Greenup Trolley	In front of the old court house

 

Car 265, the destination sign say Eastern Avenue, 1937

 

Car #2 of the Cincinnati, Newport & Covington Railway, 1941

 

Building Northern Kentucky: The Trail of the Green Line Trolley

 

The 518 Greenup Car at 12th street.	Somewhere in Covington	The streetcar Kentucky, passes down Madison, past Landwehr's, 1056 Greenup
The Kentucky was not an everyday car, but rather a parlor car reserved for special events.  These photos were likely taken on the last days the line ran streetcars, July 1-3, 1950.  They could have let the event pass without fanfare, or they could have fired up the publicity machine. They chose to go all out.  Many, many pictures you see of The Kentucky, are from these “final trips.”  In the pic in the center, notice the motorman, William Wharton, is wearing his Kentucky Colonel white suit, with a goatee;  he often did that for special occasions.

A great map of the Kenton County Green Line from the NKAPC (pdf).

The CN&C (Cincinnati, Newport & Covington Railway), better known as the Green Line,  ran it's last streetcar on July 2, 1950.  The event inspired a parade which included the private Streetcar Kentucky, followed by a CNC streetcar, followed by modern, General Motors busses.  The image on the left is the beginning  of the event, and the image on the right is the return across the bridge.

 

Parked on the last day at the Traction Building on Court.
From a Facebook post by Ben Shipe

You can read the last day the Green Line ran was July 1, 1950. Or July 2, 1950. Or July 3, 1950. Here's the deal: the last day for regular weekday schedule, paying passengers was July 1, although there was a parade and some celebration/wake on July 2. Most of the last day pictures above are assumed to by from the July 2 parade. The Kentucky Post notes that there was a scheduled run 12:05 am Sunday night/Monday morning, the 2d/3rd, leaving Dixie Terminal for Fort Mitchell, and that the Monday morning schedule, the 3rd, would be with busses.

 

C. N. & C Streetcar lines, 1914-1934
from Terry Lehmann's and Earl W. Clark's The Green Line. Recommended.

 

   

Scenes Along The Green Line

 

Chart of Covington Street Car Statistics

In the year 1900, the Green Car registered 14,000,000 rides.

Green Line Motormen, c. 1930's
If you can identify any of these guys, please contact us.
Thanks to Sharon Weber for sharing this one with us.
That's her Grandfather, Virgil William Wells, second row up, third from the left

 

Northern End of the Green Line inside Cincinnati's Dixie Terminal, on Third Street, between Main and Vine.  #12 is a Campbell Co. line, so this is the first floor.			This Cincinnati scene shows how busses got into Dixie Terminal, straight off the Suspension Bridge	Dixie Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio, at the end of the Suspension Bridge.  During peak hours, cars were leaving this location for Kentucky every 45 seconds.
			From a Facebook post by Andy Hemmer
In the trolley years, the Kenton County cars went into the second floor of Dixie Terminal, in a ramp directly off the suspension bridge, while the Newport cars came into the first floor, off Cincinnati's Third Street. At its peak, 156 street cars or buses per hour would come though the terminal in rush hour.
Dr. Paul Tenkotte wrote about the Dixie Terminal at this site.

 

Linden and Holman, c. 1910

"The Holman car heads north at Holman and Linden, through the heart of the then largely German-speaking portion of Covington, circa 1914.  Considerably more than half of the residents in 1914 subscribed to German language newspapers, but due to anti-Kaiser sentiment, by the end of World War I, no such newspapers existed." Terry Lehmann and Earl W. Clark in The Green Line.

 

Pike & Holman, 1946	Going Past St. Joseph's	Court & Park, 1940's
Last operating Street car in the USA using hand brakes, and a 2-man crew.	The Parlor car, Kentucky, now in the Behringer-Crawford Museum.	Headed for Fort Mitchell

 

In front of the Traction Building	Passing Lewin Lumber, 24th and Madison	Twelfth Street, 1930	The Green Line turns onto Pike,  going south, from Hermes

You can learn a LOT more about the CNC, the Green Line, and other old Northern Kentucky  transit routes in the Spring, 1999 issue of Motor  Coach Age.  They've got dozens of older area  photo's, maps and rosters. We recommend it to you.  It's available on line at this site.

As street cars were replaced by busses, the Kentucky Post looked back at the street cars in 1946.

 

	A Covington Street Car comes to an ignoble end. It's from a Facebook post by J. Frederick Poynter, who describes the image: “My family used to own Fenders Wrecker Service and my great uncle Art moved the old street cars once they were sold off with his new 1948 Diamond T. wrecker. This car ending up down on the Kentucky River somewhere.”

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 13, 1870