City Getting Its Trolley

A 75-year-old trolley is on its way to Ann Arbor instead of to the scrap yard, and fund-raising efforts are underway to repay the $6,000 "ransom" advanced to rescue it. ' Mary Lou Slater, determined to bring a trolley here and seethát it is installed as a downtown people-mover, confessed that she sent a purchase order to reserve a trolley as soon as she learned of the possibility of the windfall. John and Pat Danovich, owners of Ann Arbor Scène magazine, contacted Slater in late February and offer.ed the $6,000 to reserve an 1899 St. Louis trolley car - which had been scheduled for banishment to a Lisbon, Portugal scrap heap at month's end - for Ann Arbor. The car, one of sewral American made trolleys which have until recently clanged along Portuguese streets, will arrive in Ann Arbor in April. Slater said the total cost will be $10,000 to $12,000, depending on shipping charges. "- j y . i - y r i The 29-yeanold Ann Arbor wrative, who heads her own lQcal public relations firms, is trying to raise the money by April. Some $1,000 has been raised so far. In addition to repayment of the $6, 000 loan advance, she has to worry about paying the $1,300 balance of the trolley 's $7,300 cost plus shippirig costs of $4,500 to $5,000 - all by April. Slater is one of three Ann Arbor area tran and trolley buffs who for.med a nonprofit .corporation, Ann Arbor Street 'Railway and Museum, to receive funds for the trolley and to bring i't here. Once it arrivés, it may be ternporarily used as a fund-raising andor historical attraction. Installation of such a trolley on Ann Arbor city streets wouid fall under the jurisdiction of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) and city officials. Slater has said a trolley route might "loop" the dowritown area, connecting Main Street and State Street shopping areas and eventually linking adjacent regions of the city with downtown. Details for the $6,000 advance were finalized this week. The Danovich couple and the magazine, said Slater, "are really taking a big risk on me. Right now, it's (the $6,000) ours to use, but we'll have to pay it back sometime." She is hoping that a Saturday afternoon' circus show at Pioneer High will draw enough of the young and young-atheart to give the trolley an extra push forward. From 1 to 3 p.m., Friends Road Show, a local entertainment group, will present "Michael Spaghetti's Mi-Ring Circus" in the school recreation room. Described as an international troupe which offers music, pantomime, comedy, theater, juggling and acrobatics, it will perform a special children's production. Slater described, it as "two hours of entertainment for $2," a flat fee charged for all members of the audience regardless of age. (Conünued on Page 3) I Other Trolley I Fwid-Raising, Another planned fund-raising event is an April 4 show at Chances Are, 516 E. Liberty St., said Slater, with all proceeds going toward the trolley. From 4:30 to , 7:30 p.m., Doctor Bop and the Headlin■ ers, a Madison, Wis. group featuring the ■ songs of the '50s and '60s, will provide I music for listening and dancing. When the group heard of the trolley project, Slater said, it volunteered to do the benefit during its stint in Ann Arbor. ; Other benefits are in the works, she v I said, including another at the Pretzel I Bell Restaurant, scène of the first benefit H which netted some $500 for he trolly fund I in mid-February". ■ Ann Arbor's trolley will arrive by I steamship in Detroit, along with four I cars ordered by Detroit city officials for I use there. A former Ypsilanti man who I volunteered to help get the trolley proI ject "on the track," literally, will haul it I here by flatbed truck. After reading articles about the proI posed trolley in The News, Slater said I Toledo engineer Richard Peasley, forI merly of Ypsilanti, telephoned her. "He told me after he read the first article, 'I thought ypu were off your trolley, and theh I read the second one and I realized you were serious,' " Slater said. (She first próposed the idea publicly in January and has been actively promoting it since then.) Peasley also has offered to do design and engineering plans for installation of the trolley tracks and electrical Unes, Slater said. He has told her costs won't be as high as some skeptics have warned. Slater also said a Pennsylvania trolley expert has offered to help get equipment needed to put the vehicle to work once it arrivés here. She presented the trolley idea to AATA at its meeting last week, and she was asked to return to an AATA meeting in April with track and overhead line cost I estimates. L ■ i iimum!- BMIHÉI