Motorists backed up on Centre Street and Loudon Road, waiting to slip through traffic at the Interstate 93 bottleneck, might take comfort from this 1890s photograph from the collection of antiquarian Earl Burroughs. Where did the trolley routes intersect?

For extra credit: How far could a traveler go on electric street railways from Concord?

For nearly all of its history Concord has been a transportation center, and during a majority of the 20th century, the dominant mode of transportation was the Boston & Maine Railroad, which also owned the Concord Street Railways. The Concord Historical Society explores the railroad's influence on Concord in "Crosscurrents of Change," the history of Concord in the 20th century. Publication is scheduled for later this year.

The automobile bottleneck on Center Street and Bridge Street wasn’t the first traffic jam in Concord, as this photo of electric streetcars operated by the Concord Street Railway reveals. This picture, from the collection of antiquarian Earl Burroughs, shows the streetcars at the intersection of Main and Pleasant Streets in the 1890s. This might not even have been Concord’s first traffic jam; 19th century memoirs say that Main Street was often jammed with freight wagons. Old-timer Abiel Rolfe counted 50 at one time on a summer day early in the 1800s.

The Concord Historical Society is writing about the twentieth-century’s electric trolley lines in "Crosscurrents of Change," the history of Concord in the 20th century. The Concord Street Railways operated streetcars over 11 miles of track, and in 1902 carried 2,500 riders a day. A determined traveler could transfer to the Manchester Street Railway in Hooksett and, through transfers and exchanges, could ride all the way to Boston on electric streetcars. The trip would take five hours and cost 95 cents, a significant sum in a time when an average daily salary would not exceed $1.