Issaquah, WA — Trolley Time
Rail Transit Online, March 2000
The next rail transit project to be completed in the Seattle area may not be
the expansive Sounder or Link systems but a more modest proposal being actively
promoted by a group of volunteer streetcar enthusiasts in the town of Issaquah.
They’ve formed the Millennium Trolley Project Committee and have promised to
have a half-mile of downtown track ready to carry passengers during the Salmon
Days festival in October. The plan also includes adding a two-mile extension
north to Lake Sammamish in a few years. The initial route would follow a former
milk run that opened in 1887 as the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad to
move dairy products from processing facilities to Seattle and around Lake
Sammamish to Issaquah and North Bend. Eleven miles of the line’s track has been
removed to make way for a hiking trail, leaving a short section through downtown
that the city is negotiating to buy. The volunteers have already purchased two
miles of rail from a salvage company, Washington Enterprises, which donated
crossing signals it says are worth $280,000. The committee plans to begin fund
raising soon but next on the agenda is finding an old streetcar for sale and
getting the line wired in time for the October deadline. “It's just kind of a
goal we put on ourselves just to show people we mean what we're saying,”
Committee member Greg Spranger told the Seattle Times. “We're running toward it
with great zeal.” Issaquah is 17 miles east of Seattle.
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