Who can tell me about the Magnolia Belle Trolley in Bossier City, La.? It was on rails when I saw it from a distance in 2008, but it has apparently been since replaced by a rubber-tire "trolley."

The history of that mall trolley is one of sad remembrance. I was approached by a developer to supply a streetcar and rail for a mall trolley for a new development. Unfortunately, the project was planned for an old dump site (unknown to the developer). During negotiations, he decided to get a bid for a car from an engineering firm in California, who was pushing a "new, modern trolley but to appear as an old style car." They planned to engineer the car from new plans, including a new truck design, and to supply the car for about $25,000 more than my offer of an old English Boat streetcar with rebuilt motors. But, I was still to supply all the track material and work with the architect on track details.

When the new car specifications were sent to me for review, the wheel base of the highly engineered truck was about 12 feet and the track curvature would not allow such length. I informed the developer that the truck wheel base could not negotiate the track plan he had specified for the mall. The 2 engineers for the car insisted there would be no problem.

I inquired around the museum friends to see if they had ever heard of this engineering firm and learned that the men had visited Orange Empire Museum and, during their visit there, had told the members they knew all about truck design, even after the members informed them of problems with the planned, new truck. Otherwise, the firm knew more than all combined wisdom of the museum.

When I told the developer that the truck exceeded any use on the proposed track plan, there was a meeting called in Hollywood to discuss the situation. The engineers, the site architect, the developer and I all met in a contentious meeting. After 2 hours of arguments of data derived over years of streetcar history, past experience and books on track and wheelbase design, I had had enough and told the developer I was resigning from the project. He asked if the engineers would compromise on supplying a completed truck for testing on the track, which was being installed, and they agreed that a truck would be delivered on a certain date.

Meanwhile, the engineers had persuaded the developer to allow then to also do all design and supplying of all street lights and a merry-go-round. They were awarded a large contract, including a shelter for the streetcar.

When the date for the truck trial arrived, the firm was not able to have a truck delivered as it was not complete. The shelter was also under construction and the architect called me about a problem: the shelter rails and the pit were built at standard gauge measurements and the track in the streets was 3 feet gauge. I went to Shreveport and, with the architect, informer the construction company the track work was wrong and had to be redesigned to 3 feet. I was asked to design a track attachment method for the rail fastening for the pit, so I went to a local bolt supplier and purchased a sample of parts needed for securing the rail to the pit walls. About two weeks later, the contractor called me and wanted to know when he would receive all the needed supplies from me. I told him to go buy the materials as I was not a part of that project, just helping out the architect and developer. This, again, was a sign of bigger problems ahead with this engineering firm.

Shortly, the track was complete and the wonderful re-engineered trolley was delivered. When it came time to test the car, the developer's staff was invited to ride the inaugural trip: the car could not move out of the shelter as the truck gauge was oversized. "Adjustments" were made and another trial was tried. This time, the car did go out of the shelter and came to the first curve, whereby the wheel interface with the track resulted in very loud screeching in the curve and the car again was frozen mid -curve. The employees left due to the noise and inability of the car to operate.

The developer accused the track construction company of not laying the track correctly and he called in 4 other rail contractors to determine the problem: all of them said the rail was laid correctly and the problem was in the car's trucks. Meanwhile, the work by the engineering firm was also developing problems with the street lights and merry-go-round and, of course, the engineering firm's inability to resolve the problems.

I next heard from an attorney hired by the developer to instigate actions against the engineers and was asked to go to Shreveport and examine the car and then give a disposition of my knowledge of the whole car-track problems. which I did. What I found, upon examination of the car, was a truck that was heavily constructed with many shock absorbers ( all auto type) going at all different angles, a very long truck frame, a very rigid design and a mess. One employee told me of the aborted car trials and also of street lights falling over, a merry-go that wouldn't, and several other engineering construction problems.

A firm from Oklahoma was hired to rework the car with all the detail problems with the trucks, paint and operational, electric failures. I did not hear anything from the law firm or the developer, so after about a month, I called the lawyer. The receptionist informed me that, after the engineers had received a copy of my disposition, they immediately filed bankruptcy.

Since then, I do not believe, with the much attempts to remodel the streetcar, that it ever was worthy of operation and was probably destroyed. And, the developer learned never to build a mall on an old dump site: too much soil settlement plus other "challenges." That is another story.

Harry Nicholls
Dallas

Never fails to amaze me how projects can get screwed up.

Sadly, this sounds like so many projects that I have bid on in my role of providing infrastructure rail/transit solutions for a major Fortune 500 engineering firm and losing out to people who somehow convince a less than knowledgeable client that they are the true experts. I have a similar situation I am bidding against right now. Sadly when it comes to engineering the old saying is true - those that ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.

Unbelievable! This is a classic case of the infamous engineering
cartoon about the tire swing.

There are a few cartoon frames of the various design concepts
such as "The original idea", "What the customer ordered",
"The final design", then.....;last but not least: "The order as shipped".

That last frame shows the tire laying flat on the ground
with 2 ropes tied to it, and those are tied around the tree trunk
close to the base.

Good gosh, what were these guys thinking when they concocted
that truck anyway? No testing. No R.and D. Just build it based
on some weird, untested theory. Yeah. That'll work........

Not exactly as described by Chuck Richards, but in the same theme. Resurrected from my paper "humor" file, which dates back to Pleistocene times when such items were distributed by fax machine.

People can easily be entranced by bright shiny objects, and vehicles of any type are the usually the brightest and shiniest. On any rail transit project, the result is, as one mentor told me, "the vehicle engineers wear the captain's braid on their caps." The project owners, intoxicated by the pontifications of the vehicle guys, will disregard any warnings from the engineers involved in mere plebean infrastructure.

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

Larry- Another good one! I have the "tunnel design" paper which you sent me all those years ago. Also clever and funny. It's thumb-tacked to my wall.
Ned

Yeah Larry, That's the one!

The frame I was referencing is the one titled "As Engineering Designed it"