Streetcars, Subways, Trains and Suburbs

Abstract

Late at night on September 7, 1888, in Richmond Virginia, 22 electric cars were drawn up nose to tail on a short section of street railway track.¹ At a signal the first one moved off and once it was clear, the next followed it and so on until the whole lot were in motion. It seemed a curious charade, and there was probably some cheating going on as the earlier ones shut off power before the last ones started to draw it.

The essence of the suburb was that it would provide the benefits of country living with the convenience of being close to the city, so that a man (and it was mainly men) could travel by train to work in the noise and grime of the city but come home in the evening to his family and the healthy air of the countryside.

David Dimbleby, How We Built Britain