so ryan gravelle had an idea to connect them and it was unusual because they never worked, they were owned by four different railroads. they were industry built up around them, people began to live around them. and then the streetcars came in the late 1800s and there was this magnificent network of streetcars atlanta.in their infinite wisdom, one year after i was born in 1948 they destroyed all of the streetcars in atlanta. why? because they were old-fashioned. why? because starting around 1915, atlanta really began to switch to automobiles. and trucks. there is a picture in the book of downtown atlanta in 1914. it had a few streetcars, a lot of pedestrians just walking across the street and there were some horses and buggies. they were a couple of cars. and then there is a picture on next page from 1924. 10 years later, it was all cars. some streetcars were packed in. so people began to complain. so they ended up building the streets over the middle of town. that is how downtown, how underground atlantic became to be. in the process of cars and trucks taking over, the beltline railr