Cincinnati Car Company
.jpg) C&LE #119, one of the famed "Red Devils", at the Ohio Railway Museum in 1966 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Streetcar builder |
| Founded | Cincinnati, Ohio (1902) |
| Defunct | 1938 |
| Headquarters | Cincinnati, Ohio , USA |
The Cincinnati Car Company or Cincinnati Car Corporation was a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and (in smaller scale) buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1928, it bought the Versare Car Company.
Products
[edit]The company was among the first to make lightweight cars. Its chief engineer Thomas Elliot designed the curved-side car, a lightweight model that used curved steel plates (not conventional flat steel plates) in body construction. Instead of the floor, the side plates and side sills bore the bulk of the weight load. Longitudinal floor supports were no longer needed, which made the cars lighter than conventional cars. The first cars of this type were sold in 1922.[1] For instance, the Red Devil weighted only 22 short tons (19.6 long tons; 20.0 t).[2] Curved-side cars were also called "Balanced Lightweight Cars".[1]
In 1929, the company designed new lightweight partially aluminum low profile high-speed coaches for the electrified Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad interurban that operated between Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo. Twenty were purchased, painted bright red, and called Red Devils by the C&LE. These interurban cars, whose open country speed could reach 90 mph (140 km/h), were a forerunner of today's high-speed trains. Both the carbodies and new design small wheel low riding trucks were well adapted for high-speed running on light rail rough track. In 1939, the C&LE abandoned operation, and the Red Devils were sold to the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway (CRANDIC) in Iowa and the Lehigh Valley Transit Company in Pennsylvania. They continued to operate successfully and well into the 1950s.[3]
Another customer of the Cincinnati Car Company was the Northern Indiana Railway which was centered in South Bend, IN, and had interurban lines radiating out to Michigan City and Goshen in IN and St. Joseph, MI. Cincinnati Car Company cars were purchased by the Northern Indiana Railway over the years for interurban and streetcar service as well as freight trailers and flatcars.
The Northern Indiana Railway purchased ten new streetcars from the Cincinnati Car Company in 1930 which was the next to last order for new cars built by the company. After the Northern Indiana Railway abandoned its last five streetcar lines in 1930 and replaced them with buses these streetcars went onto the Virginia Electric Company in Richmond where they continued in use until 1949. [4]
Preserved cars
[edit]Cincinnati Car Company ceased operations in 1938, but several of its original streetcars are preserved, for instance at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum, Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal and the Seashore Trolley Museum.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b "Historical Sketch" in "Cincinnati Car Corporation Collection, 1902-1931; 1965, Collection Guide" (PDF). Indiana Historical Society. 2000-09-20. Retrieved 2012-11-05.
- ^ J.L. Koffmann (April 1980). "Der Rollenstromabnehmer in Amerika [The Trolley Pole in America]". Der Stadtverkehr, pp. 182–184.
- ^ William D. Middleton (1961). The Interurban Era, Kalmbach Publishing Co.
- ^ Bradley, George (1998). Northern Indiana Railway Inc. Central Electric Railfans Association. ISBN 978-0915348329.
Further reading
[edit]
- Cincinnati Car Company
- Rolling stock manufacturers of the United States
- Defunct companies based in Cincinnati
- Manufacturing companies based in Cincinnati
- Tram manufacturers
- Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1902
- 1902 establishments in Ohio
- Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1938
- 1938 disestablishments in Ohio