Making My Way Through Lowell

          Confused by the intricate system of winding streets, canals and bridges I made my way through the downtown of Lowell, Massachusetts looking for a way to get to the Robert B. Kennedy Transfer Center where I would await a train to take me to visit my girlfriend. With about 30 pounds of clothes, and my school supplies, the mile long walk seemed to be much more than just that. The trolley tracks that line the street for much of that mile seemed to tease me with the idea that there were easier ways to get to where I was going. My mind wandered back to a time where these trolleys were bustling with people, back to a time when Lowell was a much different place.

          Back before Lowell was blossoming into a place of industry, it was a walking city. That meant that no matter where someone wanted to go within the city, they had to do it by foot. During my journey through downtown the thought of this seemed miserable, even though this was my first time taking a long walk through Lowell. I thought of the people who walked the same streets I had every single day to get to work and, not that walking is too much of a difficult task, for a moment shared their struggle. But it was not as soon as Lowell became an industrial city that it invested in more efficient means of public transportation, because of the fact that many of the working class, especially the mill workers, remained housed downtown, there was no need for any other system of public transportation.

          It was only when the middle class began to grow and settle in the outlying neighborhoods that a need for mass public transportation became important. The first company to act upon this need was the Lowell Horse Railroad Company, who in 1864 completed a horse powered street car line that connected the Belvidere section of Lowell, on the east side, to Pawtucket Falls on the west side, running through downtown (National Streetcar Museum). This line was profitable for the company and for the people of Lowell, and also opened up the door to many new possibilities for Lowell when it came to public transportation.

          Thinking back to my walk through downtown to the train station, I can't decide if I would have rather sat behind horses and been dragged around, or simply have just walked the distance by myself. The sights, sounds, and smells alone coming from the horses that would be drawing the streetcar would prove to make riding on one of them something to think twice about.

          The needed, next advance in technology came in the late 1880's, when many companies sought more efficient means of transporting masses of people around cities like Lowell. That new technological breakthrough came in the form of the electric streetcar. While compared to what we have today, this technological breakthrough may seem like nothing, being an engineering major myself, just walking around, looking at the tracks and learning about what the actual design is like on the electric streetcar gave me some insight as to what an amazing achievement this new technology was.

          The first electric streetcar, or “Trolley”, of Lowell was first operated in 1889. The trolley system was owned by the Lowell and Dracut Railway Company. Much like the first horse powered line that ran before it, the first trolley line also ran through the densely populated downtown area. This line however, crossed the Merrimack river and ran into Dracut. Over the next few years, the trolley system of Lowell expanded rapidly. The merger of the Lowell and Dracut Railway Company and the Lowell Horse Railroad Company, creating the Lowell Suburban Street Railway Company, allowed for much more expansion of the trolley system throughout the city (Shantz).

          Walking through the streets of downtown, looking at the stone paved streets, and the skyline lined with brick buildings I could almost feel the masses of people that were once here before me. These were the people that utilized services like the trolley system to get to wherever they were going, and during my walk I would have loved to have that opportunity as well. While a horse drawn street car my not be the best option, I certainly would have traded my half-hour walk for a ten minute ride on one of the technological breakthroughs of its time, the electric street car. Around that same time of year, the electric trolleys ran open-air lines that brought people throughout the city. I could see myself enjoying a ride through downtown, watching people go about their business after work, feeling the breeze against my face, and hearing the authentic sounds of an expanding city.

          In the summertime, trolleys would take people out into the country side. A popular destination for many at the time was a place called Canobie Lake (National Streetcar Museum). A lake in New Hampshire that was, at the time, surrounded by a resort, but is now known for Canobie Lake Park, the small theme park that lines one of its shores. As someone who has spent many summer days at Canobie Lake Park, learning that people took trolley's from Lowell to there struck a chord in me. I can understand some of the excitement people had when getting on the trolley after a week of work to go spend some time at Canobie Lake, and while not at a theme park, they to were somewhere they were with the friends having a great time.

          The trolley industry in Lowell did not just experience good times however, as right around the turn of the 20^th century many of the workers urged for better working conditions and higher pay, as they believed they were being treated unfairly. In 1903, they sough to solve this problem and joined with the Amalgamated Association of Streetcar employees to form a trade union, comprised mostly of Irish men. The tension between workers and owners was strengthened by a lack of capital for many smaller companies in cities around Lowell, and forced many owners to cut labor and operating costs, further angering their employees.

          Eventually, the lines that ran in Lowell were acquired by the Lynn and Boston Railroad Company, and another merger with the Bay State Street railway company brought about the decline of the electric trolley's era (Shantz). This merger did nothing to improve the Northeast's railway system, and around the beginning of the 1920's, the decline began to set in. electric trolleys made their last run in Lowell in 1935.

           Now, most that's left of the trolley system in Lowell is what I saw along my walk. The long stretches of unused rail that runs throughout the city, some electric poles that once carried electricity to power the trolleys, and some of the old trolley's themselves that sit near the National Park's Trolley Museum in downtown. That is except for the few days of the year where the National Park opens up the trolley lines, runs electricity though the wires, and operates the trolleys as if it were a day in 1895. These days serve to celebrate that time of change, expansion and hope in many people's lives and in the city of Lowell. Not only did my walk trough downtown let me realize what the trolley system had been, but it let me truly appreciate how something like transportation, which many people take for granted, is an important part of our past, present and future.

The Lowell trolley system in it's hay day, approximately 70 years ago.

(http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/8933)

The re-opened trolleys moving through Lowell in a time much more recent than when they were used first. 

(http://usdotblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00e551eea)

Works Cited

"National Streetcar Museum: History of the Streetcars in Lowell." National Streetcar Museum:     History of the Streetcars in Lowell. National Streetcar Museum, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.

Shantz, Jim. "Massachusetts Streetcar Systems." Massachusetts Streetcar Systems. RPR, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.