In 1918, A Dark Cloud Passed Over Saucon Valley's 'Sunshine Line'

At 9am on the morning of Oct. 13, 1918, Car #10 of the South Bethlehem and Saucon Street Railway Company began its journey, which would end in a tragic accident. Starting in Center Valley, the trolley picked up 31 passengers along its route to Fourth and New streets. As the trolley crested South Mountain, the passengers noticed that the car was traveling faster than usual. For the next mile-and-a-half down Wyandotte Street the trolley picked up speed. Motorman Earl Young desperately tried to engage the chain brakes, without effect. The trolley was traveling at 35 to 40 miles per hour and just barely staying on the tracks.

The passengers and the three railway company employees soon realized that the trolley was out of control and a crash was imminent. Passengers Dr. Edgar Urich (the local dentist), Jonas Jacoby, J.S. Schundel and George H. Walz jumped from the rear of the car. Conductor W.B. Price followed close behind. Motorman Young and Superintendent James R. Hoy remained on the front platform, bracing themselves for the impact. Among the passengers, Mr. and Mrs. William Yons were traveling with their four small children. Mr. Yons grabbed two of his children who were nearest, Isabella (age 2) and Edwin (age 4) and held them tightly in his arms. Mrs. Yons' sister, Mrs. Mabel Trauger, and her husband, Robert, were also on board. They had married a year earlier. The group was on its way to Allentown to visit relatives.

At the curve right before Summit and Wyandotte streets the trolley failed to remain on the tracks. It struck the ice cream delivery truck of Raymond W. Rapp, breaking the truck’s windows. Next the trolley hit a telephone pole, tearing it out of the ground. The trolley barely missed hitting the Chas E. Baum Confectionary Store at the corner of Summit and Wyandotte before screeching to a halt, turning over on its side at the adjoining property of Alfred F. Ueberroth. It stopped alongside Ueberroth’s front porch.

Residents of the neighborhood, along with members of the Southside Police and the Fire Department, ran to assist the injured; several doctors made their way to the scene, including Dr. C.W. Laciar; St. Luke’s Hospital and Bethlehem Steel Company ambulances were called, and several personal automobiles were commissioned into service as transportation to St. Luke’s. Contractor S.L. Cyphers happened on the scene in his large truck filled with sand. He dumped the sand onto the street and filled his truck with injured trolley passengers to transport them to St. Luke’s. Even Bethlehem Mayor Archibald Johnston arrived to offer help.

Two passengers were killed and many were seriously injured in the terrifying ride down South Mountain. Edward H. Smith of Center Valley died at the scene of a fractured skull, and Mabel Trauger, the newlywed, was thrown through the trolley window and later died at St. Luke’s Hospital as a result of a skull fracture. The Yons family all escaped serious injury. Sixteen of the 31 passengers received lacerations and/or bone fractures, and the two railway company employees, Hoy and Young, had minor injuries.

The South Bethlehem and Saucon Street Railway Company blamed wet leaves on the tracks as the cause of the accident. However, this was not the first time problems had occurred on the route. The yellow or green trolley cars were often late or would stop running altogether in bad weather. Passengers thus nicknamed the line “The Sunshine Line,” suggesting that it only operated in fair weather.

The trolley company had begun service with a fleet of secondhand cars on May 2, 1909. The tracks were laid for the seven-mile route that began at Fourth and New streets and continued south on New, west on Packer Avenue, south on Brodhead Avenue, west on Summit Street, and south on Wyandotte Street, before proceeding up and over the hill to Seidersville and south through Wydnor, Colesville and Friedensville to Center Valley.

A car barn was built for the trolleys at the top of Seidersville hill (at University Heights). The running time for a one-way trip on the Sunshine Line was one hour, and the fare from Bethlehem to Colesville was 5 cents, or to Center Valley, 10 cents.

Trolley cars also carried cans of milk from the dairy farms of Saucon Valley to Summit and Wyandotte streets, where they were transferred to horse-drawn wagons.

In 1929, trolley service on the line came to an end after just two decades. The Yellow Cab Company took over the route with several small buses, and by the 1950s had completely disappeared from most U.S. cities.