The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-01-05
TROLLEY FUNERAL CAR.
Car Accommodates Forty Persons
Casket and Flowers.

The street car funeral has become q
familiar scene in St. Louis since the car
riage drivers went on strike.
For more than a year a funeral car has
been in operation in this city, but until
within the past month its use was so infre-
quent that trolley car funeral was a dis
tinct novelty
Now there are several such funerals daily
and the dark green funeral car. Virgin
ia may be seen frequently bound to ore
/ cemetery or another bearing its load OF
dead
Every cemetery in the city and suburbs
is within easy access by street car tracks
The funeral car is kept at the Easton ave
nue. sheds, but it is not owned. as is gen
orally supposed, by the transit company,
Stubblefleld & Kern. owns the car, and
uses the street car lines by contract. The
] transit company furnishes one of its most
careful train crews. Conductor H. Wether-
ell and MOtorman r. c. Lister, who are in
charge of the car at every f1neral.
Charles V. Kern is the funeral director
who accompanies the car w hen a burial
lot is too FAR from the car line. Wagon
is ia waiting at the cemetery TO carry the
coffin to the grave otherwise the pail
bearers convey the casket directly from the
The funeral car is nearly 60 feet long and
accommodates forty persons with wicker
chairs By crowding little ten more may
The car is divided into three compart-
ments. The first section is for the MEM
mediate mourners
The middle section has seats for the pail
bearers at one side and opposite them, ut
the right side of the car, is the receptacle
for the coffin
This opens from the outside in the man
ner of hearse with a glass door sliding
up just above the compartment where
the coffin rests is another space for flow
ers also visible to the outside through
glass doors.
The coffin is not visible to the nOurners.
nor to the other friends or invited guests
ut the funeral, who occupy the larger
compartment at the rear of the car
The compartments for nOurners and
guests are carpeted. There are window
draperieE and other hOmelike furnishings
I including comfortable chairs
The funeral car has the right of way.
As funerals are conducted at hours when
! there is no extra traffic on the lines, there
/ is little interference by other cars. The
] funeral car. however, runs at rate ft
i speed about equal to that of the other
cars on the same line, SO that there Is
+ practically no delaying OF passenger traf-
/ fic-
At the cemetery. after the pail has been
1 borne to the grave the car runs to a switch
and is sidetracked until the interInent IS
+ over when 1T returns to the cemetery gate
and takes on the funeral party.
on the run back stops are made wherever
I a person desires to alight. The car always
I goes back to the place of starting. even if
i there IS but one person aboard
on the trip to the cemetery. as there is
no one to board the ear to alght from
it. no stops are made except those neces-
sary for switching from one track to ar
ether The gong Of the mOtOrman is sell
IN silence Transfers who have come to
know that it is a funeral coach, instead Of
a private car, as some suppose. stop
their wagons rather than to cause the car
TO Glow I'D for them to cross.
A street car funeral costs about oDe-third
the price OF a hearse and carriage funeral,