Echoes of Eastside rail history with Sound Transit preparing to get underway

As Sound Transit gets ready to inaugurate commuter trains between Bellevue and Redmond beginning next weekend, the question arises about the last time regular passenger rail service was offered on the Eastside.

There’s some good-natured historical debate about the specific moment when the last passenger train rolled through what’s now an assortment of urban areas and dense suburbs, but a handful of local rail historians consulted by KIRO Newsradio agree it was sometime on or around July 19, 1922.

The Resident Historian is a twice-weekly podcast from KIRO Newsradio's Feliks Banel. Each episode includes either Feliks's Wednesday history feature from Seattle's Morning News, or the weekly Friday morning installment of the history and geography series All Over The Map.