• daytontrolleys.net
• Local Legacy Title Page / Table of Contents
• The Story
  • Title Page / Table of Contents
  • Background
  • Enter the Electric Streetcar
  • Enter the Electric Trolley Bus
  • Company Overviews
    • Dayton Street Railway
    • Oakwood Street Railway
    • Peoples Railway
    • Dayton-Xenia Railway
    • City Railway
    • City Transit
    • City Railway
    • The Christmas Bus -- A Dayton tradition
  • Transition from Public to Private
  • The Fight to Keep the Trolleys
• The Dayton Trolley Fleet
  • Dayton trolleybuses purchased new
  • Dayton's used trolleybus fleet
  • Dayton's seasonal trolleybuses
• Dayton Trolley Routes
  • Don Brabson's trolley route history
  • City Transit trolley routes circa 1958
  • MVRTA route changes in the 1980s and 1990s

The largest of all Dayton streetcar properties, CRC had four of the heaviest-traveled lines in town. On 25 March 1936 CRC initiated their first venture into ETB operation, having seen success proven by the DSR and OSR. CRC line #3, Lexington-Richard, needed extensive replacement of trackage, and thus became the candidate for ETB changeover. In 1941 the Delphos end of #4 was wired for ETBs, and became through routed with the Richard #3 becoming #4 Delphos-Richard on July 19, 1941. At that time, #3 Lexington was single-ended, turning back in the CBD.

After this point, there were only two rail lines remaining to be converted to ETB, #1-Third, and #2-Fifth. These were changed in 1947 ending streetcar operation in Dayton on 27 September 1947.

After 1947, Dayton was all ETB, except for a motor bus feeder here and there. Lest it be forgotten, only in Dayton was there a situation where five (5) separate ETB companies operating simultaneously, until 1941 when the DSR was acquired by the City Railway Company. This fact alone accounts for much of the mystique of the Dayton ETB history.

As previously mentioned, City Railway acquired the other, smaller, ETB companies one by one. When this was finally accomplished in 1956, the now City Transit Company started to reorganize the through-routing for more efficient operation. Gone forever was the five different paint schemes and different operating styles that gave Dayton a transit uniqueness that was never possible elsewhere.