Trolley Thursday 2-27-20 - The South Lake Union Streetcar

Unlike its contemporaries in Portland and San Francisco, Seattle was never able to claw back what it lost between 1941 and 2005. The George Benson Waterfront Streetcar helped drum up interest in street railways, even being utilized by commuters once the line reached downtown, but outside forces shuttered it before it could expand further. On today's Trolley Thursday, the City of Seattle operates a disconnected two-line system three miles long through the main metro area with room for expansion. It may not be much, but it's worth riding if you're looking to get across town from your streetcorner. (teeheehee)

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Westlake Blvd, 1909
(Webster and Stevens)

The first streetcar line to open was the South Lake Union Line in 2007; it runs from Downtown via Fairview, Westlake, and Terry streets to the suburb of South Lake Union at the Westlake Hub and McGraw Square. The alignment is a Seattle original, as Seattle Electric first opened the line five days after being granted a franchise in 1890. Known as the "Westlake Line" back then, it was privately operated until being absorbed by the Seattle Muni in 1918. Its last train ran on April 13, 1941, and was replaced by buses.

Westlake and Olive, 1949
(City of Seattle)

Concilman Benson's streetcar was an immediate success when it first opened in 1982, and further improvements in the 1990s stirred interest in creating a new light rail for Seattle. Sound Transit, which operates public transit in Washington state, was already in the process of creating an interurban light rail line from the University of Washington, Seattle to the Tacoma Dome (Link Light Rail) and a municipal extension to the existing Seattle Monorail from Ballard to West Seattle via Seattle Center. Obviously, none of the plans panned out but one managed to sneak through the cracks and onto the desk of Mayor Paul Schell.

Schell, then mayor in 1998, proposed running a new light rail from the University District to South Lake Union (SLU). SLU was originally a massive mill shipyard town, but possessed an opportunity for urban renewal by the late 90s. Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder, intended the area to be used as a technology hub like Silicon Valley under the name of "The Seattle Commons", but this plan was rejected by voters. Inspired by the Pearl District's revitilization under the Portland Streetcar, Allen knew the streetcar would be a way to revitalize SLU and funded the project through his Vulcan Inc. venture capital holdings. 

The George Benson Streetcar, some time in the 1990s
(The Seattle Times)

Mayor Greg Nickels and the Puget Sound Civic Council oversaw groundbreaking on July 7, 2006, with Nichols offering naming rights to each station as a way to gather financial support. The plan was heavily criticized for going way over budget (from $45 million at planning to $50 million at groundbreaking) and by some political activists who preferred the money go to improving road maintenance and bus operations. Construction continued despite more criticism, as some advocacy groups saw Allens' pro-streetcar lobbying as a "billionaire's plaything". The first Czech-built cars would arrive in Seattle in September 2007, with system testing beginning the next month.

The South Lake Union Streetcar takes
its first run on December 12, 2007
(Rober Scheuerman)

The first car ran on December 12, 2007, taking just a year and a half of construction on the 1-mile line. Rides were free at first, then a $1.50 fare was introduced the following January. The streetcar was a success despite the high price tag of $56 million, but it also had a lot of operating teething troubles. The streetcar became labled a hazard, as drivers complained of the streetcars hogging the new one-way alignments on Westlake (south) and Terry (north), and bicyclists tried to sue the streetcar as a safety menace before the case was thrown out of court. Low ridership also plagued the Streetcar, as the Puget Sound and Seattle Electrics both experienced.

Things steadily improved for the streetcar, as businesses began popping up all over SLU. To meet the new demands, the city of Seattle proposed in 2015 to create "transit-only" lanes accessible by bus and streetcar only during rush hours (similar to Trimet and Portland Streetcar's alignments in Oregon). The year after, the new First Hill Streetcar opened, connecting Capitol Hill, First Hill, Little Saigon and Occidental Mall, and one notable feature of it was the paralleling bike lane. However, the two lines were still seperated by over a mile of street and the plan to connect the two was halted in 2018.

In 2017, the two Seattle Streetcars experienced its highest ridership yet, peaking at over 1.4 million people (double what it did the year before). Despite this, the system is still in severe decline due to unreliable service and lacking an effective rail connection between them. Nevertheless, Seattle is on its way in returning the trolley back to its streets and one can only hope King County Metro and Sound Transit both can facilitate that expansion.

The First Hill Streetcar glides onto Yesler Way, tracing the old Cable Car route.
(SounderBruce)

And yes, people call it the "South Lake Union Trolley" because it spells "SLUT". I think we can all stop giggling now. 

"I don't care what you call it, as long as you ride it." - Mayor Greg Nickels
(Greg Dunlap)

Teeheehee.

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Thank you everyone for keeping up with February's Trolleypostings! My editor, Nakkune, and I've experienced our biggest readership yet since I moved the series over to Blogger with this new format. From both of us, thank you for reading and I wanna extend an apology to King County Metro if I've mistakenly insulted you in this writing. I wanna see your public light rail look good and be worth using, especially the heritage behind it. 

Next month, we leave the comfort of the West Coast and make our first foray inland with Arizona's Tucson and Old Pueblo Trolleys! Until then, ride safe!

Trolley Tuesday 2/25/20 - The George Benson Waterfront Streetcar

You'd think that for a city as large as Seattle, their first modern street railway would be something robust and useable by commuters like the South Lake Union Trolley. (teeheehee... sorry.) You'd be wrong, though, because the first streetcars to operate since the MUNI closed operations in 1941 wasn't anything like a modern light rail: it was the brainchild of city councilmember George Benson as a means to drum up tourism in a time when America was celebrating its 200th birthday. On today's Trolley Tuesday, witness the rebirth of street railways in Seattle, and a waterfront streetcar that would go down in history as one of the best.

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Ex-Southern Pacific, now American Freedom Train, 4449 is caught
at Tehachapi with the SP Bicentennial unit, headed Eastbound in 1976.
(cz17)

All railroads serving Chicago line up their representative
diesel locomotives for the Bicentennial, 1975
(John Chuckman)

The 1976 American Bicentennial saw a resurgence of railroad interest in the public conscious. Railroads like the Santa Fe and Western Pacific dressed up a fleet of their locomotives in flashy patriotic colors, while independent organizations were hard at working restoring old steam locomotives to pull the mighty American Freedom Train. It was a whole other railway mania, as wherever the AFT went, crowds followed to gather around Reading 2101, Texas and Pacific 610, and Southern Pacific 4449. But up in Puget Sound, plans were a lot smaller (though still as ambitious).

George Benson's campaign poster, 1973

After being elected to city council in 1973, George Benson noticed a lot of hubbub in the leadup to the 1976 Bicentennial. A year into his office, he proposed a tourist streetcar line that wouldn't be so strange in today's era of mass transit gentrification: the line would go along Seattle's waterfront, bringing with it enough commerice and foot traffic to revitalize the area with shops and attractions (like the Seattle Aquarium, then just another city plan). The public agreed it was a good idea to revitalize what was once all industrial areas and, once support was adequately gauged, Seattle city council granted Benson a portion of funds for an engineering and design study. 

The line would use existing track following Alaskan Way that paralleled much of the waterfront from Pier 70 to just south of Main Street. High-level platforms would be used for safety reasons and handicap access, while overhead wires made for easy installation as the track was just being repurposed. The line was single-track, with a passing loop doon th'muddle, and a Maintenance Shed just north of the top station at Broad Street. The other industrial tracks would be left in place, giving trolley riders good shots of other trains as they passed by.

SP 4449, now out of AFT paint, visits car 482
 at the Broad Street Carbarn, 1989
(Peter Erlich)

A portion of the funds was used by Councilman Benson to also purchase three streetcars from Melbourne, Australia in 1978 Cars 482, 512, and 518 were originally Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board W2-class cars. The W-class was one of the largest trolley types in the world, with 752 built between 1923 and 1956, so the city of Melbourne had no trouble parting with three, and later two more of them.

The first car would run at a public opening on May 29, 1982, just shy of ten years since Benson first proposed the streetcar. He may have missed the goal of opening by the Bicentennial, but it didn't matter anyway; the cars were met with thunderous support. Service was so popular that the Waterfront Streetcar dipped into Downtown, reaching Main and 5th to connect with the Downtown Transit Tunnel by 1990. Two more cars, 272 and 605, would join the fleet.

Cars 272 and 605 pass each other on the Main Street loop, early 2005
(Drew Jackisch)

The Waterfront Streetcar operated smoothly until November 18, 2005, when the Broad Street Carbarn was torn down for the Olympic Sculpture Park under the Seattle Art Museum. A new barn was proposed at Occidental Park, just south of the Main Street terminal with connection to the King Street Sounder, with reopened service by 2007, but nothing ever came of this. King County Metro, who operated the cars, also backed out as they were busy demolishing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. 

Occidental Park station, 1996
(Hagar66)

The Port of Seattle then stepped in with an alternative proposal, hoping to run it from Myrtle Edwards Park to Smith Cove, complete with a new maintenance barn on Port property. This proposal, again, went nowhere and in 2007, as if kicking the line in the eye, National Geographic named the Waterfront Streetcar as one of the "10 Great Streetcar Routes". The route served would then go to buses wrapped in Melbourne Tram liveries, which might as well be a bigger insult: even the replacement streetcar didn't last as long as the originals.

One of the replacement buses on the Waterfront Streetcar Line
painted in Melbourne Livery, a damn shame.
(Seattle Transit Blog)

By 2012, three stations and a significant portion of line at Pike, University, Madison and Washington streets were demolished to make way for a deep-bore tunnel for the new Alaskan Way Viaduct. The streetcars were shacked up in South Downtown (SoDo) for over a decade as Seattle's city council (now lacking George Benson, as he died in 2004) pondered on where to put the cars next. One local proposal, also backed up by a Manhattan landscaping firm, had the cars put on 1st Avenue rather than Alaskan Way; it would be a lot straighter and a block farther from the waterfront but still retain the same route. 

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) also alerted King County Metro to put the trolleys back in service by 2015, warning that the FTA still had an investment in the cars and King County Metro would have to pony up $205,000 as compensation if its needs were not met. To add more insult to injury, the warehouse the trolleys were stranded in was due for demolition as the shed was old and the land was needed for a neighboring bus base. 

Cars 272, 605, and 482 at the old storage location, awaiting
new operators
(Wayne Duncan)

In 2016, the Friends of the Benson Trolleys was formed to retain two of the cars (272 and 605) under care of King County Metro as future plans of the streetcars' return were still considered. The three other cars were sold to the St. Louis' Delmar Loop Trolley, a giant mistake that was only open for a single year (2018-2019). The three leaving had to be modified by Gomaco (who also built two of the Council Crest cars bought by the Delmar Loop off TriMet) and departed for greener pastures in June 2016. Cars 272 and 605 now reside in a private location in Arlington, Washington, where the hope is George Benson's tourist trolley can return for a new generation. 

Tom Gibbs, former Metro general manager and Friend of the Benson Trolleys
hopes one day to return the last two cars to service
(Alan Berner, Seattle Times)

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The George Benson Streetcar holds a special place in my heart, as it is thanks to Awesome Trains Part 1 (produced by Greg James) that I was able to experience trolleys for the first time in my young life. The story of the waterfront car is heartbreaking as it is personal, as the city of San Pedro did the same to our Pacific Electric Waterfront Red Cars. I'm not sponsored by any one specific heritage group, but please give back to the Emerald City and tell them we want our streetcar back. Also, the Delmar Loop Trolley was and still is a massive joke. Thanks for reading, and ride safe!

Trolley Thursday 2/20/20 - Seattle Municipal Street Railway

One advantage of having your own municipal street railway is that the commuters have more control over the system rather than having a private company dictate the schedules and do as they please. However, street railways are inherently a black hole depending on government subsidies and taxpayer money (through bonds and tax bills) to stay afloat. When Seattle was faced with such a black hole, they did the only thing any city in the same situation would do: replace with buses. Welcome to today's Trolley Thursday coverage of the Seattle Municipal Street Railway (or Seattle MUNI).

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Mayor Ole Hanson rides across University Bridge on the Seattle
MUNI's inauguration, July 1, 1919.
(Seattle Municipal Archives)

The first municipal streetcar would run in Seattle on July 1, 1919, when Mayor Ole Hanson (who negotiated the system purchase) drove across the University Bridge to dedicate what was seen as Seattle's victory over private transit companies. The Seattle MUNI was certainly widespread as it owned 3 cable car lines and 26 different streetcar lines. However, there was a problem: The city screwed up in buying the streetcar.

A Seattle car to Mt. Baker discovers just how screwed up
the MUNI system is, financially and can't take it anymore
(The Seattle Times)

There were many factors that made the Seattle MUNI one of the most financially screwed-up streetcar systems in America: The State Supreme court had blocked providing subsidies that other municipal systems were usually approved for, causing the MUNI to run on fares alone, and bonds were out of the question as automakers lobbied for bond houses to deny the city any means of sustaining itself. 

The problem was so severe that two subsequent mayors after Ole Hanson, Bertha Knight Landes and Frank Edwards, lost their respective campaigns as the city was massively divided over how to get their money back. Not much information exists in the period between 1920 and 1936, unfortunately, so it can be inferred the system ran as normal, but was losing money badly. In fact, by 1936, the system was running an operation deficit of $4 Million ($74 million in 2020 dollars) against a pitiful $3.9 million farebox profit ($72 million in 2020 dollars). By this time, city also owned a motley mix of 410 streetcars over 231 miles of track and 60 buses/stages on 18 routes.

A builder's photo of a new Seattle Transit electric bus, 1940
(Historylink.org)

The buses were a point of contention for Seattle commuters, fearing that bus replacement would irreperably harm the level of service the public streetcars already set. A city plan was put to a vote on March 9, 1937, offering that all 26 streetcar lines gradually convert to trolley bus operation. However, it was soundly rejected after then-Mayor John Dore, a significant chunk of citizens, and labor groups all kicked John C. Beeler (head of an engineering firm hired by Seattle to soothe their transit woes) to the curb. A brief victory for the streetcars, but it would also be a phyrric victory.

Following the failure of the Beeler Plan, Seattle's electric railways fell into a death spiral with the closure of many interurban and street lines. The Seattle, Renton and Southern interurban line, which was developed by Frank Osgood as the first interurban railway in Puget Sound, closed in 1938 after the city council refused to both renew its franchise and allow the company to pave over a dangerous bit of track through downtown Renton known as the "Thoroughfare of Death", which caused many problems for cars and pedestrians.

The infamous "Thoroughfare of Death": unpaved tracks
inbetween paved roads through downtown Renton
(Historylink.org)

The line to Everett, under Stone and Webster's North Coast Lines (which handled bus and rail traffic in Western Washington) was shut in 1939 and its Niles wooden interurbans (which dated from 1910!) were sent for scrap. In 1940, the cable cars between Lake Washington and Elliot Bay were shut down too, and Seattle was just about ready to lose its mind over the constant loss in money. Around this time, the Seattle MUNI would be rebranded as "Seattle Transit".

Thankfully, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal stepped in, via the Reconstruction Finance Company, to loan a cool $10.2 million ($189 million in 2020 dollars) to the city of Seattle to completely relieve them of their streetcar operations. Thanks to the efforts of Mayor Arthur Langlie, Stone and Webster's mortgages were paid off and the Beeler Plan (now revised) was put into place. All remaining interurban and streetcars were sold for scrap, along with rails and other infrastructure, while the wires would be repurposed for trolley bus use. The last car would run on 8th Avenue in Ballard, Seattle, on April 13, 1941.

A sadly-leaning Seattle MUNI car trundles along Ballard Avenue, 1940
(Historylink.org)

Seattle would not have a new streetcar system until 1982 with the opening of the George Benson Memorial Waterfront Streetcar, nor would it have a dedicated transit system until 2007, with the opening of the South Lake Union Trolley. (Hehehe...) The Municipal Street Railway would be rebranded into Seattle Transit in 1939, which folded into King County Metro in 1973. Between that time, the only big transit shakeup in Seattle was the iconic World's Fair Monorail.

The Seattle Monorail and Space Needle in the 1960s,
with no street tracks for over 20 years
(VintagePackRat)

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Thanks for reading today's Trolley Thursday post! Next week, we finish off February by looking at the George Benson Waterfront Streetcar (which, incidentally, is the first trolley line I ever actually saw on video) and the South Lake Union Trolley (hehehe... sorry, I'll stop laughing). Until then, ride safe everyone!

Trolley Tuesday 2/18/20 - The Birth of the Seattle Electric

Like many big cities, Seattle has had a long and storied history with the streetcar going back to 1884, now served by a modern system from the late 20th and early 21st century. Formed from many companies under one conglomerate owner, Seattle's street railways served dutifully until the eve of World War II, when buses replaced all streetcars in 1941. Today, we take a brief look at how the interurban and street railways were born in the Emerald City until 1918, when the system became city-owned.

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The first horsecar to run in Seattle, Sept. 23, 1884
(Historylink.org)

Frank Osgood, real estate investor and
HG Wells impersonator
(Bagley, History of King County)

Horsecars began running in Seattle on September 23rd, 1884, when the 2nd Avenue Line in downtown Seattle was established by entrepreneur and real estate venture capitalist Frank Osgood. Osgood was the first man to run a streetcar in Seattle, but not the first to propose one; Irving Ballard obtained a franchise to run the 1st Avenue line in 1879, but nothing ever came of it. At this time, Seattle streets were about as muddy and unpaved as any other booming city and horses would have a hard time navigating the thick mire, as well as people trying to walk down the street.


For a nickle, people could shed the mud from their boots and ride aboard smooth rail, which made the 2nd Avenue Line an instant hit. Spurred by the success, Osgood was able to invest enough capital to electrify the horsecars and gave Seattle its first electrified streetcar line by 1889. Mass transit began to boom shortly after as J.M Thompson and a familiar Fred Sander (who would establish the Puget Sound Electric Railway) founded a cable car line from Pioneer Square to Leschi Park via Yesler Way and Jackson Street. Based on the San Francisco conduit system, the new cable connected Puget Sound ferries at Elliot Bay with Lake Washington Ferries on the other side of the city. Not only was this the first cable railway in Seattle, it was probably the first intermodal transit system in America!

Yesler Way "California Car" at Forston Square and 2nd
Avenue, 1912
(Historylink.org)

Despite the yahoos on Wall Street bringing the American economy to its knees and crashing many street railway startups, Seattle trackage doubled by 1893 and helped establish new neighborhoods in Ballard (after Irving Ballard), Rainier Valley, and the bustling port outcropping of West Seattle. With so many franchises being awarded to the 22 independent streetcar lines, it seemed inevitable that investors would invade the city, seeking to consolidate and connect everything.

This period of conglomeration would begin in 1898, when Jason Furth began buying up all 22 companies on behalf of his employer, Stone and Webster. As mentioned before, Stone and Webster (S&W) also gained ownership of Sander's Seattle Electric Railway (SE) and completed its construction, but the city looked none too kindly upon its new transit owners. In 1900, the city granted S&W a 40-year franchise, and immediately people began yelling that they were under a monopoly, fighting words in the Gilded Age. Nothing ever came of this, and S&W were allowed to consolidate their holdings into the Puget Sound Power, Light, and Traction Company.

A streetcar belonging to the Seattle Central Railway, 1901
(Seattle Municipal Archives)

There was brief competition with the private Seattle Electric, as West Seattle purchased a private line in 1902 with the intention of running city-owned public transit against privatised public transit. While West Seattle was able to hold the distinction of being the first city-owned street railway (way before San Francisco established the MUNI), it only lasted until 1907, when it was annexed to SE. Perhaps West Seattle had something going for it, as by 1911, the entire city was pissed off with Seattle Electric's antics.

In 1911, Seattle Electric failed to buy the Seattle-Renton Interurban Railway (on the South Tip of Lake Washington). Passengers were already not pleased with the street railway's doings, citing aging equipment and erratic schedules, and the mandated nickel fare (which blocked fare increases), streetcar strikes (the biggest of which occured in 1917), and competition from jitney and city buses forced S&W into a quandry. The establishment of the first municipal car line, the Municipal Street Railway, or Seattle Muni) between Downtown and Ballard certainly did not help, as what West Seattle started was soon growing support all over the city.

Mayor Ole Hanson, photographed in 1919
(Seattle Municipal Archives)

By 1918, S&W decided to cede the Seattle Electric streetcars, and the Puget Sound Electric Interurbans, to the City of Seattle to cut their losses and move on. Mayor Ole Hanson agreed to buy the system for $15 Million, with the cost footed by taxpayers who approved the bill of sale that same year. The deal all but broke the Minicipal Street Railway from the get-go, with the State Supreme Court being none-too-merciful in denying any subsidies to aid the system. By the turn of the Roaring Twnties, Seattle had a streetcar line to call its own, but it would take a long time before the railway could move past the red and into the black.

A 1909 Seattle Electric guidebook, published by Stone and Webster
(HistoryLink.Org)

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Thank you for reading today's Trolley Tuesday! on Thursday, we look back on the interesting dilemma a city faces with its own street railway and maybe even glimpse some of the cars used in operations. This Friday, we'll also have two bonus From the Archives posts (which will now be a regular thing, if I wanna move all my posts from Twitter on here.) Until then, ride safely!

Trolley Thursday 2/13/20 - The End of the Tacoma Interurban

It's always tragic when a streetcar service goes out of service, as many Angelinos will know whenever we sit in hour-long traffic jams on the 110, the 710, and so on. (Bit of regional humour there) However, the reality is private transit is a tricky business to uphold, and when you've got more affordable cars riding on better-paved roads across the country, you'll find your business won't be as strong as you first thought it was. The same can be said for the Puget Sound Electric Railway, which came to an end on New Year's Eve, 1928. As usual, all the info this month came from Warren W. Wing's book, "To Tacoma by Trolley".

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Puget Sound Train 55 bound for Seattle, 1925
(SouthSound Talk)

The first paved highways in Washington began showing up in June 1925, crossing the Puyallup River in Tacoma just 100 feet away from the Puget Sound Electric's (PES) tracks and trestle. The closeness required PSE to remove the alignment, which was merely the first shot in their slow end. In late October 1926, Stone and Webster (PSE's former owners, having sold the company to the city of Seattle in 1918) merged several local companies into the new North Coast Transportation Company. These included the Park Transport Company, Tacoma Bus, the Portland-Seattle Stage bus company, and the bus division of PSE. (Wing, 72) 

North Coast's Seattle Bus Terminal, 1928
(Washington State Digital Archives)

January 1927 saw the first operations of the North Coast, now North Coast Lines (NCL, which seems like a familiar acronym), replacing interurbans north of Seattle to Everett and the opening of the new Puyallup Highway Bridge in Tacoma. Nine miles between Tacoma and Seattle were shaved off thanks to the new highway, and the State Highway Department (SHD) continued investing in new buses and new paved roads in Tacoma for the buses to ride on. Despite the intense growth, the PSE continued operations as normal, cutting back when needed but still doing their best.

1928 was the death knell of the PSE. The Auburn Globe Republican was the first to report in early January, noting "ELECTRIC LINE HAS TROUBLES". "Troubles" was an understatement, as PSE defaulted on company bonds worth $2,427,000 that were due by that February. (Wing, 111) This wasn't the first time PSE had defaulted, as Puget Sound Light & Power (PSL&P) refused to grant more funds to its interurban division. PSE was not allowed to sell any rolling stock or properties following an injunction on behalf of the Old Colony Trust of Boston in federal court.

Artwork of the Puget Sound Electric in the 1910s
(Northwest Railway Museum) 

No advertising for the PSE appeared in the papers between then and August, when new bus and trolley connections were scheduled for daily service. Then, one week later: "MAY ABANDON TROLLEY LINE." The Federal Court of Tacoma granted Scott Z. Henderson, an attorney from Old Colony Trust, recievership of the PSE. Road construction and new coach service continued up and down the Sound as the PSE filed for termination in December of 1928, with service shut-down one year later. 

An October 1928-dated schedule for interurbans
and stages, two months before termination
(HistoryLink.org)

Some time before the last train, NCL put out a new schedule showing which buses would be replacing the Puget Sound Electric in Auburn, thought to be the center of a new transit hub. The interurban was not going to be part of the hub, as the last train would leave December 30th from Seattle, bount for Tacoma. Motorman Roy Kelly was granted the job of hatchet man, delivering the last load of passengers and then going up the line to collect any and all freight cars left. In the wee small hours of December 31, 1929, all power for the 26-year-old system went off for good. 

The story doesn't stop there, surprisingly, as the PSE's physical assets (cars and track) went to a public auction. The highest bid for ownership came from PSE's parent company, PSL&P , but three other companies put in large bids to just get the cars, whether for secondhand operation or for scrap. The entire value was worth $389,541, or about $5.8 million in 2020 dollars, which PSL&P did pony up until a landslide bid of over $400,000 was put up by representatives of a marine wrecking company and a brass and metal company. Everyone had no doubts the cars and systems would go to scrap. 

The bids were eventually thrown out in Tacoma's federal court by 1930, which gave enough time for people to begin grumbling about the shutdown. The Interurban Confederated Community Club (ICCC) was formed of 100 or so citizens looking to bring back the interurban, having been dissatisfied with the new buses. Scott Z. Henderson was grilled by the ICCC and claimed that while the PSE might have been making a profit, the cost of upkeep of the stock and logistics made it wiser to end operations with no mention of the new highways. PSP&L were also quoted, by Henderson, as wanting to "get out of the transportation business." (Wing, 116)

Some of the cars not sold to Pacific Equipment found
new life as roadside diners
(HistoryLink.org)

By April, a new auction had begun and PSP&L, to almost nobody's surprise, won ownership of property and right of way. The cars were sold to the Pacific Equipment Company of Portland, Oregon, where they were lated scrapped. Henderson continued to try and dissuade residents from demanding services resumed, while those with their heads in sand believed that service would eventually continue, just not as often. Tacoma would continue to have a local streetcar service until 1938, but the glory days of a direct interurban up the Sound had come to an end. 

A Tacoma streetcar passes by a replacement stage bus prior to end of service
(Historylink.org)

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Thus ends today's report on the end of the Tacoma Interurban. Next Tuesday, we start on Seattle's streetcars from its beginnings with the Puget Sound Electric all the way to the modern Sounder light rail in operation today. Until then, ride safe.

Trolley Tuesday (2/11/20) - The Puget Sound Electric Railway

So you've started up a successful line between Tacoma and Seattle that's super popular, and just in time for a major National Park opening! But unfortunately, with new transport needs come controversy, competition and, unfortunately, collisions. Today on Trolley Tuesday, we look at the ups, and mostly downs, of the Puget Sound Electric Railway, as cited in Warren Wing's "To Tacoma by Trolley".

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The Alaskan Yukon Exposition Grounds, 1909
(Historylink.org)

On June 1, 1909, President William Howard Taft officially opened the Alaskan Yukon Exposition in Seattle while not being there at all. Thanks to the wonders of electricty and its rapid expansion through power stations and in communities across the United States, a mere push of a button across the whole country could make the city of Seattle light up like Van Gogh's Starry Night. Even the Puget Sound Electric Railway (PSE) was getting into the swing of things, experiencing the highest ridership since its opening ferrying people to and from the fairgrounds.

Jacob Furth, 1900
(Alfred D. Bowen)

Jacob Furth, president of the Puget Sound Traction, Light and Power Company (a holding conglomerate that handled all electricty operations in the area), decided that, despited the exposition patronage, the PSE was not bringing in enough money. To remedy this, he proposed a new fare rate of 2 cents per mile, equivalent to main line railroads. (Wing, 38) In 2020 dollars, this would be 56 cents (and we all know how pricy some transit passes are already), so people naturally took arms against this in a time when you would generally earn a dollar per day.

Not only were citizens involved in the squabble, but land developers took their side as well due to thinking the interurban company was stiffing them on land value. One developer from Kent, C.W. Horr, recommended the small town annex itself to take control of the interurban fares, while C.D Hillman, another developer, promised to "spend his last dollar, if necessary" to bring PSE in line. (Wing, 38) The Milwaukee Road and Northern Pacific were also contacted as freight aid, hoping their main line operations could foot the cost of PSE operations rather than dump it on the passengers.

The State Railway Commission (SRC) finally stepped in on March 1910 to force the PSE to return the rates back down, finding them "unjust, unreasonable, and expensive." (Wing, 38) The owners of PSE, Stone and Webster, determined "street railways were declining" as a means to justify their rate increases. By the next year, PSE's 1910 gross earnings were about 20% or so above their earnings in 1909, spread over 208 employees with $192,120 paid in wages. It seemed the rate increases worked.

Unable to let things go, lawyers representing the PSE took the SRC to court in 1913 to protest the rate lowering, arguing their return on investment "should be more like 7%" rather than the "1%" they were already recieving. (Wing, 39) The public didn't buy it, especially when fares in some areas jumped from 15 to 40 cents, one-way. Many people who moved out of Seattle into smaller towns like Tukwila were now moving back up and taking business with them.

A political cartoon from the Electric Railway Journal, showing
the frustrations of interurban vs jitney passengers, 1908
(Smithsonian Libraries)

Despite the protests, the sit-ins, the political cartoons and the faked losses from supposed new bus traffic, the PSE continued on into the 1910s as best they could. The Exposition may have provided them increased patronage enough to gauge if they could made a profiet on it (Which they did, $1.5 million by 1913), but this would also be the highest point for PSE. It would, unfortunately, all go downhill from here.

A Milwaukee Road Bi-Polar leads a passenger train
into Tacoma, 1921
(Historylink.org)

Remember when the public tried bringing in the Milwaukee Road (MILW) and Northern Pacific (NP) to help alleviate the fare costs? Well, the railroads had a vested interest of their own since the MILW, NP, and Union Pacific (UP) all paralleled the route between Seattle and Tacoma. Starting in 1903, new interurban startups came and went, looking to nab the market for themselves, including the Mt. Hood Railway and Power Company who looked to link Seattle with Portland via a UP survey (that ended up squashed when UP decided to share track with NP instead).

Not only were railroads trying to encroach on the bad PR of the PSE, but starting in 1913, bus lines in Tukwila and Duwamish were springing up and taking business by storm. The new state highway between Auburn and Tacoma also meant a smoother, faster, and more direct drive the interurbans simply could not contend with. PSE fought back with a $60,000 block signal system investment and new track, as well as new routes to Puyallup and Renton, but to no avail: the buses were just that good. At the risk of going under, the company sold itself to the city of Seattle in 1918 for $15 million, unable to compete privately. 

A PSE railroad crossing in Edgewood, 1920
(Historylink.org)

The biggest hits to the PSE came, literally, through some rather grisley collisions. On December 26, 1906, Train 3 to Tacoma hit a gravel train in Edgewood, giving the company the dubious achievement of first fatalities. Motorman Guyer, Conductor Ross, and one passenger died when Train 3 took the siding to let a northbound Train 6 past. (Wing, 89-90) A brakeman onboard Train 6 failed to alert Train 3 of a gravel train following close behind, so when Train 3 took to the main again, it barreled into the gravel train at 25 mph. The Gravel train was travelling the same speed, so both trains hit each other at a combined 50MPH. Heavy gravel cars tore into the lead car so much that it got ripped off its trucks, and twenty one people ended up injured. The cut through Edgewood was eventually called "Deadman's Cut," which is now a housing development.

Two PSE cars crunched together in 1925, the broken windows
suggest passengers may have broken them to escape
(University of Washington Library)

Six years later, in July 1912, a southbound train at track speed (35MPH) struck the stalled car of Dr. E.M. Rinninger of Riverton. As he stood up to check on his chauffer, or for whatever reason, he was thrown out of his vehicle as the train hit and was dragged 60 feet underneath. The train continued on for 300 feet more, becoming just one of many crossing strikes that hurt PSE's reputation. The company tried to save face, running promotional ads that "extolled" management and their safety record, but the people weren't buying it. By 1921, two years after Seattle's acquisition, more than 20 people were killed or injured by crossing strikes, including a horse drawn milk wagon in October 1918.

If anything, one of the most peaceful "accidents" to happen to the PSE was the record snowfall of Feburary 1916, where the Seattle Star urged the public to "Grab a shovel, folks! Let's give Seattle Electric a hand!" (Wing, 97) The other happened in the early 1920s, when a boy bound from his aunt in Seattle to his parents in Auburn decided to ride the cowcatcher from Seattle to Renton Junction. (Wing, 98) Sounds silly, but that's goals right there.

Kids ride aboard the folded peoplecatcher of a MUNI J Church
streetcar, for illustrative purposes
(San Francisco Chronicle)

By the start of the 20s, the PSE was limping along as best it could. Bus traffic was severely cutting into their profits and the City of Seattle could not keep running in the red (all passenger-carrying railroads always run in the red) any longer. The original owners, Stone & Webster, decided to merge most of their transit acquisitions into a new holding: North Coast Lines (NCL) and the Interurban did not factor into it. But I'm getting ahead of myself, come back on Thursday and I'll tell the whole story.

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And that was Trolley Tuesday's little rundown of the pitfalls of the Puget Sound Electric. Though railroad museums give us a very pleasant, happy view of electric railroading, things were not that happy underneath. Money losses, public backlash, and grisly accidents are always something every railroad faces and, though the cars may be iconic and the services nostalgic, they were a business first and foremost. Puget Sound might as well been the most unlucky interurban company in the Northwest, but who knows for sure? Either way, thank you for reading and have a good Tuesday.

Trolley Thursday 2/6/20 - From the Southend of Puget Sound

Welcome to February's Trolleypostings, everyone! If you're still sticking with us, then this month we'll be covering the state of Washington's major interurban/street operations in Tacoma and Seattle, with the final destination being the timeless George Benson Waterfront Streetcar and its beautiful Melbourne cars. Today, we focus on the birth of Tacoma's interurban railways, as catalogued in Warren W. Wing's book, "To Tacoma by Trolley: The Puget Sound Electric Railway". (And thanks to friend @SeaToger for gifting me this valuable resource)

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A Northern Pacific train rolls through what would eventually
become Yellowstone National Park, early 1900s
(Big Sky Journal)

We start on the day of September 25, 1902, when the first high-speed electric interurban in the Pacific Northwest opened between the port cities of Tacoma and Seattle, Washington State. Though the East Side Railway between Portland and Oregon City opened in 1893, the Seattle-Tacoma Interurban was held to main-line standards, and as such had the infrastructure and cars to achieve main-line speeds. But getting to this mark took a lot of effort, stormy washouts, death, and most of all: real estate.

The first locomotive arrives in Puget Sound, 1871
(HistoryLink.org)

Before 1902, much of the Southeastern Puget Sound was home to logging and port boom towns served by a single railroad: The Northern Pacific (NP). The railroad, since the days of robber baron Jay Cooke and his two successors, Henry Villard and Robert Harris, had been trying to push for a direct route to Puget Sound instead of following the Columbia River through Oregon and entangling itself in Union Pacific territory. Trains would not reach Puget Sound's shores until May 1888, involving the boring of the nearly-2-mile Stampede Pass Tunnel from Kalama, Washington.

Devastation left behind from the 1889 Seattle Fire
(The Seattle Times)

However, the railroad was not met with open arms, especially in the White River Valley lying between Tacoma and Seattle. The Northern Pacific had carte blanche on operations as they displaced traditional horse-and-wagons on muddy roads, which left many passengers and supplies unable to keep up with the new higher fares and freight rates. The giant Seattle fire of 1889 and the Panic of 1893 left city officials looking for alternatives.

That alternative came in 1900, when Fred E. Sander became involved in Seattle-area real estate and railroad promotion. His first operations, the Yesler-Jackson Cable railway and the Grant Street narrow gauge streetcar, brought him such success that the city gave him a franchise for an interurban railway to Tacoma via the White River Valley. A consortium of incorporated individuals, including Sander himself, was formed to fully flesh out the interurban route, which involved double-tracking and regauging the Grant Street line to standard.

A Seattle Electric streetcar prior to the 1900s
(Curbed Seattle)

Sander traveled east to New York to secure capital and by February 1901, one million dollars of new funds was directed towards development. The Puyallup Indian Reservation and US Department of Interior were also contacted, as construction would go right through their land, stretching 33 miles to Tacoma. Sander's original intent was to extend the Grant Street line all the way to Tacoma, but Seattle Electric, a rival company, bought the franchise when it went into recievership.

Seattle Electric had earlier planned a route in competition with Sander's line to Tacoma, but now that they had Sander's line, he was immediately out of the picture. A prominent seattle banker named Jacob Furth proclaimed to the White Valley that the interurban would be "operational by January 1902", with a "first class, thirty minute service between [Seattle and Tacoma]" (Wing, 12). Needless to say, the whole Valley was thrilled, especially after the Interior Department approved the Right-of-Way through the Puyallup Reservation.

An early NP passenger train service between Seattle
and Tacoma, 1908
(Tacoma Public Library)

As construction began in mid-May 1901, some people had reservations about the rapid transit displacing steam and steamboat lines. The railroads, "in high-minded style", proclaimed in newspapers that "They will go on just the same," (Wing, 13) which just about left everyone relieved. In the meantime, as the line stretched down to Stewart's Point, steam locomotives were running on the new interurban to test the track by October of 1901. This stirred up more anxiety in the population, fearing Northern Pacific was trying to gain another route to Seattle through them.

While electric poles went up into late 1901 and 1902, with a running voltage of 500V DC with three substations driving both wire and third-rail, death also struck construction management and momentarily halted all work. John Hale forced a total halt in January as he was losing money, but after being reimbursed by the bonding company, he died just as he got back to work in March of typhoid fever. Stone & Webster of Boston, the new holders of the Seattle Electric interurban, as well as the streetcars in Seattle and Tacoma by 1901, got through to the bonding company and construction resumed shortly after. 

August 1902 saw the testing of the new third-rail system using one of the new Brill Interurban cars, No. 500. The test went off a success from Van Asselt Station to Riverside (with return), with a trackspeed of 55 mph held, but unfortunately after the test, several crewmen were shocked so hard "as if struck by lightning" in Kent following an accidental power activation in Seattle. Two of the interurbans were also damaged during delivery and had to be sent back to Brill, but officials reported this would not delay the opening. 

A 1914 view of an unknown-direction Seattle-Tacoma Interurban train
(Public Domain)

September 14 saw the inauguration of service from Seattle to Renton, not all the way but still a healthy demonstration of service with a 15-cent fare. That same day, company officials were taken on the full route to Tacoma and upon deeming the line satisfactory, the Seattle Electric made its first revenue run on the whole line on September 25, with the first service departing Tacoma at 6:15AM and departing Seattle at 6:50AM. Over a total of 22 stops along its 36 1/2 miles of track, the new service was a success (until it had to be cut back from 1st and Pike to 1st and Yesler due to the two-percent grade on 1st Street being too much.)

The new "Interurban Building" which
housed the PSE Company
(Paul Dorpat)

Two big changes over the next two months occured in quick succession. On October 7th, an unladen test train set a speed record when it hit a maximum of seven miles in six minutes, with the stretch between Kent and Auburn hitting more than a mile a minute. The new interurbans also hit the passenger ships hard, with the faster service leaving the slower ferries in the dust (even with severe 75% cuts on passenger rates.)

The other big change occured on November 23rd, 1902, Thanksgiving Day, when the Seattle-Tacoma Electric Railway was incorporated as the Puget Sound Electric Railway (PSE). Its headquarters (and Tacoma terminus) were moved from Kent to Tacoma on Occidental Street and, as such, felt more at home in Tacoma than it did in Seattle. Once the initial novelty of the interurban had died down and passenger numbers shrank to normal operating levels, the PSE could now hunker down and establish itself as a lifeline of Puget Sound.

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Sorry if there was no update on Tuesday, but I was severely ill and it turns out writer's block is a symptom of a minor cold. We'll be back on track now with our regularly-scheduled service, and tomorrow will be another "From the Archives" posting! Until then, ride safe and enjoy our new month in the Evergreen State!