and Benning Street. Operated by a private contractor for DDOT, the H Street line will be the first new streetcar service in Washington, D.C., since 1962. —O.M.V.
Streetcar Revival El Paso Utility relocation began in January
as construction started on El Paso’s new electric streetcar system that will link the international border, El Paso’s downtown business district, and the University of Texas El Paso. The city ran PCC streetcars from 1950 to 1974 and had the only PCC streetcar line to cross an international border. The project includes approximately 4.8 miles of track and 27 streetcar stops and is scheduled to take approximately two years to complete. The $97 million state- funded project involves refurbishing and placing back into service historic El Paso City Lines PCC cars the city originally acquired from San Diego which have sat dormant since the 1970s in the desert at the El Paso International Airport. Restoration is already underway on
several of the cars which have made the 1,800 mile journey via flatbed truck to western Pennsylvania. Brookville Equipment Corporation will upgrade the 1938-built vehicles with modern propulsion equipment, air conditioning, and pantographs and make them ADA-compliant.
Continue Live Testing Cincinnati Streetcar marked a project milestone in November when vehicle No. 1175, the first of five Urbos 3 LRVs being assembled at CAF USA’s Elmira plant in New York, completed its first live-power vehicle test on a 1.6-mile stretch of the line. Electrification of the 18-station loop through the city center from Second Street at The Banks on the riverfront to Henry Street north of Findlay Market in Over the Rhine was completed in December 2015. At that time, the
Cincinnati Streetcars SEPTA Shops Tour
Prior to its annual New Year’s Eve streetcar charter, the Friends of Philadelphia Trolleys sponsored a tour of SEPTA’s 69th Street Shops in Upper Darby, Pa. Located next to the 69th Street Transportation Center, the shop maintains the fleet for three distinctive rail lines on SEPTA’s system. One building is shared by the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated and the Red Arrow Division’s streetcar/light rail lines, including the AdTranz M-4 cars for the MFSE (LEFT) and dual-ended Kawasaki cars for the Red Arrow. A nearby shop houses the ABB N-5 cars used on the Norristown High Speed Line (ABOVE), also a part of SEPTA’s Red Arrow Division.
PHOTOS BY STEVE BARRY
city had only received two of the five vehicles promised which has delayed testing. The remaining 100 percent low-floor three-section units are scheduled to be delivered in January and February. The articulated vehicles will include a bidirectional unit on each side and a bogie in the center, can carry up to 267 passengers, and can travel up to 43 m.p.h. Each unit is equipped with HVAC systems, an audio-visual passenger information system, an event recorder, a control and monitoring system, video surveillance, and a hydraulic levelling system. The vehicles receive power from a pantograph connected to a single wire catenary. The almost-decade-long project, which
started construction in early 2012, is sched- uled to open to the public in the fall. Howev- er, there’s still a long way to go during the rigorous testing phase. Testing plans call for each of the five streetcars to run for 300 miles along the 3.6-mile track without any major incidents before receiving safety certification from state and federal authorities.
Since 2001, the Federal Transit Administration has awarded grants for 18 streetcar projects with a total of $546 million , but sometimes there is a slow start since many things are important to build a streetcar line. In many cases, construction costs are much higher than expected. Because of the cost, many streetcar installations are only two or three miles in length. Success of a starter line does much to ensure support and funding for expansion in a timely fashion. Attacks on streetcar projects are to be expected, often by people objecting to any public expenditures other than roads. It is very important that the first part of the streetcar line opens successfully and carries at least the projected passenger loads within a brief period. My hope is that the Cincinnati Streetcar project can experience this success. Portland, Ore., is often seen as a great example of a highly successful downtown streetcar project. By the autumn of 2015, the Portland streetcar system was over 16 miles in length.
20 MARCH 2016 •
RAILFAN.COM
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