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Collection
# P 0376
CINCINNATI
CAR CORPORATION COLLECTION 1902-1931; 1965
Processed
by
Pamela
Tranfield
20
September 2000
Visual
Collections Department William
Henry Smith Memorial Library Indiana
Historical Society 450 West
Ohio Street Indianapolis,
IN 46202-3269 COLLECTION
INFORMATION
HISTORICAL
SKETCH
The
Cincinnati Car Corporation, a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company,
designed and manufactured interurban railway cars, streetcars, and busses in
Cincinnati, Ohio between 1902 and 1931. The company mainly supplied passenger
and freight interurban cars, and Birney-type engines to city and commuter
railway lines across the United States and into Canada. The business operated
as the Cincinnati Car Company until a merger with the Versare Corporation of
Watervliet, New York in December 1928. The new company was named the
Cincinnati Car Corporation. Versare
made gas-electric busses and electric trolley-coaches. Oliver F. Warhus
became vice president in charge of engineering and sales for the new company.
Sales orders for busses in 1929 included gas-electric busses for the
Cincinnati Street Railway Company. These may have been the only gas-powered
vehicles built by the Cincinnati Car Corporation. It is not known if this
model saw active service. Between 1929 and 1931 sales of trolley-coaches
totaled nine cars. Customers included the Utah Light and Traction Company,
the United Traction Company (Albany, New York) and the Louisville Railway
Company. In
1921 chief engineer Thomas Elliot designed the curved-side car, a lightweight
model that used curved steel plates rather than conventional flat steel
plates in body construction. The side plates and side sills, rather than the
floor, bore the bulk of the weight load. Longitudinal floor supports were no
longer needed, which made the cars lighter than conventional cars.
Curved-side cars were also called "Balanced Lightweight Cars." The
company completed production of the first curved-side cars for the Kentucky
Traction and Terminal Company in February 1922. The Cincinnati Car
Corporation dropped the curved-side design for interurbans after July 1929.
The West Penn Railway Company ordered the last cars of this model, which were
completed in December. Interurban
production continued until the company ceased operations in 1931. A number of
factors contributed to the demise of the company, including the Great Depression
and competition in the trolley-coach and gas-powered bus markets. Traditional
customers that were able to avoid bankruptcy became judicious with their
funds and purchased second hand railway equipment rather than new cars. Other
customers abandoned rail systems altogether in favor of busses and
trolley-coaches, but the Cincinnati Car Corporation was not able to compete
in this market. The corporation's assets were liquidated in 1938. BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH
Theodore
Groene (1860-1911) and Louis Rombach
operated photographic studios in Cincinnati from 1883. The studios were
located at Third and Park Streets until 1888 when the business moved to 812-814 West Fourth Street. Rombach and Groene
specialized in landscape and merchantile photography. SOURCES: Material in the collection. Hilton, George W., and
John F. Due. The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1960. Keller, Cynthia
(ckeller@cincymuseum.org), electronic mail transmission to Pamela Tranfield
(Visual Collections Archivist) 21 September 2000. Wagner, Richard, and
Birdella Wagner. Curved-Side Cars Built by Cincinnati Car Co. Cincinnati:
Wagner Car Company, 1965. Wilkins, Van.
"Cincinnati Car Corp. Trolley-Coach and Bus Production." Motor
Coach Age (March-April 1991): 26-29. SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The
collection includes original black-and-white photographs, blueprint sales
drawings, linen trace drawings, blueprints, and manuscript material created
by and for the Cincinnati Car Corporation between 1902 and 1931. The
collection also contains a company history, Curved-Side Cars Built by
Cincinnati Car Company, written by Richard and Birdella Wagner in 1965. The
company is known among railway history enthusiasts as the "Cincinnati
Car Company." The business used this name through most of its history,
but archival description standards suggest that corporate collections should
be named for the corporate entity that last created or used the material. The
Cincinnati Car Corporation existed as an active entity from late 1928 to
1931, and during that time created photographs and sales drawings found in
this collection. This collection guide refers to the company as the
Cincinnati Car Company in relation to material created before December 1928. William
M. Fronczek, Jr., M.D. donated the collection to the Indiana Historical
Society in 1999. Fronczek and other collectors, including Richard and
Birdella Wagner and Walter Simpson, acquired the material over a number of
years. The processor at the Indiana Historical Society arranged the material
in five series according to format. Series 1: Photographs. The photographs include interior
and exterior views of completed interurban cars and cars under construction,
truck assemblies, seat details, and trolley-coach and gas-powered busses. The
interurban cars include Birney-type cars, passenger cars, freight cars,
dining cars, locomotives, and curved-side cars. Identification on the
photographs usually includes the shop or mechanical order number (stamped on
the front or back of the image) and the name of the company that purchased or
intended to purchase the equipment. Identification may be handwritten in
pencil or ink, or typed in black ink. More than one company name may be
written on the back of a photograph. A list of photographs appears on page 7
of this collection guide. A
stamp bearing the name of Cincinnati photographers Rombach and Groene appears
on the back of approximately one-third of the photographs. Rombach and
Groene, and possibly Cincinnati Car Corporation employees photographed the
cars most often in what appears to be a train yard, possibly the yard at the
assembly plant at Grove and Mitchell streets in Cincinnati. Other images were
made inside the assembly plant. The photographs are stored in fourteen
full-size document cases and one half-size document case in the Visual
Collections storage area. The processor arranged the items in acid free
folders according to order number. Series 2: Sales Drawings. Sales drawings consist of
263 blueprint drawings made by the Cincinnati Car Corporation between 1914
and 1931. The designs represented in the drawings include plans for
Birney-type cars, passenger cars, freight cars, dining cars, locomotives, and
curved-side cars. Information on the front of the drawings includes the order
number, the sales drawing number, type of car, details regarding the general
dimensions of the car, and the seating capacity. Other information on the
back of the drawings includes the name of the purchasing railroad or
railroads, the number of cars made for the order, names of electrical, air
brake, and truck contractors, and the year that the order was completed. The
series also includes a table (sixteen pages on blueprint paper) that lists
the names of corporate customers, the order number associated with the
customer, and number of cars ordered or built for the customer. This table is
stored in Box 16, Folder 1. The drawings are stored in two OVA-size boxes in
the Visual Collections storage area. Tables that list the drawing number,
company name, item title, date, and folder location of each drawing begin on
page 32 of this collection guide. Series 3: Blueprint Drawings. The blueprint drawings
consist of five drawings (22 x 48 inches) made between 1904 and 1910. The
scale of the drawings suggests that they may have been intended for use
during actual construction of the cars, rather than as sales drawings. These
drawings are stored in "mammoth" size file drawers in the Visual
Collections storage area. A table that lists the drawing number, company
name, item title, date, and folder location of each blueprint drawing begins
on page 52 of this collection guide. Series 4: Linen Trace Drawings. The linen trace drawings
consist of sixty-five engineering drawings of interurban cars designed by the
Cincinnati Car Company between 1902 and circa 1913. The drawings arrived at
the Indiana Historical Society in rolled bundles. Collectors had labeled the
bundles "Cars Built" and "Cars Never Built." Employees of
the Cincinnati Car Company created the traces by following the designs of the
original blueprint drawings. The information on the traces includes the
original blueprint number, title of the drawing (e. g. type of car), date of
the original blueprint, and the date of the tracing. Dates on the drawings
indicate that employees usually made the trace less than one week after the
original blueprint was completed. The
processor at the Indiana Historical Society arranged the linen trace drawings
in six folders, according to drawing number. For conservation reasons she
placed smaller drawings (20 x 35 inches, 51 x 89 centimeters or smaller) out
of sequence, designating these as the first items within their respective
folders. The folders are stored in "mammoth" file drawers in the
Visual Collections storage area. A table that lists the drawing number,
corporation name, item title, date, and folder location of each drawing
begins on page 53 of this collection guide. Information under the column
"Item Title" was transcribed directly from the document and
includes abbreviations and non-standard spellings of company names as
annotated on the drawing. Series 5: Manuscript and Printed Material. Manuscripts include
contracts between the Dayton, Covington & Piqua Traction Company and the
Cincinnati Car Company; and the Dayton, Covington & Piqua Traction
Company and the Barney and Smith Car Company. Other manuscript material
consists of a list of cars built by the Cincinnati Car Corporation. Collector
Walter Simpson compiled this list. Printed material consists of the book Curved-Side
Cars Built by Cincinnati Car Company by Richard and Birdella Wagner
(Cincinnati: Wagner Car Company, 1965). The spelling and style of corporate names, as annotated on the backs of the photographs and drawings, is not consistent from item to item. For example, the name "Columbus, Urbana & Western Railway Co." was also written as "Columbus, Urbana and Western Railway Company." The variant spellings and styles may reflect names used by Cincinnati Car Corporation employees, photographers, and collectors over the years. Also, a particular corporate name, as written on one item, may have been accurate when the drawing or photograph was made, but changed later in the company’s history. The processor established standardized spellings and styles for company names represented in this collection for the purpose of creating uniform folder headings and item titles. When possible she used the spelling and style of the corporate name shown on railway equipment in individual photographs. If no name was visible on the railway equipment, the processor chose the most commonly used spelling and style of the corporate name annotated on the back of the photographs. The processor adapted spellings and styles used in outside sources (see page 3 of this guide) if no common name could be discerned from the material. The standardized spellings may help researchers find the materials in the collection associated with a particular company, but the names as listed are not necessarily the legal names of those companies. BOX AND FOLDER LISTING
Series 1: Photographs
Box 1: Cincinnati Car Corporation Photographs, Shop
Orders 155-845
Box 2: Cincinnati Car Corporation Photographs, Shop
Orders 855-1415
Box 3: Cincinnati Car Corporation Photographs, Shop
Orders 1420-1720
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