars and more than 100 miles of track. In 1902, streetcar passengers numbered close to 5.5 million people in the state.

When it came to electric railways, most were essentially interurban services, however they did travel through the centre of respective urban areas and functioned similar to the typical streetcar system.

Pre-mature Capital
In the beginning, private companies ran the streetcars. Investment into the streetcars was seen after the success of these systems in the big cities such as New York.

An example was with the Mt. Mansfield Company and their system built between Stowe and Waterbury in 1897. The service only ran 4 round trips per day with limited patronage. It was still planned however to have many extensions built to places such as Morrisville, Eden, Craftsbury, Albany, Lowell and Newport.The Mt. Mansfield Company faced many difficulties with the steep grades, heavy snowfalls, mud slides, derailments and unreliable electricity supply. Residents knew that a streetcar was climbing the hills in Shutesville when their electric globes dimmed (Davis, 2002, pp. 132).

Maturity
With limited patronage and the financial hardship experienced by the private streetcar companies, the Vermont streetcar investors either made little money, or went bankrupt (Davis, 2002, pp. 132).

The Mt. Mansfield Company streetcar line between Stowe and Waterbury, while one of the longest running in the state, went out of business during the Great Depression in 1932, concluding the age of streetcars in Vermont (Davis, 2002, pp. 133).

Attempts to adapt streetcar to changing markets, competitive conditions, and policy values.

Forward Improvement Opportunities
In the 21st century, the streetcar (tram, trolley or light-rail vehicle) is no longer the dominant mode of transport it was in the early 20th century, however they are still currently in use in many urban areas and are subject to contentious debate in the transport planning world as to their economic benefit, particularly with the 'bus' mode of transport (Newman, 2019).

Just as the streetcar is considered a hybrid form of transport between the horse-drawn omnibus and the locomotive railways of the time, the trackless tram was born out of innovation combining the automated navigation technologies from high-speed trains and autonomous vehicles, the form factor of an articulated bus, including rubber wheel technology also used on some metro train systems, and recent improvements in battery technology. A trackless tram manufactured by CRRC was first trialled in 2017 in Zhuzhou, China. It aims to dramatically reduce the large capital cost attributed to light-rail infrastructure, while functionally similar. In 2019 the capital cost of Sydney's light rail rose to about 210 million (AUD) per kiliometre, compared to an estimated 4 million (AUD) per kilometre for trackless trams (Newman, 2018).

Quantitative Analysis
An S-curve prediction model approach was selected to establish indicative birthing, growth and maturity stages for the track length (miles) data provided in the McGraw Electric Railway Manuals. The S-curve is defined by the following mathematical definition:

S(t) = Smax/[1+exp(-b(t-ti)]

where:


 * S(t) is the S-curve function of track length (miles) plotted over time (years), also the independent variable
 * t is time (years)
 * ti is the time at the inflection of the S-curve (transition between growth and maturity phase)
 * Smax is the maximum length of track achieved, and the dependent variable to be trialled during analysis
 * b is the slope coefficient of the S-curve calculated during analysis

In order to establish a best fit for the following urban areas, a range of Smax variables were trialled in a spreadsheet (Google Sheets) based on the existing available dataset of track length (miles) over time (years). The selected Smax variable was chosen based on the collective best peformance of: the t-statistics figures over time, the R squared (spreadsheet function RSQ) and the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (spreadsheet function CORREL).

Vermont
Finally, the totalled streetcar track length data for the entirety of Vermont presents the following results:

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Figure 1 - Street Railway Construction in Saxtons River. (Rockingham Free Public Library, n.d.)

Images
Rockingham Free Public Library. (n.d.). Street Railway Construction in Saxtons River. Laying track along Main Street. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://rockinghamlibrary.org/history/items/show/1674