The electric trolleys and electric trolley buses have been getting attention today and yesterday. A related piece of history that I think is not at all well known, even in Birmingham.................... When the electric trolleys were first coming into use, the old BRL&P constructed an electric power generating station in down town Birmingham. It was located generally on the SE corner of First Avenue North and 18th Street ... behind the row of offices and stores that faced onto First Avenue ... but north of the railway tracks that go along there. Coal fired electric power stations use a lot of water for cooling purposes. BRL&P adapted that power station so that a big part of the cooling water system was used in a large and very nice swimming pool for BRL&P employees. It was tucked away behind larger buildings so that it could not be seen from the streets. Even then, many people in Birmingham were unaware of its presence. As a child in the thirties {I was born in 1926} I can remember going with our family many many times to that BRL&P swimming pool. In colder months, excess steam from that power plant was piped underground to provide heat to many office buildings in the business area. I have a fairly large number of old photos made at that old BRL&P swimming pool. Would be happy to share them if I can learn how to post them in some way to some kind of GENWEB sites. Carl, in Knoxville, Tennessee