Manchester Street Station

Manchester Street Station. The Early Years, also, The 1930's. , The Early Years , Manchester Street's origins were in the electrification of the horse-drawn trolley system., Electrification of the trolley system was complete by 1895 and the Union Company Powerhouse at Manchester Street provided the current. In 1903, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad took over the streetcar franchise and built Manchester Street Station to supply the electricity. The initial powerhouse had only a single steam engine but ten years later the company added a turbine and boiler room to the north side. The Union Electric Railways Company took over Manchester Street and the streetcar system in 1919, and added a new turbine. Although the company improved and enlarged its electric trolley service by adopting a loop system in downtown Providence, the automobile was starting to take away business., In 1926, the Boston-based New England Power Association (later to become New England Electric) took over both Union Electric Railways and Narragansett Electric Lighting and merged them into the renamed Narragansett Electric Company., The trolley system slowly became obsolete with the advent of the gasoline powered bus and became independent of the power company. This formed the nucleus of the present-day Rhode Island Public Transit Authority., 1930's , World War II brought increased demand for electrical power., Narragansett Electric's Manchester Street Station was forced to run on its existing generators for nearly a decade due to the hardships of the Great Depression. The German invasion of Poland in September of 1939, which began World War II, changed that. Two weeks after tanks rumbled into Poland, the power company announced the expansion of Manchester Street Station, including a new generating unit, to meet the heavy demands of war-related factories. The $4 million investment tripled Manchester Street Station's output and dramatically boosted efficiency.