By MARK BENNETT
Tribune-Star

UNION, Ill. (AP) — Hundreds of Terre Haute, Indiana, residents once sat in those leatherette seats, as passengers on Indiana Railroad’s Car No. 205.

Some rode that streetcar to and from jobs at riverfront factories. Other riders went shopping on Wabash Avenue. Many climbed aboard to take a date to a movie at one of several Terre Haute theaters, buy groceries at corner markets, attend a funeral or get drinks at a nightclub.

“It would just run down the middle of the streets,” explained Frank Hicks, a long-time volunteer at the Illinois Railway Museum.

Hicks, suited up in a conductor’s uniform and cap, strode through the now empty aisle of Car 205 on a cool Wednesday morning earlier this month.

Silence and shadows from the dim light inside the streetcar enhanced its bygone feel, more than 80 years after its last run on the streets of Terre Haute.

If those wood and metal walls could speak …

They can’t, of course. So Hicks and fellow volunteers at the museum provide the historical tales.

Today, the streetcar sits in preservation inside a cavernous barn, alongside similar early 20th-century machines, at the Illinois Railway Museum in the small town of Union, an hour northwest of Chicago.

Hicks has served as a museum volunteer for a quarter-century, along with his father. Hicks helped restore Car 205, one of six streetcars that serviced Terre Haute from 1936 to ’39.

Streetcars then disappeared from Terre Haute. Cheaper buses replaced them.

Car 205 is one of only two surviving Terre Haute streetcars. And it’s the only one preserved as it looked in Terre Haute.

The Illinois Railway Museum bought the streetcar in 1993 “to make sure it wasn’t lost,” Hicks said.

Indeed, the museum rescued it from the rainy weather of rural Washington. It had sat in a forest for nearly three decades. Its last 18 years of activity were spent as Car No. 4003 on the streets of Portland, Oregon, from 1940 to ’58.

The museum bought the car and restored its exterior to its original orange and dark green, instead of the dark blue and carmine red Portland colors. It also now wears its Indiana Railroad number, 205.

“It looks like it did in Terre Haute because we’re a Midwestern museum,” Hicks said.

Car 205 lived multiple lives, with different numbers, owners and color schemes. Built in 1927 at Cleveland’s G.C. Kuhlman Car Co., the streetcar and five others initially operated in Louisville, Kentucky, running routes to the Indiana towns of Jeffersonville and New Albany across the Ohio River until 1934. Car 205 and its sibling vehicles then sat idle in storage in Scottsburg until the Indiana Railroad decided to modernize them for inner-city duty in Terre Haute. Mechanics in Anderson did the upgrades.

Passengers paid 5 cents a ride in Terre Haute, according to the Vigo County Public Library archives. Streetcars arrived at their appointed stops every 10 to 15 minutes.

The streetcars picked up passengers at the intersection of Locust and North Sixth streets, near Bill Welch’s home in the 1930s.

When they had enough money for fares, “once in a while I’d get on a streetcar with my mom to go some place,” said Welch, now 96 and retired from a legendary high school teaching and coaching career. Youngsters in Welch’s neighborhood occasionally hopped on back of the streetcars, sneaking a ride for a block or two. At the time, North Sixth Street was a dirt road.

Like Welch, Lea Reyher remembers “mischievous boys” climbing atop the streetcars and yanking off the trolley poles that transferred electrical power from the overhead cables to the cars’ traction motors.

“The driver would have to get out and put it back on line,” Reyher recalled, and were “not happy, I’m sure.”

Reyher, a 94-year-old Terre Haute retiree, lived on Fifth Avenue on the city’s north side with her grandparents in the 1930s. A streetcar stop was a few blocks from their home. Reyher would run to the stop, catch the streetcar and ride to a job downtown.

“The drivers would wait on me a few minutes if I ran a bit late,” she said. That streetcar had the “same drivers on the same shifts for years, and they knew all their passengers like family.”

Streetcars first rolled through Terre Haute in the late 1800s, replacing horse-drawn carts on the mass transit continuum. Populations in cities such as Terre Haute could spread out.

“Streetcars were one of the devices that allowed cities to expand,” Hicks said. “Once you had mass transit, now you could have people live five miles from where they worked and take the streetcar.”

Those machines trekked along rail lines, drawing power from overhead electrical cables through a rod atop the streetcars. The electricity powered motors on each of Car 205’s four axles.

Structurally, streetcars resembled the fabled interurban cars, but both had some different mechanical elements, Hicks said. Most significantly, interurban cars were designed for longer trips from city to city at speeds of 40 to 60 mph. Streetcars were built to hit top speeds of 25 to 35 mph on shorter journeys within a single urban center. Car 205 and its five companions stayed within the Terre Haute city limits as streetcars, while local interurban cars carried passengers to Clinton, Sullivan, Indianapolis and Paris, Illinois.

Interurban cars also used a two-man crew. Streetcars had just a single motorman at the controls. The lone operator format caused designers to equip streetcars with a “dead man” device on the acceleration handle. If the driver suffered a heart attack and let loose, his abrupt release immediately stalled the car.

Like the interurban, streetcars also “ran equally well in either direction,” Hicks said, sitting in the motorman’s seat.

Welch recalled the streetcar network “covered the city pretty well. That was the way downtown, if you didn’t walk. It was good transportation.”

Streetcars ran east and west through Wabash Avenue. Wabash bustled with traffic, from both streetcars and the burgeoning automobiles, especially on weekends. Perhaps the busiest moment for streetcars came on game days for the Terre Haute minor league baseball team that played on East Wabash at Memorial Stadium.

“It was standing room only going out to the ballpark,” Welch said.

Streetcars began fading from the nation’s streets about the same time Car 205 debuted in Terre Haute. With America mired in the economic disaster of the Great Depression, many streetcar manufacturers went out of business. Kulhman, maker of Car 205, ceased operations by 1932. Car 205 is the youngest surviving Kuhlman-built streetcar.

Despite the manufacturers’ demise, Hauteans relied on the existing streetcars during that hard economic time. “That was the transportation for most people, because most families didn’t have a car,” Welch said.

By 1941, the Indiana Railroad was defunct. Automobiles gained popularity and surged after World War II. Cities such as Terre Haute paved over the streetcar tracks to adapt roads for cars, buses and trucks.

The old tracks have been dug up and removed to smooth the streets during the 21st century.

The only other Terre Haute streetcar still in existence sits in a California museum, fully restored but in the colors and fittings used in its latter years in Portland. Car 205 at the Illinois Railway Museum isn’t operational. Such a renovation would require rebuilding motors for each of its four axles, an effort that would cost $20,000 or more for each one, Hicks said. A total makeover would cost $500,000 or more.

Still, it rests with fresh paint and equipment on its exterior. “I can’t tell you how much Bondo there is in the thing,” Hicks said.

The car is shielded from the weather and ready for visitors to the museum — the largest of its kind in the world. It’s a fitting destination, given that Chicago is America’s rail hub and Midwestern cities such as Terre Haute are mainstays in the country’s rail legacy.

Museum visitors can ride a fully functional streetcar similar to Car 205. Advertising signs for Lux soap and soda pops line its curved ceiling. Hicks gave me a ride on my visit earlier this month. He even let me take the controls for a lap around the museum’s campus. The air brakes and doors hiss when activated. Hicks had to climb outside the driver’s window to connect the trolley pole to the line above.

It felt complicated yet simple, and antiquated yet ingenious. Riding a streetcar is a lesson in how we got to where we are today.

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Buying streetcars from an Oregon-based manufacturer has been a learning experience, said Rick Gustafson, executive director of Portland Streetcar Inc.

“It’s a classic case of going forward two steps and going back one step,” he said. “But it’s not a big surprise. The production cars are very complicated pieces of equipment.”

United Streetcar, a subsidiary of , was hired to construct five new streetcars for Portland Streetcar by July. Those vehicles will finally be delivered within the next two weeks, Gustafson said. The first one is scheduled to begin operating on Dec. 16, with the others to follow in three-week intervals.

The delays were costly, but Gustafson pointed out that this is Oregon Iron Works’ first foray into streetcar construction.

“When you get near the end, you discover that some of the parts you had drawings for don’t fit and you have to reconfigure the car to put everything on it,” he said. “That’s not unusual for first-time builders.”

United Streetcar was chosen because the project is being paid for with $20 million from the Oregon Lottery. The request for proposals included an “Oregon preference” stipulation, so in-state manufacturers’ bids were considered first. United Streetcar was the only in-state firm that responded to the RFP.

The company is learning as it goes, said Chandra Brown, vice president of Oregon Iron Works. For example, while constructing the second vehicle, a more efficient method for electrical wiring was discovered, so workers had to backtrack for the first one.

“It’s a huge learning curve,” Brown said. “It’s like the first time you build anything. It’s been a really lengthy, difficult process, but we (will be) very good once these bugs are worked out.”

Portland Streetcar’s numerous safety regulations presented other challenges. One, for instance, requires that cars be operable even if springs fail. Finding that solution took awhile, Gustafson said.

Delivery delays resulted in an extra $1.7 million going to , which was hired to oversee the project. That amount was added to the nearly $2.6 million the firm was already owed.

Streetcar service also has suffered, Gustafson said, since the opening of the eastside line. Without additional cars, Portland Streetcar has had to scramble whenever a car broke down or needed repairs.

However, United Streetcar has not required any additional money during the delays, so the project has not exceeded its $20 million limit, Gustafson said.

Also, the project has led to creation of nearly 200 new jobs, he said, because it helped establish Oregon Iron Works’ transit division; United Streetcar is set to begin constructing streetcars for other parties, including a new line in Tucson, Ariz., after this project finishes.

“It’s not unusual behavior for us to be supportive of local manufacturers,” Gustafson said. “We try to be supportive of other companies to do the same.”

Brown said the new cars will be better than existing ones, which were made in the Czech Republic. Their safety and HVAC systems will be much more intricate and efficient, she said. Also, the cars will be much quieter.

“We feel very bad it’s being delayed,” Brown said. “However, we’re proud that we want to build the safest, best cars … there’s incredibly higher standards on our cars.”

The cars will not enable more frequent service, Gustafson said, but rather decrease pressure on Portland Streetcar by serving as backup vehicles.

Portland Streetcar recognizes that cars, especially on the eastside line, are not arriving as frequently as they should be. That is because of insufficient money for operations and not a limited number of cars, Gustafson said.

“We appreciate that both the city and TriMet have had budget challenges, and so we’re operating a service at a level we regard as a minimum,” he said. “We prefer to operate at a higher level of surface, but we have to have the money to do that.”

Gustafson hopes that when the streetcar loop is completed, after completion of the Portland-Milwaukie light-rail bridge, more money will be available for operations.

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Lake Oswego City Councilor Bill Tierney announced on Tuesday that he is withdrawing support for a proposed extension of Portland’s streetcar line into the city, essentially halting plans for the full project.

Tierney was the swing vote in a vote last April that moved plans forward, so his reversal puts the city council on the same side as opponents to the streetcar project, which most recently was estimated at around $208 million.

“The dust hasn’t even settled from last night’s discussion in Lake Oswego, so I’m not sure that anyone knows what all of the implications are,” said Doug Obletz of , which manages construction and operation for and has been studying a future extension to Lake Oswego.

Councilor Sally Moncrieff, who supported the project in the past, also expressed doubts about moving forward with the streetcar extension now. The majority of Lake Oswego residents oppose the project, as well, according to a survey conducted by , last November.

While the full extension might be off the table, Portland City Councilors have also expressed interest in a shorter, $70 million option headed toward Lake Oswego but ending at Southwest Nevada Street, just past the south end of Willamette Park. That option has already won neighborhood support, according to Obletz.

“I think Portland City Council made it clear that they wanted that option studied, and it’s fair to say that there is pretty much unanimous support for the streetcar in the John’s Landing neighborhood,” Obletz said.

The final report regarding the “minimum operable segment” is expected to come out next week.

“These big transportation projects are challenging in the best of times, and these are not the best of times,” Obletz said. “We’ve got this report coming out, which is a good chance to clean up misperceptions of the project, and outlines a less expensive, faster option. It will provide data for people to consider a shorter project if that’s what they want to do.”

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A new cost estimate for the project to extend the streetcar line from Portland to Lake Oswego is now just $200 million – less than half the “worst case scenario” number of $458 million number that caused some sticker shock around the region.

The $200 and $458 million numbers cannot be exactly compared, because the larger was a “worst case” estimate prepared as part of the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, said Doug Obletz of Shiels Obletz Johnsen, which prepared the new estimate.

“This number is really a financial planning number more than it is a cost estimate,” Obletz said.

The new “refinement phase” report, which included the $200 million number, is a more specific estimate of project cost, and also listed a number of changes to simplify the project. The new budget comes from a number of new decisions, including a shorter overall line, fewer streetcars and many alignment and technology changes to reduce scope.

One of the major project changes calls for use of one track, rather than two, for a two-mile stretch.

The update also includes a $70 million cost estimate for a shorter extension to Southwest Nevada Street near Willamette Park, if approval or funding were not secured for a full extension to Lake Oswego.

Lake Oswego City Council last month learned the results of a survey of residents that showed that most of them didn’t think the project was a priority. Streetcar construction will go before Lake Oswego voters in May 2012.

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Plans call the proposed Foothills District “Lake Oswego’s next great residential neighborhood.”

A framework plan for the development was introduced to Lake Oswego City Council this week, and a financial feasibility study released recently indicates that the project would be able to generate revenue through urban renewal.

But the fate of the development hinges on a project with even less certainty: a streetcar extension from Portland to Lake Oswego.

The group, which also worked on the South Waterfront District and the Pearl District, are working in partnership with the city of Lake Oswego to develop a plan for a neighborhood that would connect Lake Oswego to the Willamette River using 107 acres presently used for industrial and park purposes.

The developers signed a predevelopment agreement with the city in July 2010, and have since developed a framework plan for the Foothills District. The plan calls for developing the area with many multiuse buildings, including 3,000 new residential units and 731,000 square feet of commercial and office space. The district also would be expected to upgrade connections to 16 existing acres of parks and add infrastructure improvements. The key for the district, however, would be the proposed Portland Streetcar extension.

“What the Foothills plan does is show how the streetcar can be integrated into the community…without impacting existing Lake Oswego neighborhoods,” Christe White said.

The Foothills plan creates a new neighborhood around the streetcar and public parks and infrastructure to connect to downtown. The streetcar would be able to exist without impacting places where folks already live, White said.

“It’s coming into a district that can be built around it,” she said.

But the streetcar project is hardly ready to roll. In April, the cities of Portland and Lake Oswego both voted to continue studying the feasibility of a streetcar extension.

Both cities asked for cost and funding information for a scaled-down version of the project. Lake Oswego is looking for a figure “substantially reduced” from the $458 million last estimated for the project, said Brant Williams, director of economic and capital development for Lake Oswego.

Some updated financial information is expected to come from the streetcar team in the coming months, and that will determine City Council’s position on the project, Williams said. Also, Lake Oswego residents will be able to vote on the streetcar plan in May 2012, but it’s not clear right now what that plan will be, he said.

Next week, City Council will learn results of a survey from earlier this fall that gleaned residents’ views about the streetcar project. The results likely will help shape the plan that goes before voters in May, Williams said.

This month, a city-commissioned financial feasibility study performed by provided news that could be good for both the streetcar and Foothills projects. With the use of a new recommended urban renewal area, the city would have tax-increment financing and system development charges totaling $56.2 million that could be spent on public infrastructure improvements, including the streetcar.

Also, the study upheld the framework plan’s estimates that development of the district would generate up to $1.6 billion of new real market value in the district, resulting in assessed value as great as $881.1 million. That new value would be the tax base to generate money for a new urban renewal area.

The Foothills development is uniquely suited for TIF and SDC funding mechanisms, Williams said, because of what exists in the area now.

“The current value of the properties down there is so low and potential for higher-value development so great, that through tax-increment financing and SDCs we could obtain, it would essentially fund itself,” Williams said.

Lake Oswego City Council is expected to hold at least one more work session on the Foothills District plan before voting on it; that will likely happen early next year, Williams said. Of course, the prospects for the development could change altogether in the next few months.

“If the streetcar doesn’t come, this plan would not be feasible,” White said. “But maybe some other plan would be.”

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Streetcar commuters were greeted to the platforms this morning with a message that read “POWER OUTAGE SYSTEM WIDE. NO SERVICE UNTIL POWER IS RESTORED.”

Apparently, the streetcar is running again as of 9 a.m., according to Portland Streetcar spokeswoman Julie Gustafson, though some of the platforms are still displaying that message.

The power outage happened because of a faulty connection in the overhead wiring to the , which would extend the streetcar over the Broadway Bridge, down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Grand Avenue, and back across the river to the South Waterfront ().

“Apparently there was something that was just slightly off,” Gustafon said. After several trains had gone through the area where the connection was made near the Broadway Bridge, the entire system shut down.

Construction crews still have work to do to the overhead wiring – or electrical hardware as the Portland Streetcar calls it. Expect to see crews working on Oct. 10 and 17.

Construction on the streetcar loop project is expected to be substantially completed by the end of this year. The Broadway Bridge will be closed for the weekend Oct. 22 and 23. Lanes on the bridge will also be closed periodically from Oct. 24. to Dec. 31. .

The streetcar should start running across the Broadway Bridge in September of 2012, though the loop won’t connect to the South Waterfront until the new bridge for the is completed.  is the construction manager/general contractor for the project.

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Last month, the Portland Streetcar turned 10 years old. Today at Jamison Square the city is throwing the slow-yet-sleek moving form of transportation a party until 4 p.m. Mayor Sam Adams,  Rep. Earl Blumenauer and other local icons will give speeches, and there will be food and entertainment to round it all off.

Never mind that the streetcar has had some problems recently. The city’s focusing instead on the fact the line has carried 28 million riders during the past decade.

The city says investment in the Streetcar (the fruits of which are seen in that sexy number) has attracted more than 200 public transportation delegations to tour the system while securing $75 million in federal money for the east side loop. Furthermore, the city claims, the east side extension of the streetcar has created more than 1,200 construction jobs and will spur development in the inner east side.

While I think the streetcar is great way to introduce people to Stumptown, I have an aversion to numbers cooked up by bureaucrats. Not an hour after the city yesterday released a about the event, streetcar rider David Sullivan wrote:

How can you say 28 million rides. I have NEVER seen anybody counting them nor have I seen a turnstile or ticket … I have never seen anybody pay to ride or any enforcement”

To ask the mayor how they came up with these numbers or other questions you may have of the Streetcar, be sure to head on over to Jamison Square today.

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Get your party hats out – the turns 10 today! Make plans to attend its party Aug. 12 at Jamison Square in the Pearl.

Unfortunately, like many 10 year olds, the streetcar is creating some headaches.

The $148.3 million, 3.3-mile eastside streetcar expansion has been delayed five months due to glitches in manufacturing at Clackamas-based streetcar producer Oregon Iron Works.

The Streetcar in Portland has it roots in a feasibility study done in 1990. Nine years later, construction began on the westside tracks.

Check out the city’s for the streetcar. Highlights include:

• Reduced emissions and increased transportation efficiency

• Increased community health from reduced emissions in the city

According to the plan, riding a streetcar gets you somewhere roughly two to three times faster than walking. Not that fast! It might be hard to convince Portlandlers to jump on board. But as someone who once waited at 10^th Avenue and Alder Street to catch the streetcar to Powell’s (three blocks away) when he first moved here, I can say the streetcar certainly appeals to tourists.

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Portland City Council today approved a handful of changes to the Eastside Streetcar Loop project. The changes to contracts and intergovernmental agreements reflect complications in the project that will delay its completion and reduce streetcars on the 3.3-mile from six to five.

City project manager Vicky Diede told Portland City Council today that complications have arisen in the manufacturing of streetcars by Oregon Iron Works, a company new to the streetcar-making business.

Conditions attached to grant funding for the project require that the streetcars be made locally. Oregon Iron Works had planned to use a propulsion system manufactured by Czech company Skoda, which manufactured the city’s other streetcars, but Skoda was unable or unwilling to meet the requirements for documentation and testing necessary to certify the new cars, Diede said. The Portland streetcar team decided that it would instead use a propulsion system being developed by Wisconsin-based Rockwell International in the new cars. While that system is being developed, a propulsion system from Austria-based firm Elin will be used in a prototype.

The propulsion system complications have introduced new costs as Oregon Iron Works conducts engineering to fit the Elin motor to its cars. This cost will be initially paid for by Portland Streetcar funds but will be partially offset when Oregon Iron Works sells Elin-powered cars to other cities. The city recently received almost $1 million for seven streetcars Oregon Iron Works sold for $150,000 each to the city of Tuscon, Ariz., Diede said.

The Eastside Streetcar Loop project’s total $148.3 million cost is not expected to change because additional costs are being offset by cost savings – the city will reduce the number of streetcars – and the project’s contingency fund. The project will open five months later than previously scheduled with a completion date of Sept. 21, 2012.

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The Portland to Lake Oswego transit corridor along Oregon Route 43 has been picked by regional government Metro as the next area for some new transit. In February, a community advisory committee said that a streetcar, not buses or cars, would be the best solution for the area. The streetcar extension has been endorsed as the preferred solution by the involved cities and counties since then, but it is still far from reality. And now it’s hit a road block.

Lake Oswego City Council endorsed the streetcar option with some restrictions, including a community survey and a city-wide vote. that at last week’s council meeting, public opinion consulting firm Davis, Hibbitts and Midghall asked to delay the survey.

The consultant’s worry: the people of Lake Oswego have wrong or incomplete information about the project, and this information will make the survey “inaccurate.” The Review article didn’t come right out and say it, but the issue seems to be that people don’t like the project, and the public opinion firm thinks that Lake Oswego should take a little more time to sell the project to its residents (with facts and new research) before it asks them what they think.

This survey, which council agreed to put off till this fall, will likely weigh heavily on Lake Oswego’s endorsement and financial contribution for a potential streetcar project. We’ll have to wait and see if four months is enough time to change some minds.

-Angela Webber

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