Our May program, Interurban Railways of Canada, will be presented by Ray DeGroote (ERA #1009). Ray will show a collection of rarely seen views, many in color, of favorites such as the London & Port Stanley and the Montreal & Southern Counties Railway. What little remains of these magnificent Canadian systems reside in transit museums, which we will also visit.

Ray brings long years and extensive knowledge of passenger and freight transportation to tonight’s show. Don’t miss it! Read More

May 2023 Meeting Notice

MBS invites our fellow ERA members to join us in celebrating our 75th anniversary with the Spring 2023 Motor Bus Society Convention to be held in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. Please note that this is a four-day Thursday to Sunday convention, different from previous conventions which started on a Friday.

The host hotel for the convention will be the Courtyard Secaucus Meadowlands. Highlights of the convention will include visits to the NYCTA Transit Museum, the Branford Trolley Museum, the FNJTHC Lakewood Facility, and the Westchester Bee Line/Liberty Lines Maintenance Facility in Yonkers. There will be activities for everyone!

2023 MBS Spring Convention Flyer

Clark Frazier, our originally scheduled speaker, is unable to present his planned program for this month. Instead, we are pleased to feature retired MARTA chief operating officer, ERA member, and Ohio native Rich Krisak, who has graciously accepted our invitation on short notice to present Cleveland Transit 1955-1975: Mobility Redefined. This is a continuation of his presentation on Cleveland that he showed at the August 2021 ERA meeting.

Rich’s presentation covers the transit highlights of this tumultuous 20-year period. Declining ridership, increased labor costs and rising fares put the transit system into a “death spiral” that would eventually result in the creation of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority in 1975. It is rare to find a treatment of a major American city’s traction history as comprehensive as the one Rich will present. You will not want to miss this program! Read More

April 2023 Meeting Notice

Our April program will be presented by Clark Frazier. Clark will be showing some of his most favorite slides, starting in 1956, of electric streetcars and interurbans. Locations all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico will be seen as well as Costa Rica and, in Europe, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Yugoslavia.

A native of central California, Clark graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master of science degree in transportation but spent most of his career in the field of information technology. He started taking color slides in 1956 and continued to do so until 2000. He has traveled extensively in Central and South America as well as Europe and Asia. Read More

April 2023 Meeting Notice

Our March program, European Tour 2022, will be presented by ERA board member and Bulletin Editor-in-Chief Jeff Erlitz (ERA #3997). Cities visited will include Milan, Vienna and Berlin. While in Milan, Jeff also sampled marine transport on Lakes Maggiore and Como. A special highlight of Jeff’s visit to Berlin was attending the biennial trade show known as InnoTrans. Read More

March 2023 Meeting Notice

Our February program will be presented by Eric Oszustowicz, who has been requested to show photographs of the tram systems in Ukraine in addition to views of its metros and mainline railroads. Eric and his wife Mary traveled extensively throughout Ukraine in 2017 and 2018.

Eric’s program will start in the capital, Kyiv, home to an extensive tram, metro and trolleybus system, all of which will be covered. Then it is on to Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv, and lots more.

Eric’s presentations usually run well over three hours. Please join us for a special evening. Read More

February 2023 Meeting Notice

Longtime conventions and trip chairman and former editor of Headlights Jack May will be the presenter of our January meeting. With the pandemic winding down, Jack gradually returned to foreign travel during 2022, and will present a program devoted to his two journeys to Europe this past year, one to France and the other to Belgium.

Jack traditionally opens each year of ERA meetings with his outstanding presentations. Please join us on Zoom to welcome in the New Year with our first program of 2023! Read More

January 2023 Meeting Notice