Once buried in asphalt, streetcar tracks on the Bridge Transfer line are being uncovered by Portland Traction company crews working on N. Larrabee Street. Street cars, once retired, will resume service to replace busses, made hard to get by war emergency conditions.

Car Tracks Being Opened

Far-reaching mailed fist of the war lords, stretched way across a lot of ocean, way across a lot of land, and struck out on N. Larrabee street near Broadway.

That's where they're digging the pavement off the street car tracks. They covered them over with blacktop last summer because busses had replaced the old-fashioned street cars and there just wasn't any more need for the tracks.

Now they're uncovering the tracks, Gordon Steele, vice president and general manager of the Portland Traction company, explained Thursday, because the war means no more new busses for a while, and no new busses mean the old-time street cars, once driven into the barns to rest forever, will soon be out, newly painted, completely reconditioned, to run again.

Work of digging up the tracks is slow. The pavement was put there to stay, but the steady bite of air compressors, and the vengeance of the picks and shovels will have the tracks uncovered in time for the Bridge Transfer street cars to replace the busses on that line February 15, Steele said Thursday.

Ten of the old-time street cars will go into service replacing the seven gas busses now used on the Bridge Transfer run, Steele said. The busses thus released will be used on other city branches where additional busses are needed.

“We have an order in for 15 new buses to be delivered next summer, “ Steele said. “We're hoping we will be able to get them.”

Bridge Transfer line will be the only one in the city on which street cars once taken off will be returned because on that particular run trolley lines were left intact, Steele explained. If the trolley lines were down, they would not be able to be replaced since copper wire, of which they are made, is harder to obtain than new busses, he added.