Tandy Center Subway

The Tandy Center Subway operated in Fort Worth, Texas, from February 15, 1963[1] to August 30, 2002.[2] It ran a distance of 0.7 miles (1.1 km) and was, during the period of its operation, the only privately owned subway in the United States.[3]

Tandy Center Subway
A Tandy Center Subway car on the last day of service in 2002
Overview
Type	Tram
Operation
Opened	February 15, 1963[1]
Closed	August 30, 2002[2]
Technical
Line length	0.7 mi (1.1 km)
Route map Stop 3 Carbarn Stop 2 Stop 1 Stop 4 Terminal

History

The subway was originally built by Leonard's Department Store in 1963, connecting the store to its large parking lots on the edge of downtown. Originally known as the Leonard's M&O Subway, it consisted of one underground station beneath the store and four stations in the parking lots. Between 1962 and 1966, Leonard's acquired a total of 15 PCC streetcars from DC Transit in Washington, D.C. These had been manufactured by the St. Louis Car Company in the 1930s and 1940s.[4]

The Tandy Corporation purchased the department store, its parking lots, and the subway in 1967. The corporation built its headquarters, the Tandy Center, on the site in 1974. Although it demolished the original store, Tandy retained the subway.

Streetcars at the terminal in 2002

The small subway primarily served patrons visiting the mall at the base of the Tandy Center, which also linked to the downtown location of Fort Worth Public Library. However, the anchor tenant moved out in 1995 and the mall declined. The Tandy Center Subway ceased operation on August 30, 2002.

After the closure, one of the streetcars used on the subway was acquired by Dallas's McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, which modified it to again make it suitable for in-street use, and it operated in service on the McKinney Avenue heritage streetcar line in Dallas until the mid-to late 2000s. As of 2012, it remained in storage in Dallas, out of use.[5]

In April 1982, the first PCC streetcar to run the line in 1963, "Leonard's Number 1", was saved from the cutting torch by a Tandy computer programmer and stored on a farm south of Fort Worth, where it remained for over 25 years. It was donated to the Leonard's Museum[6] in 2007. On February 2, 2008, it was moved to a restoration location near Benbrook, Texas. Leonard's number one is now on public display in the lobby of Texas Capital Bank, Fort Worth (One City Place).[7]

See also

• Dillard's, which bought out Leonard's in 1974.
• North Texas Historic Transportation

References

1. "Handbook of Texas Online - Leonard Brothers". 18 January 2008. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
2. "Preserving Texas History: Tandy Subway". 31 August 2002. Archived from the original on 14 August 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
3. "Fort Worth, Texas". 2005. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
4. Randall, W. David (1974). Railway Passenger Car Annual, Volume I, 1973-1974. Park Forest, IL: RPC Publications. p. 134.
5. "Car 143: Winnie". McKinney Avenue Transit Authority. April 5, 2012. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
6. Leonard's Department Store Museum
7. City Place Website and Personal Visit http://cityplacefortworth.com/

External links

• Tandy Subway History
• Pictures of Tandy Subway Cars in Fort Worth
• Parts of Subway preserved by North Texas Historic Transportation, Inc.
• Pictures of Tandy Center Subway cars and facilities during the final days of operation
• Video clip of Tandy Center Subway cars during the final week of operation