Streetcars once existed in cities all over America until the automobile came along. A recent piece on “CBS Sunday Morning” covered the streetcars of New Orleans and how they are such an integral part of the city and its history. By the 1960s, New Orleans had replaced nearly all of its streetcars with buses, but as the city reintroduced contemporary streetcars in recent decades, it has also maintained a few originals.

This story took me back to the early 1970s when I lived in Bremerhaven, Germany, and where my daughter was born in the U.S. military hospital. I was a young mother and, while my husband worked on base, I took my infant daughter on many trips riding the streetcar or Strassenbahn, as they were called in Germany. I remember the electrified tram as being very convenient — an adventure of sorts — to travel around the city. They were much cleaner than today’s diesel city buses.

Streetcars ran in Bremerhaven from 1881 to 1982, the year after we left Germany on our second tour in Augsburg. They have also run there since 1881, initially with horse-drawn trams. I read that the city of Bremerhaven may soon bring its Strassenbahn back.