>X-Message: #2 >Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 21:27:40 -0800 (PST) >From: kits@kits.seanet.com (Kit Niemann) >Subject: The Interurban >Thank you, Carrol, for the Interuburn story. Glad you enjoyed that bit of nastalgia, Kit. I am certainly glad I was able to take in and now recall that bit of experience with the Interurban travel, especially now that today, the commute has become a necessary means of moving people along the same general route at tremendous cost of construction. > I don't go back quite far enough to remember the train My wife doesn't remember the Interurban, also, as she didn't live near it - later she lived out at Intercity - at the time I was going with her, and when we married in Aug. 1950. ( I might comment that the Interurban was not a usual train with locomotive of the steam type to form the train. Rather they were trolleys or like street cars that used electrical wires for their source of power, and looked like a long passenger train car, oftentime with a bell on the front, with a "cow catcher" to hopefully move objects out of the way of the front wheels. Various names were given to them, such as Seattle- Everett Traction Company, W.C.R. & L. Co. or Whatcom County Railway & Light Co., Pacific Northwest Traction Co., etc. "Speeders" or small gasoline driven vehicles were used by officials to ride the tracks, as they had wheels on them designed to ride the rails. ). but I do remember part of the route. In 1941-2, >my brother and I rode my uncle's horse on the Old Interurban Track, as >we >called it. And that is what we called it even after the Interurban ceased to traverse the route and for many years afterward, until the rails were removed for bike, and walking trails in latter years. From Intercity to Everett. I think that is how we got to >Pain >Field at that time also, and to Silver Lake. Yes, that is very true. I was more familiar with the general route, as I was not acquainted with all of the stations along the way - most of which was heavily forested. >One day when we were going to Silver Lake, we use to ride out there to >watch the sulky horses in training at the harness track, we met some >folks >herding cattle down the Interurban Track. A couple had ropes that >they >were swinging and one man was using a bull whip. We got off the track >and >let them pass. > >Oh, how things have changed. > >My Grandfather, Roderick J. McDonald had a Richfield Service Station & >Garage on Hwy 99 in Intercity. A pretty landscaped stucco station, >garage >and house, all gone now and some big parking lot for a mall or >something, >no place called Intercity any more, just south of Everett. We still refer to it as Intercity - I don't know if the bus that goes by there refers to it as Intercity anymore, and the appearance of that area has changed a lot as you have said. I don't happen to recall the Richfield Service Station & Garage of your Grandfather's but I was not familiar with that area until the late 40s & 50s. I have a copy of Warren W. Wing's To Seattle by Trolley, and signed by him when I went out to his home to visit him. This find book is "The Story of the Seattle-Everett Interurban and the 'Trolley That Went To Sea' pub. by Pacific Fast Mail, Box 57, Edmonds, WA. The [pix are black & white from the era in which they were taken. Mine is Copyright 1988. 160 pp. softcover. Those pix bring back a lot of fond memories because they show many of the stations along the route, tiny niches along the track where people could enter or leave the trolley. I mangaged to save tokens from Seattle, and also Tacoma with the S or the T punched in the center of them. Thanks again for you contribution of what you recall of the tracks of that fond old way of transportation that we need today. Best regards, Carroll in Snohomish * * * 30 * * * >Kit >Olalla WA ____________________________ >------------------------------ ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]