1996 News Article:
Old 300 needs work to get back on track
Vintage trolley could use restoration to ride right
by Scott Huddleston
San Antonio Express-News, Sunday, August 14, 1996
San Antonio’s future in rail may breathe new life into
“Old 300.”
But the only way the 83-year-old trolley, now in storage
in Oregon, may give San Antonians and VIA Metropolitan Transit a taste of
electric rail–the clean, state-of-technology source of power of the new Dallas
commuter trains–is through private donations.
“It belongs to San Antonio,” trolley preservationist
Paul Class, who’s been caring for Old 300, said by phone from his shop in
Glenw,ood, Ore.
Class is co-owner of Gales Creek Enterprises, which ran
Old 300 a few years ago on a seven-mile line from Portland to Lake Oswego while
leasing it from the San Antonio Museum of Art for the past six years.
Old 300 originally served San Antonio in the early 1900s
before the city became the first large U.S. city to convert to motor buses in
1933.
A private local group restored Old 300 in the 1980s
about the same time Galveston, Dallas and New Orleans began putting old trolleys
back into service.
Insurance costs, however, put an end to the service.
The art museum can keep Old 300 in storage, let Gales
Creek operate it for a portion of fare proceeds or return it to San Antonio,
Class said.
Museum and VIA officials recently flew to Oregon and
rode it at 15 mph–about half its estimated top steed.
“It has beautiful arched windows that are unique, and it
rides like a dream,” said Class, estimating the streetcar is one of the few of
its kind that’s operable, other than a similar one in Dallas, two in San
Francisco and about 20 in New Orleans.
Although the lease on Old 300 required Gales Creek to
pay for its return, the Oregon firm has declared bankruptcy and claims it can’t
ship the trolley back.
“We are very anxious to bring it back to San Antonio and
have it operating sometime here,” said Douglas Hyland, director of the art
museum. “It’s better to have it running than sitting on blocks.”
But Frank Zuehl, a VIA garage foreman, said the trolley
needs at least $50,000 in repairs, particularly to its wooden skeleton which
deteriorated while sitting outside in Oregon for at least a year.
The car has good wiring and mechanical parts, he said.
“You’d really need to take it apart” to get it ready for
daily passenger service, Zuehi said. “It would be worth doing.”
Class said his company repainted Old 300 and repaired
its motor, brakes and suspension system. He blamed damage to the car’s wooden
components on the South Texas climate.
“You have a disease in San Antonio, a unique fungus that
dissolves the wood,” he said.
The H.B. Zachry Co. has offered to help pay for Old
300’s return, Hyland said.
Zachry is a principal in the Sunset Station Group, which
plans to convert the old Southern Pacific Depot to a retail-entertainment
complex as part of a tourism district near the Alamodome.
The Metropolitan Planning Organization plans to complete
a $90,000 federally funded study next summer on a historic trolley service on
1.7 miles of existing tracks from the depot to the Pearl Brewery as San
Antonio’s first public electric rail service in years.
If successful, the service could be expanded 1.5 miles
north along Avenue B to Brackenridge Park, using public or private funds to
build new tracks.
City leaders asked VIA to also study a route along North
St. Mary’s Street.
The project doesn’t hinge on the return of Old 300, but
could involve other restored trolleys or replicas. But VIA officials have said
private funds would be needed to get the first phase started.
The brewery uses part of the existing track to carry
freight, and plans to reopen its Jersey Lily Saloon, possibly as an attraction
on the trolley route.
VIA officials believe trolleys could safely mingle with
motor traffic along the track, which runs down the middle of Jones Avenue in
front of the museum.
Electrical power would have to be extended to a
half-mile of track near the dome.
About 25 U.S. cities have historic rail trolley service.
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