Posted by NKP guy
on Friday, August 24, 2018 8:27 AM
bill613a
The Briyish Leyland Railbus ran from the Terminal Tower east on the RTA Red line to the Windemere station where it connected to the NS line and ran to Mentor in May 1985. There was talk of a run from dowtown out to Strongsville but nothing happened.
A very small correction from one who rode that Leyland railbus: The railbus did run east out of the Terminal Tower on RTA's (former Shaker Rapid) tracks, but not to Windermere. The railbus left RTA's main line west of 55th street, then ran through the RTA yard, to the connecting track with the Nickel Plate (NS) railroad a few feet east of the 55th Street bridge, and thence east to Mentor. There has never been a connecting track twixt the RTA & the Nickel Plate (NS) at Windermere.
There were a number of factors that doomed this to be a short experiment, including no parking for passengers east of Windermere, a very short-sighted and unimaginative RTA board, and the fact that this line ran for at least half its route through neighborhoods that were unlikely to patronize the railbus and ride to its destinations.
Cleveland is a very spread-out kind of town and the need to transport large numbers of people of people to go downtown to work in Fortune 500 company offices or to shop in its large department stores has completely disappeared. Add to this that RTA is broke (for many reasons), and one is led to believe that even if the railbus had got started it likey wouldn't be operating any more.
The Van Sweringens had it right about rail rapid transit almost 100 years ago: It doesn't belong on or near railroad tracks, but rather on its own private right of way, preferably on the wide centerstrips of beautiful boulevards that are the main streets of suburbs. Successful rail transit can't be built on the cheap...as Cleveland is forever trying to do.
A request: Can some railfans here learn the correct spelling of the name? It's Nickel Plate, not Nickle Plate! Think of the Mickey Mouse Club jingle: N-i-c, k-e-l, P-l-a-t-e.
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