The Streetcar Line That Paid Its Way—Until the Bonds Came Due
Seattle’s consolidated street railway reports that fares cover operations but not mortgage interest, while receivership leases and a city council refusal reshape the young transit network.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Receiver Backus, of the Seattle Consolidated Street Railway Company, filed his report in the United States court yesterday for the six months ending June 30, including a statement of earnings and expenditures for the first half of 1894.
He reported that although earnings for the six months had fallen off more than $11,000, a reduction of almost the same amount in operating expenses left net earnings only about $400 less than in the corresponding period of the previous year. Interest on the company’s first mortgage bonds was defaulted on April 1. An effort to raise the money by selling receiver’s certificates failed when the certificates could not be disposed of on the proposed terms.
Under orders of the court, the receiver renewed for one year the lease of the Green Lake electric railway and also leased the Woodland Park railway, the latter carrying use and control of Woodland Park. No rental was paid for either line or for the use of cars, except $100 allowed for six months for two men employed about the park.
The receiver said the company’s property, except for the track, had been fairly maintained, and work on the North Seattle line would restore the track to as good condition as when he took charge. Since the accident insurance company in which the corporation was insured had failed, the receiver carried no accident insurance, believing the company could better afford to carry its own risk than pay current rates.
An attempt to arrange operation of the Rainier Power Railway Company’s line from Lake Union to Ravenna Park, which the receiver thought would benefit both companies, was defeated when the city council refused permission to temporarily suspend the Third Street line from Yesler Avenue to Almy Street. The freight business showed a large increase and the power business a moderate increase, offsetting in part the heavy loss in passenger traffic.
“Interest on the first mortgage bonds of the company was defaulted April 1... default could not be avoided.”
Seattle’s early street railways were private monopolies whose finances decided which neighborhoods got service. Then as now, transit expansion depended on shaky capital and political permission—the receiver’s request to suspend the Third Street line anticipates today’s fights over routes, funding, and who absorbs the risk when service fails.
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