The comment about no turnaround at the end of the street car line was correct, however there was a bit more for the motorman to do than simply walking back to the other end. He had to first go to pull the hand crank, unstow and connect the upper contact (believe it was similar to a pulley wheel). Walk to the other end, pull and stow the upper contact, insert the hand crank and take off in the opposite direction. These were direct current systems, very efficient system, with a wiper that made contact on the tracks, I believe this was the brake. Kids thought it was great fun to pull the upper contact, it stopped the car. The hand crank was the rheostat that increased the electricity to the motor, thus the operators were called motorman. They also had a conductor at the opposite end of the car to collect money and hand out transfers as well, these conductors were eliminated when the new slick versions went into operation. I believe they used this system on the West Florissant line which if memory serves me correctly ran from Riverview to the Water Tower on Grand Ave. where there was a turnaround at the Water Tower. There were two sets of parallel tracks running along Calvary Cemetery and eventually down the center of West Florissant. I am sure there were other runs that were similar in operation. The one on Broadway ran from about River de Pares (sp) in South St. Louis north to the turnaround through Baden to the Turnaround at Bellefontaine Cemetery. This one on Broadway was one of those slip and slide things for automobiles, you slipped on the tracks and then hit the cobble stones which darn near ruined the springs and shock absorbers along with the tires on automobiles. If you could sort of follow the streetcar tracks it was a bit smoother, you sure didn't speed. We here in St. Louis are so proud of these cobble stone streets that we call it nostalgia in Lacledes Landing, you drive about 5 mph or less in this area. Broadway was a bit smoother, but not much. Several of the streetcar lines were shut down prior to WW II and the rails were paved over. But during the war they were dug up to reclaim the steel for the war effort. I believe I also read an article that they also dug up some of the 1904 Worlds Fair Ferris Wheel to reclaim the steel at the same time. A large amount of streetcar tracks are still in service and are now utilized by Metro Link. Another side note. My uncle graduated from CBC in 1942, the entire student body marched in the VP Parade at night and all the VP floats traveled along a streetcar route since they used the same method of running the floats as the streetcars. The one parade I watched was down Grand Ave. in front of all the Movie Theatres I believe the Wooden Street cars were still running in the very early 50's I have a photo of my great grandfather and his streetcar that he apparently drove from Belleville to St. Louis. I don't know if the is correct, it may have stopped in East St. Louis. This was way before my time. Bill Surnames of Interest: BUCHHOLZ anywhere -BECKMANN-CASSIDY-DeL0NJAY-DREES-MOSBACHER-NENTWIG-NEUTZLER-PONCOT-RENSIN G-STAUDER-STIEFFERMANN ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!