page_title: Trolleybuses in Dayton
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Trolleybuses in Dayton / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Trolleybus 515 in Dayton, Ohio is a 1949 Marmon-Herrington TC48. It was purchased originally by the City Railway Company, but CR was taken over by the City Transit Company in 1955, and City Transit by the Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority (now GDRTA) in 1972. Number 515 was retired in 1982, but was later restored as a historic vehicle, including repainting into City Transit livery in 1984, and it operated occasional special excursions until spring 1987. Since 1988 it has been on static display at the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton. In this photo, 515 is turning from Broadway onto Grand Avenue, using normally unused short-turn wires for route 3-Lexington (now 2-Lexington), during an excursion for the Cincinnati Transit Historical Association.
context_page_description: The Dayton trolleybus system forms part of the public transportation network serving Dayton, in the state of Ohio, United States. Opened on April 23, 1933, it presently comprises seven lines, and is operated by the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority, with a fleet of 54 trolleybuses.
  One of only five such systems currently operating in the U.S., and the only one in a city without a subway, light rail, or streetcar system, the Dayton trolley bus system is the current manifestation of an electric transit service that has been operated continuously in Dayton since 1888 — longer than in any other city in the United States. By the 1970s, Dayton was already the smallest U.S. city still operating a trolley bus system. For both of these reasons, the city's trolley buses are locally considered an icon of Dayton.
context_section_description: The first electric trolley bus (ETB) service in Ohio began operation in Dayton, on April 23, 1933, when the Salem Avenue-Lorain Avenue line was converted from streetcars to trolley coaches — or trolley buses, as they are most commonly known today. Electric streetcar service in Dayton had started in 1888, and it continued through to, and indeed beyond, the start of trolley bus service.  The last streetcar line in Dayton, City Railway's route 1-Third Street, was converted to trolley buses on September 28, 1947.  Today, and already the case by the 1980s, Dayton's trolley bus system is the second-oldest in the Western Hemisphere (which in 2011 totals 18 systems), exceeded in longevity only by the Philadelphia trolley bus system, which opened on October 14, 1923.
  The first trolley bus line in Dayton was opened by the Dayton Street Railway company (DSR). The impetus for the decision to adopt trolley buses was a 1932 fire at the company's carbarn (maintenance and storage facility), which gutted the building and destroyed 16 streetcars and two gas buses. After studying trolley coach systems then operating in other small cities, DSR placed an order with the J. G. Brill Company for 12 trolley buses, and these inaugurated service on the city's first ETB line in April 1933.  However, the Dayton Street Railway was only the first of several companies to operate trolley bus service in Dayton, some of which operated concurrently and shared overhead wires on some sections, mainly in downtown.
  In the late 19th century, it was common in the United States for cities to be served by multiple different streetcar companies, each company typically operating a few lines. However, via mergers, acquisitions and sometimes bankruptcy the number of operating companies gradually declined to just one or two in each city.  By 1930, most U.S. cities had just one company providing all urban transit service.  Dayton was unusual in having multiple transit companies in operation through to the World War II era.  In 1933, when the first trolley bus service began operating, Dayton still had five separate streetcar companies providing urban service, and all five eventually converted some or all of their routes to trolley buses, over the period 1933–40; these are the first five companies listed in the table below.  As late as the 1960s, transit service in Dayton was provided "almost exclusively by trolley coaches".
  The table below lists all of Dayton's trolley bus operators since the introduction of the mode in 1933.
  For a period of about seven months starting in October 1940, Dayton had five independently owned and operated trolley bus systems, and it was the only city in the world ever to possess that many independent trolley bus systems concurrently.
  After 1955, all public transit in Dayton was operated by the City Transit Company.  The transit system was transferred from private to public ownership on November 5, 1972, when the newly formed (in 1971) Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) took over the City Transit Company's system. MVRTA changed its name to the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority (GDRTA) around May 2002.  The name is commonly shortened simply to RTA.
  The RTA voted to continue trolley bus operation, and in the mid-1970s replaced the aging fleet of Marmon-Herrington trolley buses with 64 Flyer E800 units, delivered in 1977.
  In the late 1980s, the Dayton trolley bus system was headed towards closure. The RTA Board of Trustees voted in 1988 to phase out trolley bus operation, but this decision was reversed in 1991, after a consultant's study report indicated that retaining trolley bus service was the most cost-effective option over the long term, as well as having environmental benefits. Following this decision, RTA began refurbishing some of its Flyer trolley buses, to ensure they would continue to operate reliably until a fleet of new trolley buses could be purchased and put into service, in a few years' time.
  Over the period 1996–99, the Flyer E800s were replaced by a new fleet of 57 vehicles built by Electric Transit, Inc. (E
caption: A Dayton Marmon-Herrington TC48 trolley bus from 1949, photographed as a historic vehicle in 1987.
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "Dayton 515 (1949 Marmon-Herrington). Photo by Steve Morgan.", "Image Make": "Plustek", "Image Model": "OpticFilm 7600i", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "SilverFast 6.6.1r4", "Image DateTime": "2010:07:21 02:29:24", "Image ExifOffset": "274", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "793"}