By MICHAEL T. BURKHART
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN

The advertisement shows a sleek new electric trolley cruising along Wayne Avenue in Philadelphia, touting the cheap price of the ride.

"Utterly different from any streetcar Philadelphia has ever seen, these ultra-modern streamliners are the result of a five-year, million dollar program of research and development," the flier says. "Your new car and chauffeur for 15 cents a day!"

In 1938, Philadelphia Rapid Transit, predecessor to today's SEPTA, used slick brochures to announce the delivery of 20 new streetcars.

More than 65 years later, New Jersey Transit's advertisements for the soon-to-open River Line take a similar tone.

It brags about the new diesel-powered cars and urges people to abandon the roads for the rails.

"Full-sized luxury sedan," says one NJ Transit Internet ad. "Welcome to the best value in travel today."

The River Line's one-way fare of "just $1.10 a ride" is displayed prominently in the ads and brochures along with photos of the colorful new cars.

NJ Transit has been aggressively marketing the River Line as the start of public service approaches Sunday.

It has spent thousands of dollars on print and Internet ads and has covered several trains with pictures showing places to go along the line.

"The theme of reliability and dependability and an affordable price are staples for the industry," said Bill Morris, a researcher at the Center for Urban Transportation at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "The other aspect is the experience."

But the themes of convenience and speed are fairly new, he said. The old-time streetcars could not go faster than automobiles.

Trolley systems died off after World War II with the proliferation of the car and interstate highways, Morris said. But they've re-emerged as light rail because of the speed and people wanting to get away from congestion on the roads.

The idea of streetcars being sleek, modern, comfortable and cheap is not new, said Morgan Lyons, spokesman for Dallas Area Rapid Transit in Texas.

"A lot of the messages are the same and that's OK," Lyons said. "These messages work."