Boston Elevated Ry. route map -- date?

Have just come across an undated System Route Map and am trying to place it. It is marked Fifth Edition, the President and General Manager was Edward Dana, and the phone number was HANcock 1800, back when you dialed 3 letters and 4 figures. It identifies the Cambridge-Dorchester Tunnel, Forest Hills-Everett Elevated (Washington St. Tunnel), East Boston Tunnel, and Tremont St., Boylstson St., and Huntington Ave. Subways. There were streetcars from Maverick to Revere Beach (3 routes, 116, 117, and 118), 99 Sullivan Sq. to Spot Pond, 30 Arborway-Forest Hills to Mattapan, 32 Cleary Sq., 33 Roslindale, 34 Dedham Line, and 36 Charles River. 31 Mattapan-Wolcott Sq. was a bus. From City Point, 7 and 8 South Station, 9 North Station, and 10 Dudley were all streetcars. (Those must have been the days.) Bus charter rates were 35 to 50 cents per mile depending on trip length, plus $1 per hour waiting time, minimum charge $7.50 per bus (!). The bus pictured appears to date from the 1930's. Can anyone help to narrow down the date?

I think it is probably mid-1940s. The big fold-out public maps started with #1, about 1936. As significant changes were made, it was updated and reissued. I believe #3 was about 1940 and I believe some of them had dates. I think #6 was the last BE and it was issued after the #89, Broadway-Somerville was converted to trolley coach, the first such conversion after the end of WWII. The MTA bought out the BE in 1947 and its first issue is .....The First MTA Edition. Leo Sullivan will have the exact details on this when he logs in. I could have the exact details if I could locate the box of area trolley and transit material that I have.

BE Map edition 3 is July, 1938, Map 4 is July, 1940. I don't have #5. #6 is World War II sometime as the #76 and #101 routes are running full time rail (in the immediate pre-war period they ran bus off-peak weekdays and all day Sundays, but ODT ordered full time rail restored), There is a BE #7 map which has the first two post-WW II trackless trolley conversions on the #89 and #101 routes and reversion to part time rail service on #76, bus rest of time. #7 would be sometime in 1946.

found them!
Don't have the months but,
#5 is 1942
#6 is 1943
#7 is 1946
and the next one is MTA #1 in 1948
LS

Fine--1942 will do. I volunteer at the National Railway Historical Society library in Philadelphia and we just got this in as part of a donation; glad to have a date to put on it. Many thanks to both of you. (By the way, it was interesting to note that Boston had streetcars, but trackless trolleys.)

A bit off topic but, Fitchburg and Providence also had "Trackless" and, I think the
short lived one in Fairhaven was a "Trackless" too.
Anyone know any more?
LS

I think that it was primarily a New England thing for them to be formerly referred to as "trackless trolleys", but it can be found elsewhere as well occasionally (probably due to a Boston influence). Boston, Fitchburg, Providence, Wilkes-Barre PA, Franklin, NH (E.T.T.Co. demo) etc. Then, you had Boston's "Eastern Trackless Trolley Company", succeeded by the "American Trackless Trolley Company", running around trying to sell their products in Nantucket Beach, Scranton PA, New Haven CT., NYC..."Trolley Coach" seems to be the preferred nomanclature outside of New England. For the other 99 %, just like the streetcars had those that would ask "where's the steering wheel ?",there were many who might think "where's the gas cap ?" regarding the trackless trolleys.

Milwaukee's transit system, which started trackless service when it was The Milwaukee Electric Ry & Light, always called its rubber tired electrics, "Trackless Trolley Cars."

They were called (and still are) "trackless trolleys" in Philadelphia. The first one, early in the 20th century, although I can't pin down the year (1920's?), looks in photographs very much like a Birney on rubber tires, with two trolley poles. For an apparition like that, during the heyday of trolley cars, the name trackless trolley is the first thing anyone would think of.

The first Philadelphia trackless trolley that looked like a Birney on tires was a "Brill Rail-less Car."