Night owl transit service

30s streetcar on Pennsylvania Ave. SE, 1960. Photo by Ken Harrison, Dave's Rail Pix.

There is a yahoogroup on DC area transit (WashDC_Metro@yahoogroups.com), to which I am gonna have to subscribe. I am taking the liberty of reprinting a recent post by Dick Kotulak:

Except during the second World War years, buses provided what Capital Transit called "owl" service. Generally, this was from about 1 am to 5 am each night. The buses followed the same routes as the streetcars, stopping at the safety islands along the route. Except for the Benning line, the other private right of way lines (Cabin John and Maryland beyond Mt Rainier) had no all night service. I did not check the exact dates the owl runs went back to streetcars and back to buses, but it was generally between 1942 and 1947.

One particular owl routing during the War was combining the Wisconsin Ave line with the Benning line as a through route. Mervin Borgnis who wrote numerous books on Atlantic City, Philadelphia and Allentown, worked here during the war and his favorite ride was on this owl route.

On a personal note, one night about 12:30 am about 1959, I was coming home on a route 30 streetcar. That night was the change over from Standard time to Daylight time. Since the changeover involved the loss of an hour, during that time change, the owl buses began their runs an hour earlier before the streetcar runs ended. Thus for an hour, there was double service with both streetcars and buses. Pennsylvania Avenue looked like rush hour for a time. Needless to say, when the time changed back in the fall, provision was made to fill in the hour that would have missed service during the change.