Passenger Trains > Orange County Streetcar Unveils First LRV

From today's Progressive Railroading:

The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) yesterday unveiled in Santa Ana, California,
the first of eight vehicles for the county’s new OC Streetcar system.  Manufactured by Siemens 
Mobility in Sacramento, the OC Streetcar vehicles are Siemens S700 models. They will operate 
on electricity from overhead catenary lines, with an added emergency backup battery drive.

The streetcar track is completed along the entire 4-mile route, and testing of the OC Streetcar
vehicles along the old Pacific Electric right of way is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks.
The vehicles will be moved to city streets for more testing later in 2025, and public operations 
are slated to begin in spring 2026, OCTA officials said in a press release.

The OC Streetcar route will run between the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center and Harbour
Boulevard in Garden Grove, serving some of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Orange County.
The route also connects to the Metrolink commuter-rail network and Amtrak.  Up to six vehicles will 
operate daily, with trains running every 10 to 15 minutes at 10 stations in each direction.

Specifications for the OC Streetcar S700:
https://assets.new.siemens.com/siemens/assets/api/uuid:df3a214f-77a3-4733-854e-242cddec1847/Orange-County-S700-Streetcar-Data-Sheet_original.pdf 

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Thanks for posting. This east coast guy had no idea this project was actually under way. 

Was this part of UP (ex sp) street running trackage in the OC?    There's so much trackage down that way, active  and abandoned....its hard to keep up with it all..

TIA

The article in today's Orange County Register stated that the 4.15 mile line cost over 150 million dollars per mile.  Holy Moly!  Sounds like transit welfare to me.

-John

jcaestecker Wrote:
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> The article in today's Orange County Register
> stated that the 4.15 mile line cost over 150
> million dollars per mile.  Holy Moly!  Sounds
> like transit welfare to me.
>
> -John

Lot of buried utilities in the street that required relocating, that's not a cheap thing to do among other things.

No, this was, in part, the Pacific Elerctric enterence into Santa Ana from Watts junction. Passenger service ended on July 2, 1950.

Roy