Several cities operated small numbers of trolleybuses or had demonstrations from the early 1900s to as late as 1949. Here is a short summary of what's known; more info can be gleaned from the source books. While some pictures exist in the two books, I have not scanned them, as they are clearly copyrighted.
| City | Year | Info |
|---|---|---|
| Fairhaven MA | 1915 | Small operation to connect the Union Street Railway with a group of summer cottages along Buzzards Bay, starting October 1914. Lasted for a short time. |
| New Haven CT | 1903 1912 |
AB Uphan sponsored short demonstration in 1903 -- moved to Scranton PA, where it then ran from Nov 1903 to sometime in 1904. In 1912, the Trackless Electric Vehicle company demonstrated a vehicle which could run off both overhead and storage batteries. Nothing came of it. |
| Cohoes NY | Nov 1924 - Dec 1937 | Capital District Transportation company purchased 4 Brockways, and ran the line in Cohoes for 13 years. No other extensions. |
| Richmond VA | Summer 1921 |
Virginia Railway and Power demonstrations in 1921 paralleled existing streetcar line on Floyd Ave using an Atlas Truck product dubbed a "trollibus." In 1947,
60 Brills were ordered and cancelled before delivery.
|
| Norfolk VA | 1921 1923 |
Virginia Railway and Power demonstrations in 1921 and 1923. |
| Petersburg VA | June 1923 - December 31, 1926 |
Virginia Railway and Power installed the 0.8 mile trolleybus system in June 1923 as a southern extension of the streetcar
line service into the residential community of Walnut Hills, requiring two vehicles for service. During the latter part of 1924,
the trolleybus line was extended north on South and North Sycamore Streets to a loop between Grove Avenue and Bollingbrook Street
in downtown Petersburg, entirely replacing the Petersburg-Walnut Hill streetcar route. Under the extension, five trolleybuses
were operated on the 3.5 mile route; however, the city of Petersburg granted permission to operate the trolleybuses only under
conditions that practically precluded any chance of their being successful by compelling the company to pay for the construction
of a 10-foot wide concrete street as far as the Walnut Hill Bridge and 8-foot wide concrete beyond. The trolleybuses were obligated
to confine operations to that strip for loading and unloading passengers (thus curb loading was entirely lost).
On July 1, 1925, the company was reorganized as the Virginia Electric and Power Company. The management of the new company made special
efforts to improve public relations. One of the first things was to eliminate the partonage dislike of the hard-riding solid tire
trolleybuses and take down the double overhead wires which residents disliked.. Because operation of the trolleybus line was as
high as that of gasoline buses, was not used on any other line, did not use standard equipment, and maintenance costs were high, there
was no economic reason to retain the service. Thus, the trolleybuses were withdrawn on December 31, 1926 and replaced by gasoline
buses the next day on an extended 4.4 mile route that was extended further north of the downtown area to Colonial Heights. |
| Portsmouth VA | 1923 | Virginia Railway and Power demonstration. |
| Windsor ON | 1922-1926 | Used an experimental bus demoed in Detroit in 1921, and 3 more St Louis Car trolleybuses. Ran on Lincoln Road and another line from May 5, 1922 to May 1926. |
| Minneapolis MN | 1922-1923 | Twin City Rapid Transit placed a Brill RailLess car and a homebuilt in service on Bloomington Ave from 38th to 48th Sts. Lasted from April 15, 1922 to May 23, 1923, when TCRT extended the Bloomington Ave streetcar line. |
| Buffalo NY | 1949 | The Buffalo Evening News borrowed Cincinnati Street Railway Marmon 1446 and ran it downtown. International Railways wasn't impressed. |
| Oklahoma City OK | 1945 | Twenty Brill TC-44s were ordered, but cancelled before delivery and delivered to Memphis instead.
|
| Pittsburgh PA | 1936 | Twin Coach demonstrators ran on a one block route downtown. Pittsburgh bought PCCs instead.
 |
| St John NB | 1947 | Nine Brills were ordered, but cancelled before delivery. |
Source: Transit's Stepchild; The Trolley Coach and The Trolley Coach in North America
