Commuter Outrage on the Sound Shore Line
Drastic schedule changes cause massive drop in ridership as commuters are forced to wait hours for trains.
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 traffic on the Puget Sound Shore Line has decreased wonderfully in the last two days, on account of the outrageous schedule of time recently inaugurated. One of the two passenger coaches has been withdrawn, and very few passengers are carried, except those who travel to and from points between here and Stuck Junction. For many days before the change of time the receipts for tickets in the Seattle office amounted to over $100 daily, and now these passengers are all compelled to travel by way of the steamers or wait twenty-two hours at Tacoma for the next through train. The difference in the freight business is not so great, and it is to be hoped that this part of the traffic will remain in its present good condition until the unfavorable schedule is remodeled again.
“The traffic on the Puget Sound Shore Line has decreased wonderfully in the last two days, on account of the outrageous schedule of time recently inaugurated.”
Public transit woes have been a staple of Seattle life since the rails were first laid. The tension between profit-driven scheduling and the needs of a growing commuter population remains a primary civic struggle in the region today.
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