A Duluth trolley bus in 1939. (Image: Duluth Transit Authority.)
On this day in Duluth in 1931, the Duluth Superior Transit Company put new vehicles into service: “trackless trolley buses” powered by overhanging wires once used for traditional streetcars. The new buses rode on truck tires, not rails, and could maneuver within 14 feet of the overhead wires. The initial route of the buses, which had room for 36 passengers served the Lakeside/Lester Park neighborhoods, running on Superior Street between Forty-fifth and Sixty-first Avenues East, connecting to traditional streetcars at Forty-fifth Avenue East. It was the beginning of the end for streetcars in the Twin Ports. By the end of the year, all streetcar lines in Superior were gone. Over the next four years, buses would replace streetcars throughout the Zenith City. The last remnant of Duluth and Superior’s once extensive street railway system, the Seventh Avenue West Incline, was dismantled after its last day of operation, Labor Day, 1939. Read the entire history of Duluth’s street railway system here.
I’m glad Mr. Heffernan remembers the trolley busses also. I remember the trolley lines on Superior Street in the 40s when I was a child and maybe even after that. I’m positive they were around after the 30s. I do not remember them running on 4th Street though because we lived on East 4th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue East later in the 40s.
From Jim Heffernan — Those trolley buses lasted until the early ’50s if memory serves. Obstreperous teens used to grab the cables in the back connected to the two rods that rose from the top of the bus to the electric wires and disengage the rods, crippling the bus until the driver got out and reconnected them. They had amazing speed on pickup because they could utilize full power immediately upon pressing the accelerator. I remember some hot rodders wishing their dragsters were that fast off the line.