Our Purpose

The Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway Foundation exists to restore and operate historical street and electric railways in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Our goal is to provide a cultural, historical, and educational experience for the citizens of the Pikes Peak region and Southern Colorado.

A Ride on the Trinity Railway Express
by Walt Loevy
photos by the author

Back in September of this year, I drove the family to Texas to visit relatives. Amy and I and our three children went to see her family in the Dallas area. As we all do when going home, Amy reminisced about growing up and how things have changed.

Most people who grew up in major cities remember the street railway or commuter railroad that they used to ride that now is, unfortunately, no longer. They may drive down where the tracks used to be and think about what was.

Amy was not doing this. She grew up in a city that, throughout her childhood, offered bus service as the only means for mass transportation. Although we considered driving those old great bus routes to get nostalgic, we decided to ride the train instead.

The Dallas – Fort Worth corridor, known locally as the Metroplex, did not have rail interurban service after 1934. The Northern Texas Traction Company, which operated 35 miles over the Texas & Pacific Railroad, ceased passenger rail operations on Christmas Eve of that year. Commuter rail did not return to the corridor until the Trinity Railway Express began operating in December 1996.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (the T) coordinated their efforts to rebuild and upgrade the former Rock Island Railroad tracks, located north of the old T&P. This Rock Island line was purchased in 1984, with the intent to someday run passenger trains between Dallas and Fort Worth.

When it opened, the Trinity Railway Express (named for the Trinity River which it crosses) mainly served the Dallas area. Commuters rode ten miles west from Dallas Union Station to South Irving station, a suburb of Dallas. Initial ridership projections were exceeded, however. In early 1998, approximately 1,700 people were riding each day on a railroad that was projected to carry only a thousand daily commuters. Ridership was up 30 percent since 1996.

All told, $70 million was spent on this initial first segment, including the purchase of 13 rail diesel cars from Via Rail in Canada. The 96-seat, rehabilitated rail diesel cars were built by the Budd Company circa 1950. This first phase was paid for, in part, by a federal grant for Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) improvements. Dallas was located in an air quality non-attainment area and was therefore eligible for this grant. Money also came from DART’s one percent sales-and-use tax. Further, the sale of trackage rights to freight railroads, so they could run freight trains over the old Rock Island between commuter travel peaks, also contributed.

In September of 2000, four new stations west of South Irving opened. Opening day ridership totaled more than 5,000 passengers. This more than doubled the commuter railroad’s average daily ridership at that time. Increased patronage was due, in part, to the opening of the Centreport/DFW Airport station. Buses connected the nation’s second busiest airport to the commuter railroad.

Amy’s family lives closest to the Hurst/Bell station, the next to last station on the current 22-mile rail system. We decided this was as good a place as any to begin our adventure.

The adventure aspect began immediately with the ticket purchase machine. I learned by reading the directions that TRE uses a zone fare system similar to Caltrain in San Francisco. We were in the second (and therefore more expensive) of two zones. The zone fare boundary was east of the airport stop. Knowing all of this, unfortunately, could not help me to figure out how to purchase a ticket. Apparently, only daily commuters and rocket scientists were meant to ride into Dallas by rail. Tourists and other inexperienced riders were left to fend for themselves. Well, almost.

When the first rush hour train arrived at 4:58 p.m., the conductor looked at me the way he probably had at other first-time riders on several occasions before. He knew we did not have tickets and he knew why. Our first ride on the TRE was free, thanks to the understanding of an experienced trainman.

The train we were riding was not a three-unit Budd car set, but something that looked like it came from GO Transit in Toronto, Canada. We were aboard a three-car bi-level train, including control-cab car. Operated in push-pull fashion, the engineer controlled the train from the lead passenger car while the locomotive pushed us to Dallas.

Once to Dallas Union Station, the same conductor told me how to use the ticket machine for the trip back. It would be several attempts before I actually was able to buy tickets. Children as young as ours rode for free, so I only had to purchase two tickets.

We spent some time at Dallas Union Station watching Dallas light rail trolleys and a Union Pacific freight train as they moved through a very busy rail hub. DART light rail trains were fast and frequent, with lots of people getting on and off. I could only imagine what Dallas must have been like without rail mass transit. Less mobile, at the very least.

With plans to meet Amy’s family for dinner, we decided to ride the 6:13 p.m. train back to the Hurst/Bell station from downtown Dallas. This time we got to ride the historic rail diesel cars. At least, that was what they looked like from the outside. The inside was nothing like what I remembered riding Budd cars as a child.

During the late 1970s, my parents took my sister and me to Ocean City, New Jersey, for summer vacations at the beach. Some days my father would take us down to the dilapidated Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines station to ride NJ Transit’s ex-PRSL Budd cars. This was always a fun ride because you could hear, smell, and even taste railroading. As the smoke-belching rail diesel car trundled along jointed rail, you could hear the wheels against the rails and feel the car rock back and forth. The TRE Budd cars were nothing like this.

The interior was refurbished with what looked like vinyl and fiberglass. Looking more like an airplane than the interior of a train, the Budd cars did not sound or feel the way I expected. As we left Dallas Union Station and headed west, we accelerated smoothly and quickly. Zipping along on welded rail, I could hear very little outside, and the sway was minimal if not unnoticeable. This was a first class train run by a no-nonsense commuter railroad.

When the Trinity Railway Express is complete, it will serve the Intermodal Transportation Center in downtown Fort Worth, and eventually the renovated Texas & Pacific Railroad Station. The estimated total construction cost of phases two through four is $184 million. A large portion of the cost will come from the Fort Worth Transportation Authority’s one-half percent sales-and-use tax. Other contributions will come from Tarrant County, federal grants including CMAQ, DART sales tax dollars, and railroad usage fees. Once completed, commuters will be able to travel between Dallas and Fort Worth in about an hour. That is twice as fast as driving the Airport Freeway or along Interstate 30.

TRE operating costs are paid for by local tax dollars, trackage rights charges, and farebox revenue from those crazy machines. Eventually, commuter trains are to serve DFW Airport directly, making it a true car-bus-train-plane intermodal facility. But in the interim, Metroplex commuters can use the Trinity Railway Express as a limited alternative to severe automobile traffic congestion.

Once back to the Hurst/Bell station, we detrained, and then watched our three Canadian Budd cars accelerate off into the sunset. (This actually did happen since our train was a westbound and the sun was low to the horizon.) I knew then, for sure, that the future of transportation was not wider roads and bigger freeways. It was what the Northern Texas Traction Company had intended all along: a means for transporting large numbers of people quickly and efficiently between two high-density metropolitan areas. Long live the Trinity Railway Express.

Keefe, Kevin P., ed. “Scanner,” Trains, (Mar. 1997), p.23.
Wilson, Beth. “Reconnecting Dallas-Fort Worth,” Rail, (Fall 2000), pp. 24-28.

These are highlights of a speech to the Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs by Bob Loevy, editor of The Singing Wire. The speech was given at a breakfast meeting at the Antlers Adam’s Mark Hotel on October 30, 2001.

There is a new spirit in downtown Colorado Springs. The Colorado Springs City Government is actively intervening to make the downtown area the center for “one-of-a-kind” functions in the metropolitan area. Such “one-of-a-kind” functions include art museums, performance halls, and historical research centers such as the Pioneer’s Museum. On the agenda for the future are major sports facilities, such as a baseball stadium, and a convention center.

In my view, the greatest need in downtown Colorado Springs is for the City Government to assemble land for high-rise and town-house type residential development. There is a definite market for downtown housing among those people who like to consume the type of cultural, social, and intellectual activities that are provided in a lively downtown area. These “local” residents close to downtown then encourage more artistic and performance-oriented development in the “heart of the city.”

In order to make such a revived downtown work properly, a colorful and historic trolley system should be built to circulate in the downtown area. Trolley cars would quickly, conveniently, and comfortably carry these new downtown residents from their homes to the various activity-centers in the downtown area. The trolley would free an enlarged downtown residential population from having to use their automobiles when getting around downtown. The end result would be to create more activity downtown without bringing more automobiles – and traffic congestion and air pollution – to downtown streets.

Best of all, if City Government can lure a large residential population back to downtown Colorado Springs, major retailing functions, such as a Safeway super market or a Foley’s department store, would return to downtown Colorado Springs and survive financially. And residents could ride to the downtown supermarket and department store on the trolley.

John’s History Corner
COLORADO SPRINGS PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL AND THE TROLLEYS

by John Haney

As year 2001's professional baseball season comes to an end, we might recall that Colorado Springs has had several minor league teams, including the Millionaires. Many years later, in the 1950s, it hosted the Colorado Springs Sky Sox.

In 1901, as Winfield Scott Stratton was building his trolley line out Cheyenne Boulevard, he was induced by wealthy mining investor Tom Burns to build Boulevard Park for big time baseball games. Burns' prodding succeeded and the new ballpark was completed in time for the season's opening day, April 23, 1902.

More than 4,000 baseball fans piled onto Stratton's trolleys for the ride to Boulevard Park, which was near the present day junction of Tejon Street and Cheyenne Boulevard. Stratton threw the first pitch. The Millionaires beat the Kansas City Blues by a score of 5 to 2.

The only profitable year for the Millionaires was that 1902 opening season. But over the next two years, Millionaires baseball continued to be played at Boulevard Park, with special cars put into service to carry fans to the games. The trolley cars would park on a spur track going north from Cheyenne Boulevard on today's Arbor Way to deliver and pick up their patrons. Fans could also take the trolley bound for Stratton Park.

Due to substantial financial losses, Boulevard Park was closed and torn down in 1904 after the Western League season. (From Newport In The Rockies and Pikes Peak Trolleys.)

Copyright © 2002 by the Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway Foundation. All rights reserved.

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