Cincinnati Car Company
The Cincinnati Car Company or Cincinnati Car Corporation was a subsidiary of Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and (in smaller scale) buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1928, it bought the Versare Car Company.
The company was among the first to make lightweight cars. Its chief engineer Thomas Elliot designed the curved-side car, a lightweight model that used curved steel plates (not conventional flat steel plates) in body construction. Instead of the floor, the side plates and side sills bore the bulk of the weight load. Longitudinal floor supports were no longer needed, which made the cars lighter than conventional cars. The first cars of this type were sold in 1922. For instance, the Red Devil weighted only 22 tons. Curved-side cars were also called "Balanced Lightweight Cars".
In 1929, the company designed new lightweight partially aluminum low profile high-speed coaches for the electrified Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad interurban that operated between Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo. Twenty were purchased, painted bright red, and called Red Devils by the C&LE. These interurban cars, whose open country speed could reach 90 mph (140 km/h), were a forerunner of today's high-speed trains. Both the car bodies and new design small wheel low riding trucks were well adapted for high-speed running on light rail rough track. In 1939, the C&LE abandoned operation, and the Red Devils were sold to the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway (CRANDIC) interurban in Iowa and to the Lehigh Valley Transit (LVT) in Pennsylvania. They continued to operate successfully and well into the 1950s.
Cincinnati Car Company ceased operations in 1938, but several of its original streetcars are preserved, for instance at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum, Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal and the Seashore Trolley Museum.
Product line
This list is incomplete.
Bus
Streetcars
Interurbans
Trolley coach (trackless trolley)
Clients
This section is incomplete.
- Chicago Transit Authority; Chicago, IL
- Conestoga Transportation Company; Lancaster, PA
- Hagerstown and Frederick Railway; MD
- Interborough Rapid Transit Company; New York City, NY
- Jamestown, Westfield and Northwestern Railroad; Jamestown, NY
- Lehigh Valley Transit; Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton, PA
- New York State Railways; NY
- Rochester, Lockport and Buffalo Railroad Corporation; Rochester, NY