Tacoma Municipal Belt Line

Company History: TMBL started life in 1914 as the Municipal Street Railway which provided streetcar service to Tacoma, Washington’s Tideflats industrial area. Electric freight service soon followed. The name was changed to Tacoma Municipal Belt Line Railway in the 1930s. Passenger routes were gradually converted to buses and following the Second World War, all passenger business was turned over to Tacoma Transit Company. TMBL continued to handle the freight business. The mainline ran from the Port of Tacoma southwest as far as Nisqually. The first diesel arrived in 1950 and over the next several years, electric operations were phased out. In 1988, TMBL took over operation of the Tacoma Eastern. Because the TMBL was owned by the City of Tacoma and the route of the Tacoma Eastern was owned by a different government agency, TMBL was reorganized into Tacoma Rail to operate both properties together.

Successor/Parent History: In 1998, Tacoma Municipal Belt Line took over operation of the Tacoma Eastern. Since different state agencies owned the track of the original Tacoma Municipal Belt Line and the route of the Tacoma Eastern, the operating entity was reorganized into Tacoma Rail, part of Tacoma Public Utilities. They continue to use their predecessor’s TMBL reporting marks. The network runs from Port of Tacoma southwest to Nisqually, from Tacoma southeast to Fredericks then generally south to Eatonville and Morton. They also run from Fredericks southwest to McKenna, Rainier, Centralia and Chehalis. In total, they operate about 200 miles of line with a fleet of fifteen locomotives including: four MP15’s, one 3GS21B-DE, two GP-22eco’s, one SD40, one SD40-2, two GP38-2’s, two GP40M’s, and two SD70Ace-P4’s. The railroad has 72 customers and they move around 300 cars on a typical day.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.