While looking for material on the Tampa streetcar system, I was looking at this modern site on rail transit in Tampa and Florida in general, and found it had a series of maps from the system from what I would guess is the WW II era (advertising in the brochures speaks of a "50th anniversary" for the street railway system, which would have been in 1942).

Have fun, both for the maps themselves, and as a way to compare old and new systems.

http://www.davethewebguy.com/tamparail/ ... icmaps.asp

http://www.davethewebguy.com/tamparail/images/tsm3.jpg

http://www.davethewebguy.com/tamparail/images/tsm1.jpg

http://www.davethewebguy.com/tamparail/images/tsm2.jpg

http://www.davethewebguy.com/tamparail/images/tsm4.jpg

http://www.davethewebguy.com/tamparail/images/tsm5.jpg

Thank you for posting these vintage streetcar maps. I live in Tampa Heights on Park Ave, 1 block North of Ross Ave between Central and Jeffereson. Some of my neighbors and I were wondering what the specific streetcar routes were when they ran from the Tampa Heights trolley barn North to Sulfur Springs. Your posted maps gave us the answer! Thank you!

And thank you for the compliment, but the real credit goes to the fellow in Florida who originally preserved the material, the other fellow who has it on his modern transit site, and to the people who run this site and others, allowing us to look around and find things to share. . .

I also live in Tampa and enjoyed the maps.

However, the original Tampa Electric streetcar system would hardly work in the expanded city that Tampa has become since that system was abandoned in 1946 (or 1947). While some of the routes could provide basic service, they would need to be greatly lengthened and/or altered to serve the business and residential communities today. A new light rail system can and probably should be done but Tampa suffers from voters who are anti-anything that requires increased taxes and taxes seem to be the only funding available for such projects.

The present "TECO" streetcar line from Ybor City to the waterfront area wasn't one of the original routes and is completely new. It is mostly a tourist line but is functional for some visitors who stay in hotels along the line.

I rode one of these streetcars a few months ago and was disappointed to find that the windows were all closed and a CD player was blaring out Rod Stewart music that reveberated inside the car to make a very annoying experience. A streetcar has it's own ambience, sounds and smells that make it unique and fun. The motorman told me that they had three cars running that day and two of them had the music systems installed.

-JH