I believe Chicago's trolley buses lasted until the early 1970s. There's a good book by George Krambles, a well respected long time CTA official, on the history of the CTA. Krambles said the trolleybus routes were taken off because the power distribution network was shot and it would've been too costly to rebuild. Unfortunately, at that time solid state rectifiers were still pretty expensive and maintaining the complex web of positive and negative overhead wires (and distribution feeders) was difficult.
At the end of WW II Chicago went out and purchased a large number of high capacity "PCC" streetcars which were state of the art vehicles of their day. They had excellent suspension, ventilation, and propulsion and braking systems and very popular with riders. But shortly after delivery Chicago decided to go to bus. The streetcars were sent back to the factory, scrapped, and the parts used to build elevated trains. Contrary to common belief, individual cars were not converted into "L" cars, rather, the parts were used on a new heavier frame.
Would anyone know what kind of telephone system CTA used? Transit systems had widespread networks of phones at terminals and in tunnels. Was it privately owned and operated or leased from Bell? Were their separate systems from the predecessor L and surface car and bus companies?
I am a strong advocate of electric propulsion. Streetcars in city streets do have the disadvantage of being easily blocked by errant vehicles. Older streetcars (built before the PCCs) were not comfortable. In my mother's day, she was willing to pay a higher fare to ride a bus than the trolley, and she was frugal, but she did not like riding the old trolley (she did like PCCs). She was glad when Phila converted many of its trolley routes to bus.
In talking with transit people who actually are responsible to run the system, buses were preferred over streetcars. For whatever the reason, buses did have the flexibility. There was no track or power maintenance which was costly.
However, streetcars on private right of way would perform far better than a bus because they could carry more people faster.
Another problem was that the trolleys were old and spare parts not available. If trolleys were as easily maintained as mass produced buses, they'd be less of a headache.
Of course, today, so many people live out in sprawling suburbs where mass transit isn't as efficient and must pay $3+ for gasoline.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: CTA's telephone system used the third rail for the telephone communications on the trains. Between the headquarter's switchboard and the individual stations, they used leased lines from Illinois Bell.A bit of history for you to consider: The _original_ train routes (Jackson Park Elevated Line, Lake Street Elevated Company, Chicago Rapid Transit Company, The Union Loop Elevated Line, Metropolitan Rail and others) and the _original_ bus and street car companies (Boulevard Bus, Chicago Surface Lines and others) were all privately owned companies. In 1932, Chicago Rapid Transit Company went into receivership and bankruptcy when they were unable to pay their _electric_ bill to the Chicago Edison Company, our electric supplier at the time. A man named Samuel Insull was the president of Chicago Rapid Transit and on the board of Edison. On the day Edison was set to cut off the power to the rapid transit line, Insull cut a deal for them. Chicago Edison would loan the money needed to Chicago Rapid Transit, in the form of fifty year bonds. I guess they figured fifty years hence (1982) was a long time away, why worry about it. In 1947, City of Chicago municipalized (a polite term for theft when City of Chicago does it out of politicians' greed) all seven or eight transportation companies and merged them all into Chicago Transit Authority.
Since all the private companies knew about a year ahead of time they were going to get screwed royally by City of Chicago politicians, they decided to begin screwing back, and they entirely quit any/all maint- ainence of their busses and trains except for dire emergency work. So when the transition day arrived, the 'new' entity, CTA was left with a rolling junk pile of old, worn out equipment, busses with bald tires, you name it. CTA kept plodding along, and after a few years, everyone forgot about the long term bonds coming due for payment in
1982. Everyone, that is, except for the bankers and Chicago Edison, which in the 1940's became 'Commonwealth Edison'. In addition to his position as president of the old Chicago Rapid Transit Company and his seat on the board of Edison, Charles Insull was also on the board of Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad. The North Shore Railroad at his behest, built a perfectly marvelous train station in his honor in a perfectly marvelous (at the time) Chicago neighborhood, Uptown Station at Wilson and Broadway Avenues in the Uptown neighborhood.This station marked the point where Chicago Rapid Transit at one time ended its route and the North Shore line paused on its route. Please note how the rails on stilts stop at that point and the rails on grade level (albeit elevated grade level) begin. (North Shore ran all the way south to downtown Chicago on Chicago Rapid Transit tracks to the downtown area, then around the downtown area on the tracks of Union Loop Company to its station on Wabash Avenue at Van Buren Street.) Mr. Insull was a Bad Man. Mr. Insull wound up in prison, in part because the US Attorney said he had cooked the books on Chicago Rapid Transit Company and was less than totally forthright in his activities at Edison and with North Shore Railroad, or for that matter, most of his other companies, etc.
1982 comes around, Commonwealth Edison and the bankers stir from their sleep and make demand on CTA: We want our money which we gave you in 1932 on those fifty year bonds! We want our money now! CTA replies, we cannot pay you 'right now', times are still tough ... we would have to raise the fares in order to pay you 'right now'. Edison's response was, why should we care? We don't care if you have to raise the fares to a _dollar per ride_ (in 1982 fares were thirty-five cents each, however they had been one thin dime each a few years earlier). Go ahead and raise the fares, we want our money! Charlie (Insull, long before sent to prison and long since deceased) cut the deal for you people to keep your trains running in 1932. Quit stalling and pay! So CTA paid the several million due, and we got a HUGE fare increase that same year. No new or better equipment, just a fare increase to pay for Insull's earlier squandering of the cash and cooking the books. Part of how CTA managed to make do was by letting Insull's Uptown Station (by then known as the Wilson Avenue Elevated Station) go to hell along with Dempster Street Station (later it was named 'Skokie Swift terminal') which Insull also had had his hands in back in the 1920s sometime. CTA was born out of total corruption to start with and has seldom if ever gotten out of that mode since.Charles Krambles was one shining star in the mess; Mr. Krambles was brilliant regards public transit and so obviously CTA had to get rid of him as soon as they could. Mr. Krambles was caught in an embarrass- ing police sting operation in the men's room of the Illinois Central Randolph Street Station. He was arrested, and CTA (up to their old tricks once again) bought off the Chicago Police to keep the matter quiet and drop charges, which they did but only half-heartedly. (The Chicago Tribune had his name and picture and place of employment in the paper the next day as was their custom in those days after police raids, etc. and transit union members made sure _everyone_ saw his picture and read the story of the activities of the night before.) Shortly thereafter, Krambles resigned from his position as General Manager of the Chicago Transit Authority, his transit career mostly in shambles as a result. PAT]