Seattle's First Electric Streetcar Test
An experimental electric motor pulls a coach with thirty passengers up a steep incline in a successful trial run.
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.
The managers of the road are making preparations to run their cars by electricity. The new electric motor made a trial trip which was in every respect satisfactory. The motor was attached to the regular Ninth avenue car with about thirty people on board. At 10:20 p.m., the signal was given by Mr. Daft, and without the least jarring the train started out from the Fourteenth street station up the steep grades. It ran smoothly and with continuous, intermittent flashes of electric light and sparks from the steel rails of its progress. Thirty-fourth street was reached at 23 minutes to 11 o'clock. From this to the Fiftieth street station the motor sped without a stop, reaching the end of the electric road at 42 minutes past 10 o'clock. On the return, the run from end to end was made in 7 minutes. The schedule time on the road including stops was 9 minutes. Hundreds of people along the line cheered as the train sped by.
“Without the least jarring the train started out from the Fourteenth street station up the steep grades.”
This trial run of the Daft electric motor highlights the moment electricity began to displace the horse and cable car in urban transit. It is the ancestor of today's Link Light Rail system, showing that Seattle's commitment to upgrading transit infrastructure is as old as the city itself.
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