Yesterday City Council voted unanimously to accord with the recommendations of the City Managers office and will contract with Coastal Heritage Society through Historic Railroad Shops to purchase a Melbourne W5 car, diesel generator trailer, and roll on -roll off highway trailer from Gales Creek Enterprises of Oregon, Inc. This car is in complete and essentially good condition, requiring cosmetic work and some reassembly to be operating. This work has been funded as well. In addition, a budget to restore and alter for our purposes the gasoline powered single truck car replica CHS purchased from WK&S last year was approved. <p>This will provide the initial operating electric car and backup for proposed demonstration streetcar operation along River Street (trackage rights now in negotiation) which we hope to begin within this calendar year. <p>Two original Savannah single truck Birney carbodies have already been aquired, and a large supply of wheels, motors, and other hardware brought in from scrapped industrial electric locomotives in Milwaukee. <p>In addition, several Stone and Webster double truck carbodies identical to those used in Savannah have been located as candidates for future restoration. <p>It is our hope to have an historic style streetcar line operating along the River Street corridor to alleviate parking problems and move tourists and conventioneers from the water taxi docks to the restaurants, shops, historic homes, and other attractions in historic Savannah as well as to provide real transit services for workers from River Street businesses to remote parking lots in the future. The exact size and shape of the proposed operation is still being debated.<p>Dave <br>



lathro19@idt.net

Congratulations, Dave! As most of you can probably guess from some of the Briefs I write, I'm a big booster for urban heritage streetcar operations. This is a terrific milestone along your road.<br>



eledbetter@rypn.org