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This 1965 Video Of Columbus Shows Off Our Old Trolley Bus System

Public transportation has changed a lot in Columbus over the past 100 years.

Streetcars first appeared in Columbus in 1863 and they were pulled by horses. They weren’t exactly known for their speed, but they did change the way people lived. With the streetcar system, workers could live a little bit further away from their jobs, giving more people access to greenspaces and fresh air away from the polluted air of factories and other industrial jobs.

By the 1930s, the city ditched the tracks and the horses to switch fully to electric trolly cars that ran on overhead cables.

As the population in the city grew, a switch to regular buses was inevitable. Unlike with trolly coach routes, bus routes could be more versatile and could serve more of the population. From a rider perspective, not much changed. The trolleybuses that operated on overhead cables were fairly similar to buses anyway and once again allowed people to expand their commute to work.

The last trolly coaches were removed from the roads of Columbus in 1965, just a few months before this footage was taken.

I really enjoy looking back at old videos of Columbus. It’s awesome to not only see how much neon there used to be downtown, but the styles of the people and the cars are pretty fantastic too. In fact, if you have a spare few minutes, you should definitely check out this video from Reader’s Digest in the 1950s. Columbus was quite the town.