NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS EVERY DAY

trade one of our new luxury diesel-powered, foam-rubber seat, air-ride suspension buses for a whole fleet of streetcars, and neither would any man who has made the comparison.”

The voice of newspaper writers at the time leaned in favor of buses over streetcars, but there were a few letters to the editor warning that Dallas would regret closing the streetcars when buses “hog the streets” and cause accidents. The Morning News also interviewed 90-year-old Irene Swink, the daughter of the original streetcar’s founder. Swink lived at 5803 Lewis. A streetcar had run down Matilda and turned on Lewis toward Greenville Avenue until around 1950.

“The passing of the streetcars? I don’t like it,” Swink told the newspaper. “I’ve ridden the bus, and I don’t like it. It’s a mistake!”

A 30-year-old streetcar led a parade of 44 brand-new buses from Oak Cliff to the car barn at Elm and Peak as a ceremonial last hurrah in January 1956. The car was filled with old-timers who had been motormen in the heyday of streetcars, as well as the mayor, Robert L. Thornton, according to news reports. John W. Carpenter, then the 75-year-old president of the Southland Life Insurance Co., also showed up in a limo for the parade. He told the news he had served as a motorman in Corsicana as a young man.

The streetcar ceased service at 2 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, 1956, but demand was so high for nostalgic rides that the company ran it back and forth across the streetcar viaduct over the Trinity River later that day, giving four hours of free rides.

Cars scrapped

The transit company and scrapped the $150 each. A few When the McKinney a remnant of the opened in 1989, a “Matilda” was put cades after its first life serving Matilda and Greenville. DART owns at least one other old streetcar, housed at the DART police headquarters in the Monroe Shops building in Oak Cliff. A couple of cars are in museums, including one at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The old Dallas streetcar served the workers, errand-runners and adventureseekers of Dallas for 84 years. And now they’re coming back around.

Modern streetcar systems are expensive. The 1-mile streetcar line from Downtown to Oak Cliff, expected to open in April, cost about $45 million, including the tracks and cars. Plans call for the line to be extended to the Bishop Arts District and from Union Station to the Dallas Convention Center, eventually connecting to the McKinney Avenue Trolley. The tracks cost about $1 million per mile. A citywide streetcar won’t happen overnight, but Dallas could see a renaissance of streetcar service in the future.

When the Downtown-to-Oak Cliff streetcar opens this year, almost 60 years after the end of the last line, try to imagine it as that yellow-and-white car pulled by Sam the white carriage horse. It is just the beginning, again.