Passenger Trains > Seattle Streetcar opening photos

Here are some photos of the Seattle Streetcar I took on 12-12-2007. While I wasn't there at "Grand Opening" the crowds were still heavy from 2 and well after I left. The rest can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_macster or at http://watransportation.blogspot.com

Brian Bundridge
Kent, Washington
http://watransportation.blogspot.com

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Look a lot like Portland Steetcar equipment

Great photo's. It would be great to see a race between the street car and monorail for the block along Westlake. I wonder which one would win?

Ron Sim's bicycle friend's (or some NIMBY's?) we're unsuccessful in derailing the street car, quite literally. I wonder what the bicycle crowd will do if the tracks on the East Side Rail Line aren't torn out like they are demanding.

Kingtv.com reported today that five large ball bearings were found lodged in the tracks yesterday, apparently in an attempt to damage or derail the street car. The street car stopped after running over one of the bearings, while the track ahead was checked and cleared of the other four. There was no immediate damage found, and the perpetrators will likely be charged with reckless endangerment if caught.

I would prefer to see the person(s) responsible tried for malicious mischief or worse, since this is not something to be taken lightly. With all of the security camera's downtown, I would hope the authorities would be able to spot to person(s) placing the bearings in the tracks.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Look a lot like Portland Steetcar equipment

They are the same as the newer Portland Streetcars (Inekon Trio), which are based on the design of the original Portland Streetcar (Skoda Astra), which is also used by Tacoma Link Light Rail.

After Volkswagen acquired Skoda, they decided to keep the automotive division, and jettison the tram division. Inekon bought the designs and spare parts for the Skoda trams, but lacks a facility to manufacture the trams. The Inekon trams are manufactured at the shops of the Ostrava (third largest city in the Czech Republic) municpal transit agency, in an innovative public-private partnership. The Inekom trams are just as good as their predecessors, if not better due to a sophisticated onboard computer that allows a car to be fine tuned for a particular route profile, but I sure do miss the Skoda squirrel logo.

Inekon has a great website with lots of photo's and tons of technical info on past, present, and future tram models. www.inekom-trams.com

Ride the SLUT!!

I hope everyone knows the joke...if not, here's what happened.

When Seattle launced the plan for the streetcar line they had not really named it. About 6 months ago, about the time the cars for the line began showing up from the builder, Seattle named it the "South Lake Union Trolley". The acronym was picked up right away by a coffee lounge in the area that, realizing the value of it, had lots of T-shirts and hats, I think prepared that said, "Ride the SLUT" Officials in Seattle, claiming they had not thought of the acronym immediately changed the name to the "South Lake Union Streetcar".

Well the first acronym has stuck, T-shirts are everywhere and the thing will forever be called the SLUT!

For those of us who reside in Washington's real rail city, the whole thing is hilarious and so typical of the pretension in Seattle.

Where does this line go??

Actually, that's the whole silly point...! According to the wags, it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere.

That windshield looks around $2k to replace.
...Lorenzo

The wags are very shortsighted.

The current route goes from Westlake Center (downtown) to South Lake Union, which has a couple major employment centers, such as Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, as well as tons of condo's and apt's, with many more under development. There are currently talks of extending the line to University of Washington, where it will connect to the light rail station there. Westlake is an excellent starting point for the line, as passengers here can transfer to the buses and light rail in the bus tunnel.

This is also merely the initial link of a larger system, similar to how Portland started out with a small stretch, and then later extended it to the River Blocks. There's now talk of extending the Portland Streetcar all the way to Lake Oswego.

The streetcar is also much safer than a bus. While the Inekon Trio doesn't have PTC, it does have some similar safety features. Each car is equipped with GPS, which not only allows for position reporting and announcement of approaching stops, but also for speed restrictions. The cars are programmed with the route network, and segments of the route can be designated for certain maximum speeds. So if a car enters a zone where the trackspeed is 10mph, and the car is doing 30mph, it will automatically reduce its speed. The current implementation has to be programmed using a laptop connected to the car via a cable, but perhaps future versions will allow updates via WiFi or cell networks. Attached is a photo of a Trimet employee fine tuning Portland's first Trio car during summer 2007.

Map of proposed extension from SDOT: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/stcar_eastlake.htm


a737flyer Wrote:
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> Actually, that's the whole silly point...!
> According to the wags, it comes from nowhere and
> goes nowhere.

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benthere Wrote:
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> The wags are very shortsighted.
>
> The current route goes from Westlake Center
> (downtown) to South Lake Union, which has a couple
> major employment centers, such as Fred Hutchison
> Cancer Research Center, as well as tons of condo's
> and apt's, with many more under development.
> There are currently talks of extending the line to
> University of Washington, where it will connect to
> the light rail station there. Westlake is an
> excellent starting point for the line, as
> passengers here can transfer to the buses and
> light rail in the bus tunnel.

You beat me to it. Here are a couple of additional points of connection (this sounds an awful lot like a component of a System! Oh Dear!)
*a stop a couple of blocks from Kenmore Air's Lake Union Terminal (Victoria, San Juan Islands, BC Gulf Islands)
*also a short distance from Lake Union Water Taxi (Fremont, UW)
*the connection to the tunnel at Westlake is a connection to SeaTac when ST gets the LRT finished
*the tunnel is also the connection to King Street Station (Portland, Eugene, Vancouver, Chicago, etc.)
*oh...and buses to Kent, Auburn, Tacoma, East Side.

The only silly thing is the wags.

TAW

Wow, that's a whole lot of transit connections.

The one I'd most like to see, which isn't listed, is a connection to the Waterfront Streetcar. I know they've talked about the possibility, but where would the connection take place?