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Circa 1906. "Traction Building, Walnut and Fifth, Cincinnati, O." Nowadays known as the Tri-State Building. 8x10 inch glass negative. View full size.
London (the real one that is!) did for a time have double wires in the vicinity of the Royal Observatory - I think this was at the insistence of the Astronomer Royal and probably for the reason already mentioned by m' Learned Friend 'HS'.
I had at one stage a copy of the BICC overhead fittings catalogue (UK equivalent of Ohio Brass) and I'm pretty sure that 2 gauges were mentioned for trolley bus overhead, 18" and 24"...
AFAIK, Cincinnati and Havana were the only cities with double overhead for their electric streetcars. The ostensible reason was interference with the telephone system, which used the same earth return (ground) as the trolleys otherwise would have. Strange that no other cities had this problem, and even stranger that Cincinnati stayed with it throughout the traction era there; doing so doubled the cost of wire and fittings.
The trolley has two poles and they're both up against the overhead wires.
The trolley has two poles. The Cincy double-wire system was spaced at 19 inches; most other double-wire systems (for trackless trolleys) used a 24-inch spacing.
Every time I look at this photo, I find my eyes drawn to the overhead wire of that trolley. The reason is not so much because I love trains, but rather the oddity I see there.
Cincy streetcars were unique among most cities, in that they featured a "two wire" system. Meaning two wires and two poles, as opposed to the usual one. However, looking closely at the trolley in the photo, it seems that the train has a single pole.
I suspect this is route 78, the only route of the transit system which used a single wire. The only problem with that suspicion, is 78's single wire system only existed for a short portion outside the city's limits, and not within it as this photo shows.
Young Bausmith in the tiny office on the upper floor in foreground was featured in The National Builder, Volume 43 for 1906, with his designs for two-flat houses. As in 2 apartments, not flattened buildings.
Could it possibly be effective for New York Life to advertise on the windows so high on the building? Was there future construction that would have made that expense worthwhile?
On another issue I just believe that it must have been awesome to have opening windows into offices in the building, reach out and adjust the awning! How dangerous and wonderful!
This building still exists and is also shown in these earlier Shorpy images...
https://www.shorpy.com/node/8949
In this view it is the second of the two tall buildings. The four streetcars are stopped in front of it...
https://www.shorpy.com/node/10961
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