I couldn't justify putting this in a model railroad forum but it is related to trolleys. Trolley parks: Survivors of an earlier era - Travel - Family Travel - msnbc.com From 2nd paragraph: Feel free to move this to a more appropriate forum.
Somehow I wish we still had this style of park. The more "modern" types just don't appeal to me like this concept. Boxcab E50
We have one of them in Portland - Oaks Park. I see it mentioned here in the story. It's where I learned to roller skate.
I've been to Oaks Park a couple of times and rode the Portland Traction to get there too! Ravinia Park, the famous music venue in Northeastern Illinois, was built by the "Chicago & Milwaukee Electric", later to be renamed the "Chicago,North Shore & Milwaukee". One of Sam Insull's best and long lived interurbans. Ravinia is still in operation with some of the best headliners in the music world. You get to have your concert accompanied by trains on the Union Pacific(formerly C. & NW-North Line)railroad. The interurban ROW was between the C&NW and the main gate of Ravinia Park.
The Portland Traction line is still there, but it's no longer Portland Traction. There was an excursion train for a while called SamTrak run by the OPE, but it's been discontinued. The 4449 and the SPS 700 take turns doing holiday runs from Oaks Park into the inner east side and back. The overhead wire has been gone since before I can remember, which means it's probably been gone since the early 70s or even earlier.
We are fortunate to have the McKinney Ave. trolley here in Dallas. They have just received a grant to expand the trackage further into downtown.
I thought there were still excursions on Portland Traction. I know the locomotives and passenger cars are still scattered about Sellwood.
SamTrak is done. There are sometimes runs of the 700 or 4449. To my knowledge, there hasn't been a simple excursion in quite some time. Beyond SE 17th it is impossible for a train to follow the Cazadero Line as it has been ripped out for years. I saw one of SamTrak's critter locos at Brooks at Antique Powerland yesterday. The folks who ran SamTrak still run a freight business, and still have some things scattered around SE Portland near Milwaukee over there between SE 17th and McLoughlin.
Anyway, I'm not aware of any Trolley parks that were in Chicago, though obviously, Chicago had plenty of parks. I lived less than a Mile from Kiddieland which was of course famous in it's own right. Kiddieland Amusement Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Which had the Little dipper, which is now up at Great America and of course, the old 16" gauge railroad. With Wagner Steam Engines and MTC F2 diesels (Made from the EMD drawings, with Wisconsin Engines, these are a collectors item themselves) Thankfully being restored The World's Best Photos of kiddieland and melrose - Flickr Hive Mind Kiddieland, Whatever happened to the Kiddieland Train? Discover Live Steam Magazine A lot of these articles talk about 14" Gauge, but to the best of my knowledge, this is in error, it is 16". Also, Balboa Park in San Diego also has an MTC G-16 also in Daylight colors. Though there's looks very run down whereas Kiddieland's was always immaculate. Southeastern Railway Museum
==================================================================== This would have been in the mid 1950s when I rode it! Charlie
In Lynn Wescott's 101 Track Plans there is a plan for a large interurban layout. I can remember my father (who would be in his late 80 / 90s today), reviewing it critically until he exclaimed, "Ah Ha!, there it is!" - a "trolley park" at the end of the line. He went on to tell me how they parks were set up to get the people to use the line on weekends. He (like his son), could be quite the story teller.
My dad tells me that he remembers the wires as a kid in the 40s, but that that were gone by the late 1950s.
Slightly off topic, but it drives me bonkers that Trimet didn't at least consider this line as part of their Milwaukie extension. Especially in light of the fact that they had their matich funds cut this week. They should have used this line to get to Sellwood and then built new from there.
So, I actually went to Oaks Park last Saturday, just to stroll around. The SamTrak station is a sad reminder of what SHOULD be. Anyway, I've got a question about the miniature railroad. I noticed that it's dual gauge. The inside rail appears to be 16" while the outside might even be 2'? I also noticed that the inside rail had been severed at a switch that leads to a stub track which I assume is for storing the equipment. What kind of engines used to run here? Why did they switch to the larger one? I also noted that the transet runs on downsized bloomberg B swinghanger trucks just like the MTC 16" sets did. Also, it was so depressing that the "Steam" engine was a fake. Still a cute and fun little park. Reminds me of Bay Beach in Green Bay more than Kiddieland.
A little research shows that they had a G-16 in UP colors up until the 80s when they got their current trainset from I guess the Zoo in Seattle. How absolutely disappointing.
The planning has been on and off since 1992. I have heard several proposed routes, including the one you suggest. One big reason I think it didn't make it is that it doesn't actually serve much of anyone until it gets most of the way through Sellwood, as much as I'd like to ride through Oaks Bottom Wetland by the river there just isn't much access to actual residences and workplaces, unless one lives in a van down by the river or one works as a wildlife biologist. The current route serves the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Sellwood-Moreland, Eastmoreland, and Reed, whereas to follow that line by Oaks Park you basically bypass all of them. If you want funding, votes, etc., you gotta serve the people.
I'll grant you that, but couldn't some of this be covered by an extension of the streetcar line instead? I guess what I'm saying is that you've got an underused asset there that could be turned into SOMETHING. Same thing is true of the line down to Lake O which terminates how many blocks from the south end of the Street car? At a bare minimum, I can't imagine that line wouldn't be popular if it were run the same way that the Lake O line is run. I don't know what the Sam Trak issues were, but a connection from downtown to Oaks Park and Sellwood can't possibly be bad can it?
