Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina, finds itself enmeshed in a web of conflicting interests when it comes to streetcars. The people who brought vintage streetcars back to Charlotte may end up being victims of their own success.

Streetcars came to Charlotte in 1891 and were essential to the city’s development. Such early streetcar suburbs as Myers Park, Elizabeth, Dilworth, Plaza-Midwood, North Charlotte, Belmont-Villa Heights, and Wesley Heights bear lasting testimony to their impact. But since streetcar service ceased in 1938, automobiles have dominated the cityscape, and in recent decades suburban sprawl has proliferated.

Bootstrap restoration
In 1987, the body of 1927 Charlotte car No. 85—the last car to operate in the city—was purchased by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Historical Landmarks Commission for $1000, and they subsequently raised approximately $250,000 to restore the car. The following year, the nonprofit Charlotte Trolley, Inc. was formed, and restoration on No. 85 proceeded. In addition, a single-truck car from Piraeus, Greece was purchased, and was used for local displays boosting the concept of historic streetcar operation.

Meantime, an old Norfolk Southern freight railroad right-of-way through downtown was acquired. Charlotte Trolley’s leaders felt it was imperative to actually put a car on the tracks—static displays were not enough, they felt, to build excitement. So in the summer of 1994, they hooked up restored car No. 85 to the equivalent of an electrical extension cord, and ran it up and down 875 feet of abandoned Norfolk Southern track south of downtown in a struggling warehouse district. By 1996, this bootstrap operation had connected No. 85 to a diesel generator and was making longer weekend trips, almost reaching the new Convention Center.

Meantime, the leadership of Charlotte Trolley was working hard on the political front. In 1998, their activism paid off, as the Charlotte City Council approved $19.7 million to build a bridge over Stonewall Street, extend the line through the Convention Center, and install overhead wire. Then in 1999, voters agreed to raise the local sales tax by 0.5% to begin creation of a light rail line in this corridor.

Different standards
Sweet success? Not completely. Now the regional transit agency, CATS (Charlotte Area Transit System), entered the picture. For the vintage trolley system to play a meaningful role in the region, Charlotte Trolley’s leaders realized that this was a necessary development. But it brought different standards than they had followed in their bootstrap operation.

For example, daily operation along the two-mile core route was beyond the capabilities of the two authentic antiques Charlotte Trolley owned, so it was agreed to acquire replicas. CATS ordered three double-truck Birney replicas from Gomaco in Iowa, identical to those the company was building for a new heritage operation in Little Rock. These cars started arriving soon after regular service began on the route in June 2004 using car No. 85, now running under overhead wire. (Piraeus No. 1 has been little used on the permanent line, due to its tiny size and lack of ADA accessibility.)

At the same time, CATS planners placed an order for modern Siemens low floor light rail vehicles to run along that corridor, including an extension on the south end (and later to the north as well). With this service expected to open in 2007, they also began questioning whether it made sense to share even part of that corridor with vintage or heritage streetcars.

A line of their own
Faced with the likelihood of playing second fiddle on the corridor they created, Charlotte Trolley’s volunteer president, Terry Shook, is turning his attention in another direction. Shook, who is also president of a highly successful architecture and design firm that relocated its headquarters to refurbished warehouse space along the current trolley route, is a huge believer in the economic stimulus that attractive rail transport can create. He misses no opportunity to point to the new condominiums and other restored warehouses that have sprung up along the trolley corridor.

Shook has taken the lead in pushing the restoration of the traditional streetcar route along one of Charlotte’s main east-west thoroughfares, Trade Street, using genuine antiques to the greatest degree possible. The plan, called ‘Trolleys of the New South’, is built on car No. 85, a 1922 Richmond, Virginia Birney car his group is currently restoring, an Asheville (NC) single-truck car body they have acquired, and additional cars (or bodies) to be acquired in the future. He is trying to raise money to restore the historic Bland Street carbarn, from which No. 85 and its mates operated up until 1938, to house the entire heritage fleet and serve as a museum and education center.

To educate local business and civic leaders on the advantages of using authentic streetcars, Shook invited Market Street Railway President Rick Laubscher to Charlotte in March, 2005 to make a presentation on San Francisco’s experience. Laubscher focused on San Francisco’s waterfront development, driven in part by the F-line along The Embarcadero, and the hefty increase in ridership along the corridor over the bus lines it replaced. This was followed by a panel including Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, historian Dan Morrill, generally considered the ‘godfather’ of vintage streetcars in Charlotte, and other civic leaders, discussing the potential economic impact of a vintage streetcar service on Trade Street, linking colleges, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, the downtown shopping district, and a shopping mall. Mayor McCrory told the crowd of more than 300 people, “You have to have a sense of history to build the future, and make our city competitive for the professional workers of the future.”

The event drew positive media coverage including an editorial in the Charlotte Observer, which concluded: “Historian Dan Morrill, a longtime trolley supporter, said, ‘Charlotte’s been very long on practicality and short on imagination.’ He understands that a historic streetcar touches riders in a way replicas don’t. ‘Every place, to be beloved, has to be remembered,’ he said.

“He’s right. So, are the folks envisioning a fleet of historic cars here someday? The idea deserves the community’s support.”

While encouragement like this is helpful to the cause, Shook realizes it’s going to be an intense process to win support in a city that still puts the automobile first, and generally considers public transportation to be reserved for those with no other option.

Meantime, the replica Birneys continue to operate every half-hour from Atherton Mill and the South End through the Convention Center, downtown to 9th Street in Uptown, seven days a week, with car No. 85 operating primarily on weekends. During the week, the trolleys and the carbarn at the south end of the line are used extensively as a teaching tool, and hundreds of school children are seen riding and inspecting the trolleys. This education program is one of the strengths of the Charlotte Trolley organization, and has helped build public and political support. However, CATS wants to stop service on the corridor during construction of the LRT line, which entails double-tracking the current right-of-way.

Time will tell whether Charlotte can untangle this web and give authentic vintage streetcars a line of their own that serves a real transit purpose and encourages development—or indeed, whether Charlotte Trolley can, in this day and age, locate and restore enough authentic cars to make such an effort feasible. But by daring to dream, they have already scored one strong success, and may well be on the way to another.

Peter Ehrlich contributed to this article. For more information on the Charlotte situation, visit the Charlotte Trolley web site.