All Aboard Trolley #001!
Meet Trolley #001
It’s a project 20 years in the making that’s about to come to life in just a few months. The Loop Trolley celebrated a major milestone recently when its first refurbished car, Trolley #001, rolled into St. Louis. Two more will come before the line’s anticipated launch in the early part of the summer.
“I was thrilled to see it,” says Loop businessman Joe Edwards of the moment the trolley arrived. “The people who worked on it did a heck of a job. It has two tones of wood and slats in a lighter and darker wood with brass, and it’s accessible and really just glorious.”
The car is one of two replica Council Crest trolley cars from Portland, Oregon, that have been reconditioned by Gomaco Trolley Company in Iowa, which was the original manufacturer. It will be tested in the Loop Trolley headquarters facility first, then pulled by a truck along the route before undergoing testing under its own electrical power.
“To connect one of the 10 Great Streets in America [Delmar] with the best city park [St. Louis Forest Park] in America is meaningful for St. Louis, and it’s the way of the future. Cities want good, clean electrical transit, especially the younger generation that doesn’t want to pay for gas and insurance, and it’s great for the elderly too,” Edwards says of his dream project.
The Loop Trolley is a 2.2-mile, fixed-route that will run through the Delmar Loop along Delmar Blvd. and continue on DeBaliviere Ave.
Joe Edwards, the pioneer of The Loop Trolley project, aboard Trolley #001
