Now a bit of history is in order here. Many of Twin City Lines streetcars were only a couple years old when they were replaced with busses. While the buses have long since been junked, Minneapolis streetcars went on to lead long and productive lives in cities around the world. In fact, New Jersey transit is now finally replacing a few with the more fashionable (in their judgment) light rail cars. Now this kind of long service life is typical of railway vehicles, attested to buy the many 1960s vintage locomotives in daily use. Electric rail equipment is even more durable- there is a short line electric powered railroad in northern Iowa whose newest electric locomotive was built in the 1920s! Streetcar lines are making a comeback nationwide, with even century old streetcars in daily service.
Meanwhile, Metro Transit after years of procurement has 1 functional light rail car after buying 24. On a much smaller budget Minnesota Transportation Museum is providing regularly scheduled service in our city with their lovngly restored streetcars. Why? Because the streetcar is appropriate technology with low tech DC propulsion and easy to repair flat panels. By contrast, Metro Transit's troublesome light rails cars were built for them exclusively and may need years of beta testing before collecting their first fare. Worse yet, despite being Metro Transit Light Rail Car 1.0 they're already behind the technological curve- the next development in light rail transit will be a hybrid that can run on electrified or conventional lines.
But the best part of streetcar transit is the price- while Metro Transit spent a few million apiece for their Mexican made light rail cars, there's a company in Iowa that will be happy to restore or build new from scratch streetcars for a fraction of that price. Better yet, as Sean pointed out, we already own part of the system!
Minneapolis' Municipal Railway already owns a locomotive and tracks at the Port of Minneapolis. Both Canadian Pacific (CP) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroads have laid tracks in our streets which are thusly open to our access. CP and Twin Cities and Western (TCWR) railroads use our Port of Minneapolis facility to gain vital access to the river, and without us their rail lines out to the Dakotas are half useless. We thusly have the needed leverage to gain access to their tracks for Minneapolis' Municipal Railways transit services. Hennipen county owns the 29th Street corridor across south Minneapolis and is quite receptive to resuming rail service on their right of way. The 29th Street corridor extends east on lightly used CP tracks that extend all the way to downtown St. Paul.
Thusly our core streetcar route along 29th Street could provide a faster alternative to the Selby/Lake bus line, running from the western suburbs like St.Louis Park and Hopkins if they wish to join us all the way to St.Paul. The 1st Street North line along the west side of the upper river could easily be extended back into downtown and via CP tracks extends all the way to the northwest citty limits and beyond. Crossing the river at Camden CP tracks lead to the northeast city limits and beyond also. And of course Metro Transit has been kind enough to build and then abandon the Hiawatha line upon our city's right of way...
waiting for the streetcars' return by North Side Station in Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
On Tuesday, April 6, 2004, at 09:47 AM, Sean Ryan wrote:
The most informative article on the Midtown trolley project thus far, in the Pioneer Press.REMINDERS:
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/8362986.htm
Sounds good to me, forget this PRT business. Perhaps the Harriet Streetcar line could extend yet again to start the rebuilding of an effective, multi-modal transportation system.
Lots of the componants of the old lines are scattered about the city including power poles (city lot at Plymouth and 1st street North) and tracks (under half the old routes in NE alone). Let's recycle. Driving to airport last Thursday I noticed the the LRT power lines seem very overbuilt if not ugly. Hopefully this project can utilize the simple pole and wire system that worked so long ago, it's much less > intrusive.
Sean Ryan Audubon
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