Cincinnati Milford & Blanchester Traction

Company History: The CM&BT was the result of the 1918 reorganization of the failed Cincinnati Milford & Loveland Traction Company which ran a 5’ 2 ½” gauge electric streetcar line from Madisonville on the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio to Milford and Blanchester (a total length of 29 miles.) The Kroger family (of grocery empire fame) controlled the company. The gauge allowed CM&BT cars to run into Cincinnati on the Cincinnati Street Railway. The reorganization only delayed the inevitable. The line from Newtonville to Blanchester was abandoned in 1922. Four years later, the Krogers sold their interest to the people behind the Cincinnati Georgetown & Portsmouth Railroad. The line from Madison to Milford became part of the Cincinnati Street Railway and the rest of the CM&BT was abandoned in 1926.

Successor/Parent History: The CSR was established in 1859 and would become one of more than a dozen streetcar lines in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1880, they began acquiring other lines in the city culminating with the Mount Auburn Cable Railway and Cincinnati & Columbia Street Railway in 1896. CSR was unusual in that they used a 2-wire-2-trolley-poll system. This was due to a conflict with a local phone company who claimed the return current in the rails was causing interference to the phone service. The conversion from streetcar to trolley bus was made much easier by the pre-existing double wire system. The rail service lasted until 1951. The following year, the operation was renamed Cincinnati Transit Commission.

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