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Issaquah - March 2000
   

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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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