Allllllllllllllll Aboard...THE DONKEY RAILROAD

Sometimes my work-related google alerts serve up gems, such as this:

Bygone Muncie: History of local mass transit, from the 'Donkey Railroad' to MITS buses

To alleviate the growing distances for workers, the city chartered the Muncie City Railway Company in 1887 to build a trolley system. Two years later, MCRC built a few lines connecting nearby suburbs to downtown Muncie. This first system was pejoratively called a Donkey Railroad, so named because the trolleys were powered by inefficient and very loud "donkey" steam engines. Munsonians were quick to reject it. The Muncie Daily News even joked in 1890 that when the steam streetcar made its way up the tracks, “people fled in all directions. Many of our oldest citizens thought the courthouse was coming up the street on wheels.”

zman has already called shotgun...er, conductor...on The Jackass Express

Not the actual donkey railroad in question