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The
(by Jim Shulman)
(May 2004)
Remember
Can you remember riding on the
As
a youngster, Saturdays were very special. It was the time when my mother would
take us (kids) downtown on the bus for shopping, lunch at one of the five and
dime counters and sometimes a movie. One of the highlights of our
excursions was the bus trip itself. We delighted in putting the coins in
the clear glass part of the coin box on the bus and watching the driver, in his
uniform and official cap (See Picture 2..) , flick the money down out of
sight into the bottom metal section and every once in a while turn a
crank to churn the coins. If we gave him a quarter, fifty cent piece or a
dollar, he'd reach to his coin changer near the steering wheel and give us our
change which we'd then put in the box.
Drivers would
sometimes stand up and crank a lever at the top front of the bus which would
change the destination on the outside sign. I was impressed how he could read
the route name through a small hole with only part of the backside of the
letters visible. Then we were off and could experience a predictably, but
fun, bumpy ride with squeals, gears grinding and rumbling noisy
engines.
I
remember reading all the ads on the large cards posted all along both sides
near to the ceiling of the bus. I can still picture the Doublemint Gum ad, a product which I never tried until I
was well into my teens. When the busses were ever crowded and people had
to stand, there were leather straps to hold. These were attached to a long pipe
like bars suspended from the ceiling. As a kid, I knew I could never
reach them, but also knew I could always hold onto the handles on the backs of
the seats. My favorite seats were the ones over the tires giving less leg room
and perfect for a kid with shorter legs!
Soon
we were near our stop, so it was time to pull the string running above the
windows on both sides. A special treat that we would love. The bell would
ring, and we were let out the front side door even though most busses had a
rear side door as well.
On
Saturdays we rode the hourly Dawes Ave. Bus to and from
As a child, my favorite bus driver was Herman "Gabby" Garbowit who always had a smile and would share gum or
snacks with his passengers. One time Gabby stopped a bus in front of my Kool Aid stand on
The Trolleys of the Berkshires and their demise
Throughout the United States, the Great Depression largely contributed to the
demise of trolley systems. Following the depression, gasoline
became more available and automobiles became more acceptable to the
public. However, few families could afford their own cars in the 30s so
the door was opened for busses to operate within urban areas and
interurban, between towns and cities. It was a natural move for the trolley
companies to make the transition from electricity to gas, trolleys to
busses. Although some trolley companies did keep electric lines operating
by having trackless trolleys that were simply busses run by electricity
from the overhead wires used by the trolleys. (If the driver made too wide a
turn, the bus would become disconnected from the lines and he would have to get
out to reattach to the wires.) A handful or so cities still
operate trolleys and/or trackless trolleys to this day.
The Berkshire Street Railway Company
When it came to the transition to gasoline powered busses the Berkshires
were right in stride with the rest of the
http://www.newdavesrailpix.com/berk/berk.htm
http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=14037
http://gino.cdfw.net/_trolleypage/Hoosick/index.html
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http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:dUAfW7bzhUgJ:206.103.49.193/berk/berk.htm+%22Berkshire+Street+railway%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Berkshire Trolleys helped build the Golden Gate Bridge!
By the 1930s the BSR converted their trolley routes as much as possible to be
serviced by busses. All of the trolley runs ended by September 1932. In 1933
most of the overhead lines were removed and rails were either pulled up for
scrap metal or buried under asphalt. Almost all of the trolleys were
taken to
The Transition to Busses
In 1930, the Berkshire Street Railway began buying busses that held 21
passengers. The first busses were four Yellow Coach manufactured models
and then twenty-one Studebaker models. These early busses looked
like what we might describe today as old school buses. (Picture 7.
shows the very first bus and Picture 8.shows many of these early busses picking
up skiers at the railroad station in the mid 1930s.) The BSR stored its
busses in the old trolley barns located on
The Bus Routes
By 1930 the interurban bus routes ran from Pittsfield as far north as
Bennington (24 miles) and then to Great Barrington (15 miles) in the
south, paralleling the railroad's Housatonic River line. Over the years the
Park Square - Dawes Avenue
Park Square - Chapman's Corner (Remember Tom's Variety Store on Holmes
there)
Park Square - Plastics Avenue
Park Square - Hillcrest Hospital - Churchill Street
Elm Street- Benedict Road
Lake Avenue North - Lake Avenue West
Richmond Road - West Pittsfield - Lanesboro
Dalton Town Line - Pittsfield Country Club
In addition BSR busses were used over the years for public school
transport and charter services. As I mentioned, I used to ride them three
to four days a week in the late 50s from South Jr. High to
The
Over the years the Berkshire Street Railway either bought or leased 183 busses
in toto. In 1947 after acquiring seven new
vehicles, the BSR was in its hey day with a total of 78
operating busses and three trucks. There were 145 employees with 100
drivers. (Picture 10 shows the busses in the hey day.) Over the years the BSR
bought busses from many different manufacturers. These included
vehicles made by the Yellow Coach Company, Studebaker, Erskine, Packard, Mack,
Twin, Chevrolet, Ford, ACF, Beaver, GM, and Brill. (A complete
roster appears in Pictures 11. and 12.) (Pictures 13. - 20. show many of the
different styles and makes of the busses.)
The company continued to buy gasoline busses up until 1951 and did not convert
to purchasing diesel busses until then. However, only two years later, in 1953,
the last busses were purchased. By then the Railroad lost interest
in the bus company and with more suburban areas growing further from the
bus routes and the post WW II boom, automobiles began to
replace busses among the
What happened to those blue busses?
Ironically the busses went the route trolleys did only 30 years
earlier. Trolleys were replaced by busses that in turn were replaced by
automobiles. The Berkshire Street Railway busses were old and tired when the
company went bankrupt in 1963. The newest of the company's busses were
already ten years old which is considered very old for a vehicle by
today's standards.
Some of the earliest retired BSR busses may have been used for homes in
the late 40s and early 50s. As a kid I remember two or three old BSR
busses on the ride over
So once again those of us who traveled the Berkshires or
References:
Motor Coach Age. February 1968, Vol. XX, No. 2. Published by
the Motor Bus Society, Inc. (
Special thanks to Kinsley Goodrich and Nancy
Milne for assistance.