Louisville Railway Company
Encyclopedia
The Louisville Railway was a streetcar and interurban
operator in Louisville, Kentucky
.
It began under the name Louisville City Railway in 1859 as a horsecar
operator and slowly acquired other rival companies and so renamed the company in 1880. Streetcar operations were terminated as bus operators like People's Transit Company
began to compete for services in the city.
It later operated trolley buses but these operations ceased in 1951. Mergers later led to the creation of the Louisville Transit Company, which acquired LRC in 1951. The last streetcar operated in 1948. Twenty-five PCC cars numbered 501-525 were ordered by the company in 1944, but the order was cancelled before delivery was completed, and the cars were sold to the Cleveland Transit System where they became numbers 4250-4274.
This company was one of many that merged to eventually form the Transit Authority of River City
.
Interurban
An interurban, also called a radial railway in parts of Canada, is a type of electric passenger railroad; in short a hybrid between tram and train. Interurbans enjoyed widespread popularity in the first three decades of the twentieth century in North America. Until the early 1920s, most roads were...
operator in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
.
It began under the name Louisville City Railway in 1859 as a horsecar
Horsecar
A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered streetcar or tram.These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel...
operator and slowly acquired other rival companies and so renamed the company in 1880. Streetcar operations were terminated as bus operators like People's Transit Company
People's Transit Company
People's Transit Company was formed in the 1940s and was one of many private bus operators in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, from the 1950s to 1970s.Bus operations were later merged into the Louisville Transit Company by the late 1970s....
began to compete for services in the city.
This company was one of many that merged to eventually form the Transit Authority of River City
Transit Authority of River City
The Transit Authority of River City is the major public transportation provider for the Louisville, Kentucky, United States metro area, which includes parts of Southern Indiana. This includes the Kentucky suburbs of Oldham County, Bullitt County, Clark County, and Floyd County in southern Indiana...
.