Go To Trains Part 3 Go To Trains 3A Go To Trolleys 1
In this post I’ll be covering the history of Trains, Trolleys, and Interurbans in Oklahoma City and give you some good links for fine articles and images other than I describe here.
The Oklahoma Land Run wasn’t just by horses and buggies and wagons. It was also “run” by trains!
Photo By David Fitzgerald
Click on the pic for a larger view
Trains In OKC Today. Before waxing nostalgic, let’s get a good dose of reality. Then I’ll explore the past. But, as for today … have a look at pictures that I took on a hot Saturday afternoon, August 11, 2007, and I’ll pretty much let them speak for themselves. For all pictures, click the image for a larger view. Of course, I didn’t take the Google satellite images … wish that I could!
On The Ground Looking South
Same Location, Looking North
Something Left Behind, Looking Southeast
Further South Looking South
Looking At Abandoned Track Curving Southwest
On the Tracks Looking Northwest Toward Classen
On The Tracks Looking East
At Walker Looking North Across The Tracks
Looking Northeast Across The Tracks
A Google Image of the Union Station Area
Looking Northeast At The Robinson Crossing
On Robinson Looking North
On Compress Street Under I-40 Looking West
On South Side of Deep Deuce Apartments Looking Southwest – Walnut Bridge
Same Location Looking Southeast Toward Bricktown Police Station
You Can Almost Not See Them, Now
Trolleys In Okc Today. Well, this one’s easy since there aren’t any! Aside from unremoved but partially hidden trolley tracks here and there, and perhaps the old bridge on NW 39th Street shown below, that’s all that remains.
When I first wrote this paragraph,I’d thought that maybe the “old” NW 39th Street bridge at the north end of Lake Overholser shown below was used for the Yukon/El Reno Interurban line, but Larry (Buddy) Johnson of the Okc Metro Library System advises me that it was most probably NOT the rail bridge … he thinks that the rail bridge was where the “new” NW 39th Street bridge is now, and that makes sense to me (particularly since part of the Rock Island line once used the same bridge as the Interurban … the bridge below is certainly not up to big-time train standards, even size-wise). On further edit, the “most probably not” part is no more since I now have a pic of a trolley passing over the then-existing 39th Streettrain bridge, and it’s not this bridge. Still, I’ll leave the pics below for reference … but the “real” rail bridge of times gone by is different, as you’ll in the Okc Trolleys post in this series. The pics below were taken on August 13, 2007.
Looking Up, Notice What Must Have Carried Electric Lines
See … I told you that the pics would speak for themselves, sad to say.
Go To Trains Part 3 Go to Trains 3A Go To Trolleys 1