The proposed line would be 2.2 miles in length. The Loop Trolley Transportation De- velopment District was created to help fund the project and the property owners in the area agreed to assess a one-cent sales tax to help pay for the streetcar service. This is likely to have a happy ending. Thanks to Neubie and Whistletalk of the St. Louis Rail- way Enthusiast Incorporated.


Airline Passengers Beware If you regularly travel by air, be prepared for narrower seats and higher fares. A Wall Street Journal article noted that seats in new airliners are now only 17 inches wide. Amtrak coach seats are 21½ inches wide. A Major League Baseball home plate is 17 inches wide, so sit on home plate to see if you will be comfortable in the new airline seats. The narrowing is to help seat ten across in the new planes and help boost revenue in the coffers of the airline companies. Measure the width of your local rail and bus seats and I bet they are wider than home plate. There is no evidence that the Great American Tush is getting smaller so be prepared to be squeezed when traveling by air.


Baltimore Planning


Planners in Baltimore envision making fu- ture urban development along rail transit lines. The city council is holding hearings on TransForm Baltimore, which addresses the situation. The Red Line light rail service is planned to connect Woodlawn in Baltimore County to the city. There are proposed stops in Edmondson Village, West Baltimore, downtown, Harbor East, Fells Point, Can- ton, and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Work is going on to modify zoning to permit the changes.


Kansas City Street Car A court challenge to the tax district to help pay for the two-mile downtown street car ended successfully when the Missouri Court of Appeals dismissed a law suit that threat- ened the project. The $100 million project along Main Street would link the River Mar- ket area with Union Station. The joy of supporters was increased by discussion of extensions to the line. Included in the possibilities are Independence Av- enue; Southwest Boulevard; 12th Street on the east side; 12th Street to the West Bot- toms; 18th Street to the 18th and Vine Jazz District; Main Street South to the Country Club Plaza; and 31st Street/Linwood Boule- vard to the Sports Complex. Many thanks to James E. Asplund for the news.


Visit the Illinois Railway Museum If you are interested in railways in general and urban/interurban rail transportation in particular, you will be well-served to visit the Illinois Railway Museum (P.O. Box 427, Union,


Illinois 60180;


www.irm.org). includes:


1 Horse Car 1 Cable Car 29 Streetcars 43 Interurban cars


31 Rapid transit and commuter cars 13 Electric locomotives


16 pieces of electric work equipment 12 electric box motors and freight cars There are also 20 trolley coaches and 11 motor coaches. The museum also contains


Transit and electric railway equipment


more than 100 pieces of conventional rail- road equipment. The IRM publishes an ex- cellent magazine, Rail & Wire. Contact the museum and become a member. Visit the IRM and plan to spend several days. It is a great place to visit, and 2013 is the 60th an- niversary. Better hurry to get there before the 70th anniversary!


Money for the LAX Rail Line


It has been debated for more than a decade, and now the rail line to Los Angeles Interna- tional Airport has received the green light on funding. In late June 2013 the Los Ange- les County Metropolitan Transportation Au- thority approved the $2.06 billion budget for the Crenshaw/ LAX rail line.


The line is 8.5 miles long and will connect the Exposition Boulevard Light Rail Line to the Green Line. The new line is expected to open for revenue service in 2019. Many jobs will be created by the construction process and when complete, it will be much easier to get to the busy airport. Airline service being what it is, the best part of the journey may well be the train ride to the airport. Many thanks to John A. Lee for the news.


Improvements at LAUPT The Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal was built at the end of the 1930s to handle the long distance trains of the Union Pacific, Santa Fe, and Southern Pacific. It was built as a stub end station, meaning that all trains have to back in or back out. Today the station is busy with Amtrak long distance trains, as well as a large and growing fleet of Metrolink commuter trains. LAUPT is also served by the Metro Red Line subway and the light rail Gold Line. If all goes well on the building of the light rail connector, the Blue Line may also reach LAUPT. To handle the business and be ready for more rail service, some of the stub tracks are being extended to connect with rail lines south of LAUPT. The four run-through tracks would leave the station on a bridge over the U.S. 101 freeway and continue on an elevated structure for a mile to reach the tracks of BNSF on the west bank of the Los Angeles river. Many thanks to Charles Bog- art and Frank Boler for the news.


815/923-4391;


Downtown Los Angeles Rail Tunnel? The move to link the light rail Gold Line and the light rail Blue Line in downtown Los An- geles has excited some property owners. The plan of the Metropolitan Transportation Au- thority calls for a four-story deep trench on Flower Street through the financial district. The two block long area contains the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, the Central Library and the City National Plaza retail and office cen- ter. The property owners take a very dim view of the trench that would be part of a cut-and-cover subway construction project. They and the businesses located therein want the whole project to be carried out by tunneling. The MTA says tunneling is not practical because construction of skyscrap- ers in the 1960s and 1970s drove hundreds of steel cables, called tiebacks, very deep into the ground in order to provide support for the garage walls of the buildings then under construction. The MTA also contends the cost of tunneling would be too high. The cut- and-cover method does make a mess and threatens access to certain properties. We’ll have to wait and see how this turns out. Thanks to John A. Lee for the news.


From Then to No


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