LOW BRIDGE AHEAD - TROLLEY vs. RAILROAD 

The truck driver carrying a tall load approaches the underpass with caution. Clearance appears to be extremely low.  It's at the western terminus of Tennis Avenue just past Main Street.  He stops for closer inspection of the apparently small opening under the railroad. 

Not just an optical illusion, the clearance is actually low, very low.   It did not happen by accident, but was the result of a battle waged more than a century ago between the railroad and the traction company as both competed for the same passenger business. 

North Penn Railroad, established in 1855, had built a profitable passenger and freight service between Philadelphia and Gwynedd. The traction company, better known as the trolley company, entered the competition in the mid to late 1890's, giving the railroad no little concern.  A group of interested parties in Ambler met at John Cooper's new Hotel Wyndham about 1894 intent on establishing a trolley line to Norristown, feeling Ambler's citizens would benefit from easy access to the county seat.  At the same time, additional revenue would be generated for businesses in the Borough.  Not only John Cooper, but all members on this committee would thus have  benefited by such action. 

The planned trolley route to Norristown never came about, however, having met with insurmountable opposition from one person.   He was Charles W. Bergner, President of Bergner & Engel Brewing Company, of Philadelphia.   His vast estate at Ambler included much of the land on both sides of Butler Pike, near its intersection with the Morris Road 

It was necessary for trolley companies to secure permission from land owners to lay their tracks on one side of the road or the other. Since Bergner owned property on both sides of Butler Pike and refused permission for tracks to be laid on either side, the trolley line could not be installed.   Said Bergner when asked permission, "Absolutely not!  I built my summer home out here to get away from city noises and I do not want the trolley noises near me."  Thus single-handedly Bergner thwarted efforts ever to establish a line to Norristown.  The group continued efforts for years to achieve their goal without success. 

Refusing to give up, the group had another plan for connecting with the County seat.  This would have brought the line from Skippack Pike through fields near Dawesfield on Lewis Lane to Morris Road and eventually West Ambler.  From here it would have been a simple matter to go over or under the railroad and then down Main Street to Butler Avenue. 

At least it would have been a simple matter had not North Penn Railroad learned of the  trolley's plans.   North Penn at the time was preparing to eliminate the dangerous Reiff's Mill Road crossing over their tracks and replace it with a  subway, or underpass, just a short distance north of the crossing at the western terminus of Tennis Avenue.  On realizing that the traction company would attempt to use this underpass to go under the railroad, they altered their plans hurriedly to make certain that the clearance would definitely be too low to ever allow a trolley to pass underneath.  At the time, the approaches to the bridge could have been elevated to make better clearance.  This also would have lessened the dangers of flooding of the roadbed under the bridge. 

With another failure facing them, the traction company had a new plan.  This would  have brought a trolley line from Norristown into Fort Washington from the Skippack Pike by way of Lafayette Avenue.  This failed when permission from property owners could not be secured.  Despite so many rejections by property owners, the group of citizens continued attempts until the turn of the century to connect Ambler with Norristown. 

With the approach of a new century, attention was turned to the new proposed trolley line.  It was planned to connect Chestnut Hill with Allentown.   The trolley line would enter Ambler from the Bethlehem Pike onto Butler Avenue, travelling through the business district to Main Street where it would go to Bannockburn Avenue, eventually returning to the Bethlehem Pike, heading once again for Chestnut Hill. This planned route through Ambler was expected to bring boom times to the borough.  It did bring a degree of prosperity to local businesses.  With it however came problems such as many accidents involving the horse and carriage and later the automobile.  The trolley line through Ambler was discontinued in the late 1920's being replaced by a number of bus lines.