early Ford V8 flathead motor catalytic converter?

[Karl Wescott]

Originally Posted by rockfla

This all reminds me of the Old Street Cars/City Bus story out in Los Angeles. They got rid of all the "old" street cars (that where "electiric" and environmentally friendly as we are told today about EV's) for diesel burning Buses (Thank you GM). THEN, years later the "smog" became TOO great AND the buses weren't being utilized as they didn't serve the needs of the riders....SO they go to "clean" energy buses (electric among them) and propose NEW better service routes AND when "someone" checked these NEW routes against the "OLD" street car service, the old track system overlaid the NEW improved system "perfectly". SO.....what was gained in the end......SHOULD have left well enough alone!!!!!!

At the risk of topic shift...


There is of course way more to the story about replacing street cars than simple chicanery of GM and Firestone.



The Pacific Electric streetcars system was suffering numerous woes. The system was wearing out and due to regulation of fares there was not enough income to re-invest in the system. The streetcars shared the public roads and automobile traffic congestion then resulted in horrible service due to "trapped" streetcars, which drove potential customers away. Increasing costs of labor, again with fare adjustment difficult (Track and electric system maintenance had to be paid by the company, not with expenses of street maintenance hidden in the city tax budget as could be done with buses).


Replacing the system with buses appeared "cheaper" than fixing the system and raising fares to a sustainable level. The consequences of quality of ride diminishing was not recognized or acknowledged.


GM did purchase other streetcar systems which they did keep running for some time, and out and out purchased and scrapped others. It was all done with classic GM bean counting strategic decision making.