Featured New Addition To My Hoard: Cincinnati Street Railway Conductor's Badge

Really excited to add this piece to my collection! It is an employee badge from the Cincinnati Street Railway, one of many privately owned public transit operators in Cincinnati, which was founded in 1859 and was in operation up to 1952.

The CSR operated a number of local railways, streetcars, inclined railways, and bus routes changing operations as the technology of public transport was refined. Back during this period of time, Cincinnati was a very influential midwestern city and was a center of industry, commerce, and also an important transportation hub for the region. Cincinnati's very hilly topography around the river basin that formed downtown created a constant need for reliable mass transport for the cities booming upper and middle classes who increasingly lived in the streetcar suburbs above the dense, congested, polluted city below.



These badges occasionally do come up for sale but are very scarce. They were produced by the Whitehead & Hoag Company which also produced a wide array of other badges, medals, political & advertising buttons. I thought my new addition was in superior condition to several of the other badges I've seen previously.

Hope you enjoy the photos and the history. 2020 has been a really good year for my collections despite being incredibly lousy in many other respects.
Joe

Additional Info On Cincinnati's Early Public Transit
https://www.wcpo.com/longform/a-city-built-by-streetcars-a-look-back-at-cincinnatis-street-railroads

 

choo choo well done, enjoy.

 

Very nice indeed!

 

I'm officially drooling. My dad was a rail nut and he'd have loved that! He liked trolleys and I always have too. They were the original non-polluting transportation.