FROM RAILS TO RUBBER
"Seattle-The Heart of the Evergreen Playground" postcard
—Courtesy of the Mike Voris collection.
Development of a trackless, externally powered electric vehicle began in the late nineteenth century in Europe. Just after the start of the twentieth century a short demonstration line had appeared on the east coast of the United States. In 1910 the nation's first commercial application of the trackless trolley started operation to the "Bungalowtown" housing development in Los Angeles. That line continued operation for the next five years.
85 YEARS OF ELECTRIC TROLLEY BUSES IN SEATTLE
By the 1930's trackless trolley technology had developed and standardized with the rubber tired electric vehicles replacing streetcars at transit properties around the country. The new trolley buses were more versatile, able to load and unload passengers at the curb and negotiate through the ever-increasing automobile traffic. Trackless trolley, trolley coach and trolley bus were all used interchangeably to describe the vehicles. The term trackless trolley became obsolete as the need to differentiate them from streetcars vanished. Electric trolley bus or ETB has become the accepted modern day terminology.
In 1937 a demonstrator trackless trolley was brought to Seattle to garner support for the Beeler Plan to replace the city's debt ridden streetcar and cable car system. A demonstration loop was set up downtown and also a segment up the Queen Anne Hill counterbalance. On March 6, 1937 The Seattle Times reported the results of a race staged between the trackless trolley and a streetcar on the counterbalance, "the modern trackless coach embarrassed the Queen Anne streetcar last night making the 2,150 foot hill in less than half the time required by the streetcar." Seattle voters, still reeling from the Depression, rejected the plan. The Seattle Municipal Street Railway's financial problems and crumbling infrastructure remained.
The Trackless Trolley Company used two of these converted Oldsmobile 16 passenger buses in the first commercial trackless trolley operation in the United States.
—Colorized postcard courtesy the Mike Voris Collection.
New Twin Coach operating on the new trolley overhead at 3rd Ave. & Dilling Wy.
— Photo courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives
At one point the Seattle Municipal Railway had to resort to IOU's and even nickels and dimes from the farebox to pay its employees. Seattle Mayor Arthur P. Langley secured a $10.2 million federal loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to retire the street railway debt in May of 1939. Management of the system was turned over to an independent commission and it was renamed the Seattle Transit System. The commission quickly ordered 235 new trackless trolleys, including 99 Brills to be built at Pacific Car and Foundry in Renton, and 102 new motorbuses.
Seattle's conversion from rails to rubber was completed in short order. Motormen were trained to be trolley coach drivers at the Madison Street Cable Car Barn. The first trackless trolleys ran in revenue service on the 13 19th Avenue line on April 28, 1940. The Jefferson Street car barn, built in 1910, was converted to trackless trolleys and until the new Atlantic street barn was completed in early 1941 all the new trackless trolleys were parked at Jefferson and on the streets surrounding the barn. The city's last streetcar trundled back to the car barn off the 19 Eighth Avenue Northwest line in the early hours of April 13, 1941. The new trackless trolleys were a natural with their ability to quickly climb Seattle's hills using the area's cheap and abundant hydroelectric power.
Gas rationing and war production jobs brought on by WWII caused transit ridership to surge at the new system. The Office of Defense Transportation allotted additional trolley buses to the city to meet the wartime demands in both 1943 and 1944 bringing the trackless trolley fleet total to 307 buses. It was not unusual for all 307-trolley coaches to be on the road at one time. Wartime demands literally ran the wheels off of the buses when some had to be sidelined in 1943 as no tires were available due to the wartime rationing of rubber products. Ridership reached an all time high in 1944 of 130 million riders. King County Metro's current ridership is 96.6 million riders annually.
Transit ridership dwindled both locally and nationwide in the post war years as America's love affair with the automobile blossomed. Seattle's downtown streets were converted to one-way operation in 1955 requiring some changes in routing and overhead wire. The Seattle Transit System receiving subsidies in 1956, but Seattle's trolley bus system continued to operate. The route 34 Harbor Island was converted to motor coach in 1957 but was offset by the electrification of the route 21 35th Avenue SW. In 1962 the entire Seattle Transit fleet was spiffed up to provide service to Seattle's Century 21 World's Fair. Additional overhead installed around the fairgrounds brought the system to an all time high of 100 street miles of two-way trolley overhead wire. Joining the trolley buses was a new, novel form of electric powered transportation - the monorail.
Brand new Renton built Pacific Car and Foundry Brill trolleys lined up in front of the Jefferson Street Station.
— Photo by Roy M. Peak. - Courtesy of the Joshua C. Shields Collection.
Northbound trolley coach on Aurora Avenue at Howe Street, August 15, 1945.
—Photo by K.S. Brown courtesy of the Mike Voris Collection.
Trackless trolleys loading on Union Street at 4th Avenue.
—Colorized postcard courtesy of the Joshua C. Shields Collection
In the late spring and early summer of 1963 Seattle Transit took delivery of a fleet of 100 diesel buses from Flxible of Loudonville, Ohio. The new buses were purchased to extend transit service north of 85th Street to 145th Street, an area that had been annexed by the City of Seattle nearly a decade earlier, and to utilize new roadways like the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Fauntleroy Expressway. This brought the end of trolley bus service in the north end of the city and West Seattle. All 100 of the PCF-Brills and 75 Twin Coach trolley coaches were retired. A citizen's group calling itself COMET - Committee for Modernization of Electric Transit protested the trolley route abandonment's with an initiative to voters, which failed in 1964.
The conversion of these routes to diesel saved the system half a million dollars annually in operating costs. The high costs to electrify route extensions and the lack of any new trolley buses on the market had sealed the fate of much of the trolley bus system. In 1965 the 11 East Madison line was motorized followed in 1970 by the routes 3 North Queen Anne/Jefferson Park and 4 East Queen Anne/Montlake. This left the system just over fifty trolley buses to operate on just over 30 street miles of two-way trolley overhead wire. The continuing abandonment's had brought the system's management under fire. An independent study ordered by the transit commission concluded that trolley buses were superior in performance to motor coaches on Seattle's many hills and that operating costs were comparable except for overhead maintenance costs.
Twin Coach #902 outbound on N.W. Market Street at Ballard Avenue N.W. in July 1949.
—Photo by James Turner courtesy of the Joshua C. Shields Collection
Madison Park circa 1950.
—Photo by Ira Swett courtesy of the Mike Voris Collection.
Pullman #993 eastbound on Pike Street at Third Avenue in March 1969.
— Photo by Harre Demoro courtesy of the Mike Voris Collection.
Financial problems continued to mount and every attempt was made to economize at the transit system. Jefferson Station was closed in 1970 and the remaining trolleys moved to the Atlantic Station. Seattle voters eliminated the independent Seattle Transit Commission in November of 1970 and control of the system was turned over to the city. The Seattle area economy was in a tailspin because of massive layoffs at Boeing, a result of congress refusal to fund the SST.
Voters approved merging the city owned Seattle Transit System with the privately held Metropolitan Transit Corporation into a single, countywide transit system under the auspices of the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle beginning operation on January 1, 1973. Part of the new transit agencies’ plan was to completely rehabilitate and expand the city's trolley bus system. The Arab oil embargo in 1973 drove home the need for more transit as well as alternative fuels. As cars lined up at fuel pumps more passengers began to line up at the doors of the newly formed agency's buses.
On January 21, 1978, the scant remains of Seattle's electric trolley bus system were shut down to be replaced by a totally new expanded electric trolley bus system. Most of the city's original trackless trolley routes to the south end, First Hill, Capital Hill, and Queen Anne Hill would be electrified once again. By September 15, 1979 the first set of routes were back in trolley service. Additional trolley routes were brought back online, as overhead wire, power distribution, and new electric trolley buses were completed. The new system featured a feederless power distribution system that eliminated miles of unsightly parallel feeder lines, induction switches, and 109 new chopper controlled electric trolley buses were ordered from the AM General Corporation. The new overhead power distribution system and the new buses both had a number of bugs to work out making the new system very trying for riders and transit employees alike at first. By the summer of 1981 all of the trolley routes were up and running out of the Jefferson Base.
New trolley wire being strung as part of the rehabilitation project on W. Raye Street at 7th Avenue W. in August 1978.
— Photo by Carol Voris.
Brand new AM General trolley #956 leaving Jefferson Base
— Photo by Leo Koszewski.
A small but determined group of Metro employees formed the Metro Employees Historic Vehicle Association - MEHVA in 1981 to preserve, restore and operate representative examples of vintage trackless trolleys that had been recently retired. MEHVA registered as a non-profit, tax-exempt group and became the caretakers of the Metro Transit Historic Fleet. That collection now encompasses a streetcar, trackless trolleys, and motor coaches dating from 1919 to 1979 all of which operated in Seattle and King County.
Jefferson Base closed for the last time in 1982 with all the trolleys moving to Atlantic Base. Jefferson was razed to make way for athletic fields for nearby Seattle University.
Jefferson Base closed for the last time in 1982. Brill #798 was the last trolley coach to leave the base. — Photo by Leo Koszewski.
Forty-six German built articulated trolley buses joined Metro's fleet of 252 articulated diesel buses in 1986. The coaches were originally slated for the planned re-electrification of routes 15 and 18 between Ballard and West Seattle, but those plans were scrubbed. The new buses were assigned to the routes 7 and 43, the most heavily patronized routes in the system. This fleet was removed from service for over a year while the manufacturer and Metro brainstormed a fix to the buses hopping on the center axles when stopping.
After several years of construction that had seemed to nearly gut the Seattle's Central Business District in September of 1990 the Downtown Seattle Transit Project was completed and the Seattle bus tunnel opened providing a 1.3 - mile underground short cut under downtown Seattle. Trolley buses that had been rerouted during the tunnel's construction returned to Third Avenue. The bus tunnel introduced a totally separate trolley bus system for a new specific fleet of 236 articulated dual mode buses. The buses operate off of trolley overhead while in the tunnel and switch to diesel propulsion once on the surface. While not the first installation of dual power buses it was the largest in operation. The bus tunnel became a vital right of way for the Sound Transit light rail system.
Coach #4000, the first of 46 MAN articulated trolleys, enroute to Atlantic Base for delivery.
— Photo by Leo Koszewski.
Prototype Gillig trolley #4100 crossing the 12 Ave S bridge on a morning promotional run.
— Photo by Metro Transit.
In 1994, the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle was dissolved as a result of a governance issue and public vote to merge the unique jurisdiction into King County government. Metro Transit became a division in King County's Department of Transportation. King County continued the commitment to clean, quiet electric transit with the electrification of the route 70 from downtown to the University District via the Eastlake neighborhood in September of 1997.
In 2001, King County Metro Transit operated 147 electric trolley buses on nearly 60 street miles of two-way trolley overhead. In 2002 and 2003 as part of a continuing commitment to provide electric trolley bus service, King County Metro Transit took delivery of 100 new Gillig trolley buses. These coaches utilize the motors, propulsion controls and other components from the retired fleet of 1979 AM General trolleys. This ultimate in recycling saved $200,000 per coach, totaling $20 million in savings for the purchase of the new fleet.
Recycling old coaches became a theme as Sound Transit Link Light Rail entrance into Bus tunnel displaced the trolley overhead with wires designed for paragraphs. The Breda Dual Mode Buses, not yet at end of life and with trolley traction motor that had seen little wear come paired to their worn out diesel engines, were converted into pure trolley buses to replace the MAN Trolleys. The engine was remove, sand place into the fuel tank as ballast, and the passenger and driver compartments refreshed for for another decade of service.
This new creation was dubbed a “Franken-Breda” after literary monster and 59 of these conversions were pressed into service on the routes 7, 36, 43, 44 and 70.
While link removed trolleys from the Transit tunnel, Link Light Rail brought other expansions to the trolley network to allow routes to better serve the trains. The route 14 was extended to down S McClellan St to the new Mount Baker Transit center next to Mount Baker Station. Similarly, the Route 36 wire was diverted down S Myrtle St to meet Link at Othello Station. This was countered, however, by the Route 9 being converted to diesels to allow an extension to connection to Rainer Station without the cost of new wire.
King County Metro trolleybus 4249 was built in 1990–91 by Breda as a dual-mode bus, number 5159 in Metro's fleet. It was converted into an electric-only trolleybus in 2006 and renumbered 4249.
— Photo by Steve Morgan - 3.0 Creative Commons License
By 2010, it had become clear that the budget solution for trolley buses in Seattle was reaching end of life. Both types of trolleys in the fleet were suffering from parts availability issues. While the coach body for the Gilligs was only ten years old, the power backs were turning 30 and so old the worked with analog a computers.
The Franken-Bredas had it worse. The bus bodies were overweight for the roads with their original delivery in 1989 and were falling victim to 20 years of stress that mass causing cracks over the rear doors. Further, Breda was a primary a streetcar manufacture, with Seattle being the company’s only customer for buses, and went bankrupt in 2001. This left the Franken-Bredas at the mercy of the Metro Transit machine shop to recreate structural parts as they broke.
Toward the end, it wasn’t uncommon for both coaches types to be sent out without major secondary systems working such as signage or dashboards as Metro had no other coaches available, trolley or otherwise.
In 2015, relief for the fleet started to be delivered. King County Metro had placed a joint order with San Francisco’s Muni for the first new trolleys built in North America in 30 years. Metro’s part of the order was 141 New Flyer for 141 Xcelsior 40 foot and 60 foot trolleybuses. The new coaches brought low floor boarding and fleet wide battery backup propulsion to the trolley system for the first time. The battery allowed the bus to travel a few miles around detours or get back under the wire without assistance when necessary.
Unfortunately, an under calculation in spring strength for the trolley polls lead to the new trolleys dropping their polls constantly until they were fixed. Later issues were found in the early 2020s as the backup batteries wore out and the coach’s range was reduced.
The future is bright for the trolley network as well with minor, but significant changes planned. The Rapid Line J will transition the Route 70 into the first Rapid Ride Trolley alignment. Future electrification of the Route 48 is also a goal with many extra utility polls already put in place along 23 Av E for new trolley overhead.
A 2015 New Flyer Xcelsior model XT40 climbs the Spring Street hill next to the main branch of the Seattle Library.
— Photo by Metro Transit.
This article was originally part of our celebration 60 years of Trackless Trolleys in Seattle and was published in 2000. We have updated this exhibit to be current as March 2025.