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Photo from the collection of Peter Folger, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
The Cincinnati Traction Company was among the most interesting and energetic of America's big city streetcar companies. A unique operating manifestation resulted from a lawsuit by the local telephone company that contended problems with underground cables had been occasioned by stray return currents arising from poor electrical power return bonding of the streetcar tracks. Although the suit was eventually overturned, the company used dual overhead trolley wires for the duration of its electric operations, including a trolley bus era who overhead wire conversion problems were largely solved ahead of time. As with Washington's underground current collection system, Cincinnati's suburbs had never mandated double overhead. On some lines beyond the city limits, cars ran under a single trolley wire with one pole hooked down.
The traction company had a large car building operation that was separated early on to become the Cincinnati Car Company. A number of operating companies built for others, either directly or via subsidiaries, but this was surely the nation's largest and most successful carbuilding operation under the aegis of an operating streetcar firm. Although most production ceased around 1931, Cincinnati Car remained nominally in business with some miscellaneous work until it was wiped out by the Great Ohio Flood of 1937. Until then, however, nearly all the cars of the parent company's fleet were built by the Cincinnati Car Company during both the traditional and lightweight epochs. Dominant among the former were almost 600 heavy wooden cars of several classes built between 1905 and 1919. Slightly different, they had a familial local ambiance, beyond the double trolley poles. Seashore's 2105 of 1917 is typical, perhaps the epitome of the huge fleet.
One of only three of the wood cars still known to exist, No. 2105 was donated to the Museum in 1993 by Mrs. A.V. Chambers. The carbody was a gazebo in the yard of her home in the Cincinnati suburb of Madisonville when she purchased the property nearly two decades before. The 2100 Series cars had maximum traction trucks and, on these single end cars, they both had the pony wheels facing forward. These are the only examples of this manifestation known, and this is the only survivor of that car group. The 2100s were largely operated on the heavy Vine-Ludlow route, on which also resided the president of the traction company, who felt that he and his neighbors deserved something special. Accordingly, he ordered a number of the 2100 Class cars equipped with double drop sash, and deluxe seating and lighting. No. 2105 was one of those so equipped.
History from Historic Cars: The National Collection at the Seashore Trolley Museum by Ben Minnich
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