Historic Steetcar Line Gets Extra Stretch

If you want to ride an old streetcar today, the Museum of Transportation is where to go, of course.

The Kirkwood museum is well known for its collection of trains, boats, cars and planes. You can also see, and ride for half a mile, a vintage streetcar.

You have your choice of three streetcars from Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis. The St. Louis car is the oldest–built in 1914.

The museum has a streetcar line that’s about a half-mile long, and soon to be doubled, thanks in part to a recent contribution of 410 tons of rock from Fred Weber, Inc. The rock will be the ballast for the track.

The new line will connect to the end the current line at the mouth of the historic West Barretts Tunnel, follow the curve of the big hill, and go behind the Earl C. Lindburg Automobile Center.

“Visitors will be able to go into our auto exhibit, go up the stairs or elevator, to our mezzanine, go out the door and board a streetcar, and from there go all the way to our Roberts building train shed,” Museum of Transportation cultural site manager Molly Butterworth, said.

“It will make it much easier for visitors to travel to the upper level of the museum’s railroad exhibits,” she said.

Eventually they’d like to extend the track even further to the lower level where the new visitor center is being built, but at this point the two attractions are being developed concurrently, but separately.

The museum hopes to have the current extension finished by the end of summer, 2012.