The Dodgers may never return, but the famous trolleys that gave the team its name could be
 coming back to the streets of Brooklyn for the first time in more than 40 years.

This stunning piece of news was buried in a presentation made last week by the Brooklyn
 Bridge Park Coalition, which is building a $150-million, 70-acre patch of green along the
 Brooklyn waterfront.

The park is going to be magnificent - "One of the greatest urban parks in the world!"
 according to never dull Borough President Marty Markowitz - except for one flaw: It winds
 1.3 miles from Atlantic Avenue to Vinegar Hill.

Which is why a trolley would be perfect.

"A trolley would connect the southern and northern ends of the park," said Michael Van
 Valkenburgh, who will be designing the park. "There's a guy in Red Hook who has trolleys
 that would be perfect."

Valkenburgh should move fast because that "guy" is about to throw himself off a bridge and
 his trolleys are about to be sold for scrap.

That "guy" is none other than Bob Diamond, who has been dreaming, begging, petitioning,
 agitating and otherwise pining for a trolley that would link Red Hook to downtown Brooklyn.
 Diamond sunk more than $400,000 and two decades into his dream - but succeeded in sinking
 only a half-mile of trolley track.

He has two more miles of track - plus 17 working trolley cars - but they're all about to be
 junked.

"I'd love to make them available - but I mean, like, immediately," Diamond told The Post.
 "My landlord has given me until [today] or else he's going to sell my cars for scrap."

You don't have to be an overpaid urban planner to see the appeal of a new Brooklyn trolley.
 For one thing, it's historic (the name of the borough's celebrated baseball team is a
 shortened form of the term "trolley dodgers"). For another, what's the use of spending $150
 million on a park - or hundreds of millions more on reviving downtown Brooklyn -- if no one
 can get around it?

The proposed trolley would run along Furman Street - the eastern edge of the park - and
 under the Brooklyn Bridge along Front Street. With just a little more vision - and just a
 little more money - it could be extended to Cadman Plaza, where six subway lines come
 together. And you could complete the loop by having the trolley pass through the
 long-abandoned tunnel that runs under Atlantic Avenue to the river - a tunnel Diamond
 himself discovered years ago.

"This is what I've been saying all along!" Diamond said. "But you know how it is: Every
 person who was ahead of his time has always ended up jumping off a bridge and being
 recognized after they're dead. I don't want that."

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gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net