A History of the Lakeside Streetcar Line

The Lakeside Streetcar route never really played a major part in Baltimore's Transit story, yet it still offers many fascinating tales to tell in the scope of its operation, and its incessant survival.

Interestingly, this short line predates the #29 Boulevard Streetcar Line which it fed.  The early history of the line is somewhat hazy, but it appears to have been the Northernmost segment of the Lake Roland Elevated Railway that operated along the Guilford Avenue Elevated and through Hampden, which started service in the 1890's.  At the North end at Lakeside was an amusement park on the shores of Lake Roland that subsequently closed around the turn of the century.  It appears that the line was changed to a seperate Jerkwater operation around the time of the Consolidation into the U.R.&E.  It ran undesignated as a shuttle from the Upland Road Carhouse out to Lakeside, where a turning loop existed in close proximity to Cochran's Pond.  It is also unclear as to when this loop was built, as it may have existed since the park was established.

For a time, the only line that connected with this line was the 10 car line that ran through Hampden.  In 1908, a new connection was made when the #29 Boulevard line was completed through the muddy flats now known as University Parkway.  The line was designated the #11 line in 1923, interesting as most Jerkwaters did not garner a seperate route designation and were usually shown on System maps as an "X".  This designation was short lived however, as the line became the #28-Lakeside in October of 1924, leaving the #11 designation to go to the Dundalk Jerkwater.  A few years later in 1929, the line once again was reassigned to become the #24-Lakeside, picking up the number of the former Sparrows Point line which had since been renumbered as Route #26.

Assignments of the U.R.& E. era seem to indicate the assignment of single-truck cars to the line, as the ridership on the line was usually rather light.  Among the cars that saw service on the line were the rebuilt single-truck cars of 1904.  One humorous aside in "Roland Park Memories" involves a tale in which a boy recalls the night that he and his friends stole the Lakeside car and took it for a joy ride as far as about Deepdene Road.

Following the retirement of the single truck cars, and the incoming of the BTC era, the line began to see service from Double Truck Semiconvertible cars, largely cars of the 5300 series.  Since the line was looped at both ends, it could technically use Single-Ended cars.  However, on April 13, 1940, the line would require the use of Double Ended cars as the result of an extension to the line that resulted from a compromise between BTC and the Roland Park Civic League.  BTC had desired to convert both the #10 and #29 car lines to Trackless Trolley, but due to resource constraints, was only able to convert the #10 line at first.  As a result, the BTC wanted to operate #29 line cars in the median and #10 line cars in the street.  The civic league objected to all the wires that would result, and asked that the trackless coaches operate in the median along with the streetcars.  BTC stated that this solution was cost prohibitive.

The resulting compromise involved turning back the new #10 trackless at University Parkway, and extending the #24 line car south to there in order to facilitate a transfer to the new line.  Use of a crossover at this location necessitated double ended cars, which laid over in the middle of busy Roland Avenue adjacent to the loop.  The extension of the line combined with the truncation of the #10 line also resulted in a most interesting new service, the all-night #24 Streetcar.  Since the #29 line no longer had all-night service, the #24 was operated as a shuttle from Roland Park Station south to the University Parkway Loop from 1:30am to 5:30am daily.  Total length of this odd operation was about 6 blocks, with 3 minute running time end-to-end.  The line carried an odd uneven headway that appears to have been geared to travel south to meet the all night #10 coach, take any patrons to Roland Park, and return to the loop in time to deliver any patrons to the #10 coach before it left the loop, upon which it would return to the Roland Park Station. Regardless, it is almost certain that this run had to be one of the EASIEST runs in the system during the otherwise hectic war years.
 

 
This setup remained in place for the beyond the duration of the War.  In April of 1946, the Roland Park Car House closed, shifting operations of the Lakeside line to the Oak Street Car House at Howard and 25th Streets.  Schedules show the operation of trips all the way through to Oak Street Car House, although it is not designated as to whether they traversed the #29 line or whether they continued on Roland Avenue to travel via the #25 car line once reaching 36th Street.  The Oak Street setup would prove to be temporary however, as a big "modernization" plan loomed.

On June 22, 1947, the #29 car line was converted to bus and extended to Lake Avenue, and the Oak Street carhouse was closed.  Since BTC was unable to provide sufficient comparable service on buses to Lakeside, the line remarkably lingered on.  Car #5687 made one last trip out along the #29 line's rails to its new home in a cage built on the Northbound track above Lake Avenue.  The Southbound track was removed, aside from a short piece adjacent to the "cage" that was used as the boarding track at the Lake Avenue "terminal."  For over two years, the car shuttled back and forth on the short stretch of track from Lake Avenue to the Shelter alongside the Northbound Track at Lakeside.  The car was officially assigned to York Road Car House, and was operated by York Road operators, even though it was neither stored nor maintained there, while the current for the single car was fed along the poles still remaining on the median of Roland Avenue, giving just enough juice to power the line.  One still has to wonder about the line in these late years: Who rode this short abbreviation of a line, especially in Winter months when leisure traffic to Lake Roland wouldn't exist?

BTC finally was granted the right to abandon the line, with the extension of selected trips on the #56 Murray Hill bus line across Woodbrook Lane.  Car #5687 made its last trips on January 28, 1950.  Soon afterwards, a crew arrived to dismantle the poor car on site, as it's home became its grave - many parts of the car were dumped to fill the maintenance pit at the "cage" at Lake Avenue, while one can possibly percieve that the metal parts were stripped, and hauled away for scrap value.  Eventually, much of the right-of way would be made into an extension of Roland Avenue and developed into a gated community.  Some of the original grade is still visible from a spot on Woodbrook Lane, travelling just to the west of Cochran's pond, which now looks much more like a man-made pool.  The rustic character of this jaunt through the woods has been lost to the ages.

The references: Baltimore Streetcar Routes, and Baltimore's Streetcars, were invaluable resources in the preparation of this page.  Many deserved Thanks go out to Buster Hughes as well for his input into the operation of this line.