ATLANTA, GA - Progressive Railroading reported on June 7th that the Atlanta Streetcar will change hands on July 1, when the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) takes ownership of the system from the city of Atlanta. The agency also will assume day-to-day operations of the 2.7-mile circular route, MARTA officials said in a press release. The streetcar will be integrated into MARTA its new light-rail operations office, which will oversee daily operations, maintenance and technical inspections. Communications, human resources, policing and other support services will be provided by staff in other MARTA departments. The Atlanta City Council had approved a plan to turn over streetcar operations to MARTA in November 2017. The streetcar's operating budget will be underwritten by MARTA's half-cent sales tax referendum.
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According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, MARTA's board was expected to decide in mid-June whether to ditch the current $1 fare for riding the streetcar. The agency hasn't yet decided how frequently the streetcar system's four cars will run, according to the paper. Siemens built the rolling stock for the streetcar route.
"As MARTA looks at ways to provide more and better transit options, the streetcar presents an opportunity to expand with light rail," said MARTA Chief Operating Officer Rich Krisak. "Multi modal transportation is what we do at MARTA and this addition to our rail fleet will offer another safe and convenient mode of travel to people moving through the downtown area."
KANSAS CITY, MO - Another indication of the resurrected love of streetcars.....Voters in the Main Street Rail Transportation Development District (TDD) overwhelmingly approved the local funding structure to support the KC Streetcar Main Street Extension. The final tally was roughly 75.6% yes on Question 1 (sales tax) and 74.7% yes on Question 2 (special assessments). Final results are available on the KC Election Board website, www.kceb.org.
MEMPHIS, TN - 539 was put into service by the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) on Saturday, June 16th. This makes the fourth car now operational, so they can now operate three cars every day with one spare. The remaining two cars will probably be available in late July, or early August. Once one of them is accepted, then the system will go to an every fifteen minute, four cars schedule. The schedule is currently every twenty minutes with just the three cars.
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MINNEAPOLIS, MN - A rehabilitated ex-Winona single truck streetcar was due to operate its inaugural public run after a dedication June 17th at the Excelsior site of Minnesota Streetcar Museum west of Minneapolis, the "sun sailor" website reported. The car operated from 1913 to 1938 and the car body then became a cabin in the woods. Fifty museum volunteers spent 15 years and $250,000 in restoring Streetcar No. 10. The four-wheel car was typical of the kind operated by small city transit systems in the early 20th century. Winona is 101 miles southeast of Minneapolis and today has a population of only 27,000.
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Elsewhere in the area, Progressive Railroading reported on June 20th that the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in Minnesota on June 19th endorsed a plan to build a 12-mile streetcar line connecting downtown St. Paul, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington. The Riverview Corridor project would use existing Metro Transit Green Line light-rail infrastructure at St. Paul's Union Depot and in the city's downtown. The streetcar line also would use Metro Transit's Blue Line infrastructure south of the Mississippi River, starting at Fort Snelling. The project calls for construction of nine stations along State Highway 5. The cost to build the line ranges from $1.4 billion to $2 billion. Construction could start as soon as 2028, Ramsey County officials said in a press release. The Federal Transit Administration would be asked to cover half of the project's costs, the Star Tribune reported.
Hennepin County, the cities of St. Paul and Bloomington, and the Metropolitan Airports Commission have passed resolutions in support of the locally preferred alternative route for the streetcar line. Project staff may now begin the environmental review, design and engineering process. The streetcar continues to come back, slowly and surely.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA - Progressive Railroading reported on June 25th that the Societe de transport de Montreal (STM) has marked the final day of service for its original MR-63 trains. The train's builders took their last ride aboard the train on the Blue Line on June 21st. The MR-63 cars also ran on each line in the system during the morning and evening rush hours, agency officials said in a press release.
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Built by manufacturer Canadian Vickers in the 1960s, the MR-63 units have been gradually phased out of service as STM takes delivery of new Azur cars. The MR-63 units' parts are being reused, with some cars fully dismantled and recycled and others re purposed for special projects. The rail cars were part of a 369-unit order designed by Jacques S. Guillon & Associates in 1963.
"The MR-63 is an original and authentic product of successful contemporary industrial design: pleasant, comfortable, efficient and durable cars, and much more," said architect and urbanist Guy Legault, adding that the units marked a "breakthrough in the wall of conformism of the time."
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK - Oklahoma City was expected to test its new streetcars during the third week of June on the completed Bricktown section of the car line which is to debut to the public later this year, KWTV reported June 15th. The $131 million, seven mile system will operate seven cars. The Bricktown section is complete and now is able to host testing. Motorists were advised to park within striped lines and not block the rail vehicles. Otherwise, they could get tickets and be subject to towing.
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The official name of the line is the Oklahoma City Streetcar and can be abbreviated as OKC Streetcar.
There will be seven streetcars. Each will hold approximately 100 people. The colors and design will be painted on the streetcars. EMBARK has named the prominent color palettes for each streetcar: Bermuda green, Clear Sky blue and Redbud. There will be two Bermuda Green streetcars, two Clear Sky blue and three Redbud. One of the Redbud cars is shown above. Car 201803, one of the Clear Sky Blue cars, is shown below:
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The streetcars are being built in the USA by Brookville Equipment Corp. of western Pennsylvania. The Brookville Liberty streetcar is a 70% low floor designed, three unit, eight wheel streetcar that is 66.5 feet long and capable of hauling 150 people when fully loaded. Brookville President Marion Van Fosson referred to it as "...the Prius of the modern streetcar market..." as it was the first streetcar built in the U.S. capable of "off-wire" operation. Cars have been ordered and in some cases already delivered to Detroit, MI, Dallas, TX, Milwaukee, WI, Oklahoma City, OK, Tacoma WA and Tempe, AZ.
PERRIS, CA - Orange Empire Railway Museum at Perris, California, held a "Pacific Electric (PE) Weekend" over the Fathers Day weekend June 16 -17, the San Diego Union Tribune reported on its website. Preserved and restored PE "Red Cars" were available to ride and a barbecue luncheon also was held. During its halcyon days circa 1918 PE deployed 2,160 trolleys over tracks stretching from the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica to San Bernardino.
PITTSBURGH, PA -
Progressive Railroading reported on June 4th that in the fall of this year the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) will begin a two-year project to rehabilitate the 55 Siemens-built light-rail vehicles.
These Siemens SD-400 models were delivered between 1985 and 1987 and originally numbered 4101 to 4155. They were rebuilt by CAF in 2005-2006 and as rebuilding was completed they were renumbered into the 4201 to 4255 series.
 Siemens car 4236 on Blue Line! |
PAT augmented the Siemens cars with 28 CAF vehicles during 2003-2004 which are numbered 4301-4328.
 CAF car 4323 on Blue Line! |
The work is expected to extend the SD-400 vehicles' life expectancy by six years, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported late last week. To complete the project, the authority will increase its maintenance budget by $2 million and hire a dozen employees, according to the newspaper.
The agency also will also evaluate the 28 CAF-built vehicles, which are coming due for their mid-life upgrade, the newspaper reported. The agency will decide whether that work will be performed in-house or by a private contractor.
The CAF vehicles were purchased in the early 2000s.
SAN FERNANDO VALLEY (LOS ANGELES METROPOLITAN AREA), CA - According to a June 28th report from "The Source" an area transportation news and views blog, a 9.2-mile light rail line between the Orange Line’s Van Nuys Station and the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station was approved by the Metro Board of Directors on that date as the “preferred alternative” for the East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor project.
The new rail line would run mostly down the center of Van Nuys Boulevard and along the railroad right-of-way that is adjacent to San Fernando Road. The line would have 14 stations with an end-to-end travel time of 31 minutes. Metro staff determined that light rail was faster, offered more capacity and would better serve the community in the future than bus rapid transit (BRT), the other type of transit under study for the project.
Van Nuys Boulevard is the second-busiest bus corridor in the San Fernando Valley and seventh-highest in the Metro system. The rail line would also offer transfers to/from the Orange Line, several busy Metro bus lines, Metrolink, Amtrak and two future Metro projects — the Sepulveda Transit Corridor rail line and the North San Fernando Valley Bus Rapid Transit project.
Demographics also played a significant role in the staff’s recommendation. Transit dependency, population density and poverty are all higher in the project’s study area than in the urbanized part of L.A. County as a whole. The area’s population and number of jobs are both expected to rise in the coming years.
The light rail maintenance and storage yard will be located between Raymer and Keswick Streets in Van Nuys, which will require the acquisition of 37 commercial parcels — the least of any of the three options considered. Metro studied three potential sites for a Maintenance Storage Facility along the corridor, and Option B received the most community support, whereas Option A received hundreds of comments of opposition.
The project is slated to break ground in fiscal year 2021-22 and open in 2027. This project is also part of Metro’s Twenty Eight by ’28 Plan, which seeks to ensure that 28 major projects are completed in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in the Los Angeles area.
A separate project — the Sepulveda Transit Corridor — is looking at a variety of rail options to run between this project, the Orange Line and the Purple and Expo Lines on the Westside. Initial concepts for that rail project were released earlier this month, including one concept that would have light rail on the East San Fernando Valley project continue south and tunnel under the Santa Monica Mountains to the Westside. Other concepts include heavy rail (trains that are wider, longer and faster) or monorail trains that would allow for transfers to the East San Fernando Valley line.
The staff recommendation for light rail — which is widely supported by community residents and stakeholders — is quite a milestone for a project that originally was supposed to be a bus lane project as part of Measure R. Throughout the project’s planning studies, the community spoke up in favor of rail — and Metro ultimately listened.
Project funding includes over $800 million from Measures R and M, over $200 million from the Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) gas tax and vehicle fee increases that became law in 2017 and over $200 million from the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). Construction is projected to cost $1.3 billion.
Work will now begin on the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement/Report (FEIS/R). That is scheduled to be completed in 2019 to be followed by design and engineering, utility relocation and the selection of a contractor to build the project.
In the Board Committee’s Planning Committee, Board Member Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker asked for a Metro staff report with the project’s FEIR on how Metro intends to run this line on Van Nuys Boulevard, citing some of the issues Metro has had with the Blue Line, which also runs at street level for long stretches.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - The San Francisco Examiner reported on June 7th that although Muni’s newest cars, built by Siemens and debuting last November to much fanfare, were aimed at solving crowded commutes, there was, however, something was missing. The new trains ran only as single cars. Now Muni is finally ready to run its newest trains in a two-car configuration to increase capacity and ease crowding for the thousands of daily N-Judah riders.
Those first two-car trains were scheduled to begin running on the N-Judah line starting June 13th. The change came on the heels of regulatory approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, who issued the safety certification for SFMTA to begin multi-car service. The new trains feature computer readouts of upcoming train stops, new seating configurations, and a quieter ride.
And even more new Siemens trains are on the way, according to John Haley, Director of Transit at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).
Haley told the San Francisco Examiner that SFMTA has 25 of the new Siemens cars in Muni facilities now, but only about seven single-car trains are out on the tracks at any one time. The launch of the two-car trains on the N-Judah line will be followed by more multi-car trains by next month, he said. The trains use cameras and monitors instead of rear-view mirrors, vital for operators when running multi-car trains. But a vital shipment of monitors is “stuck in customs in China,” Haley said.
“We expect them to arrive in the third week of June,” he said.
Couple those new monitors with a slate of new operators who are nearly done with training, and more multi-car trains will debut soon, Haley said.
“There’s training going on every day,” Haley said. He expects 68 new Siemens cars to debut by the end of 2019.
Siemens S-70 Streetcar #1175.
