Somebody was talking rather wistfully the other day about the era of the big electric interurbans which served Winnipeg and district so faithfully for many years and finally lost out with the coming of the diesel combustion engine. With a great to-do about the energy crisis and pollution there are many people, especially in the United States who have the feeling the big electrics were phased out with too much haste. Ruth Cavin in her wonderful book Trolleys says a lot of people blamed the automobile industry, particularly General Motors, but a General Motors executive said the trolleys were abandoned not because of General Motors but becuase of economics and efficiency. It seems the electrics never were too highly profitable or financially sound. But in their day the electrics in the United States especially provided a genuine alternative for people going distances too short for air travel.

A report from the subcommittee on antitrust and monopoly of the senate judiciary committee, American Ground Transport, by Bradford Snell, has turned up the evidence which does not leave the automobile industry in a good light. The study shows interests "bought local transit companies, scrapped the pollution-free electric trains, tore down the power transmission lines, ripped up the tracks and placed GM motor buses on already congested . . . streets. The noisy foul-smelling buses turned earlier patrons of the high-speed rail-system away from public transit, and, in effect, sold millions of private automobiles."

It seems the New Haven Railroad after scrapping an entire fleet of powerful high-speed electric locomotives in 1956 in favor of Diesels had lost $9.2 million by 1959. In 1961 it was bankrupt; by 1968 when acquired by Penn Central it had a deficit of nearly $300 million. During 50 years of electrification the New Haven had never failed to show a profit.

I was a great admirer of the Winnipeg, Selkirk and Lake Winnipeg Railway which served Stonewall, Selkirk and intermediate points between 1904 and 1939.

I was no stranger to the Suburban Rapid Transit Company which operated from 1902 to 1930, visiting St. Norbert, St. Charles, Charleswood and Headingley on these electric cars.

Bill Blake in his The Era of Interurbans in Winnipeg points out the people of Selkirk were anxious about electric transit in 1892 to cover the 22 miles to Winnipeg but the idea eventually died away. However, interested parties organized a steam-operated line with service Aug. 26, 1904. The new line was called the Winnipeg, Selkirk and Lake Winnipeg Railway. It became subsiduary of the Winnipeg Electric Company and the line was electrified in 1908. The cars were built at the Winnipeg Electric's Fort Rouge shops.

However, I know the steam locomotive had not been entirely eliminated in the early 1920s for I remember it standing on the spur on Inkster East by the company depot. Three and five-car trains were not uncommon especially at picnic time. A branch line was built to Stonewall via Stony Mountain in 1914.

Passengers aboard the cars when the terrible June cyclone of 1919 vented its fury on the community will remember the transmission lines coming down and the cars rocking on their trucks. The McCluskey brothers, operating the interurban near Middlechurch when the storm hit shepherded the passengers to safety away from the falling wires.

I cannot recall many serious accidents but Bill Blake remembers car 14 on Aug. 11, 1928 had its front truck jump a switch while the rear truck stayed on the rails. Hitting a loaded car of crushed stone standing on a siding at 25 mph, motorman Harry Scrivens was killed.

The electric freight cars offered fast service for merchants and dairymen en route and this was the success, too, of many American lines. Heavens knows how many milk cans the W. S. and L. W. carried in its day. Trolley trips and riverside rambles were emphasized in advertising. In 1908 the run to Selkirk and back was made in 50 minutes with a return adult fare of 80 cents. No wonder it was popular.

The Suburban Rapid Transit Company commenced operations in 1902 and had its Winnipeg terminus at the Austin Street loop in Point Douglas, near the Canadian Pacific Railway station. The cars travelled west on Portage Avenue and eventually were out in the country as they passed through St. James, ending the journey at Headingley. This company also ran cars to Charleswood and to what eventually became North Kildonan beyond John Black United Church and the Agricultural College which eventually stood by itself in Fort Garry before the University of Manitoba was moved from Broadway to its present site.

Among the American giants were the Illinois Terminal Railroad, Pacific Electric and West Penn. And still going strong is the Bay Area Rapid Transit of San Francisco and Oakland; Pittsburgh, Newark, Shaker Heights, Ohio; New Orleans and Philadelphia. Dayton, Ohio and Rochester, N.Y., were planning to bring back electric transit.

It is felt that a new day may be dawning for the trolleys because the land is overpopulated with automobiles and government aid for public transit could be forthcoming and the lobbies that helped kill the electrics have disappeared. There has been talk about putting the tracks running through Fort Garry to use again and what about the Winnipeg Beach line which only sees one way-freight a day? Fast electric trains from the Lake Winnipeg district to the city might be worth investigating.

With electric power our most abundant resource in Manitoba we may have been too hasty to tear up the train tracks and abandon the interurbans. The price of combustion engine fuel and its contemplated shortage may have us rushing to laying track and putting up trolley wires all over again. After all, the electrics were clean, fast and managed to buck all kinds of weather.