Friday, April 06, 2012

DC Streetcars Get Rolling



It's only in demonstration mode, but here's a sneak peak at a DC streetcar riding the rails. Want to learn more? Attend the quarterly update meeting:

 Thursday, April 12, 2012
6:30 pm – 8 pm
Spingarn High School—Cafeteria (2500 Benning Road, NE)

For more information about this meeting please contact the DC Streetcar management team at dcstreetcar@dc.gov or dial 855-413-2954.

9 comments:

Hondo said...

Thanks, Inked,

Do you know when construction of the tracks is scheduled to resume?

inked said...

I do not. Hmm...

Anonymous said...

Boy those things seem to run really run slow. I can't imagine anyone wanting to ride one vs. the buses at that speed.

inked said...

9:33,
They were just testing it. Pretty sure that isn't the top speed.

Andrew said...

They were running it by wiring a bunch of car batteries to the car's power supply.

When they're "plugged in," the streetcars can go 43mph.

Anonymous said...

When will the overhead wires be constructed?

Anonymous said...

What is the meaning of life?

Anonymous said...

Is there a chance that the tack could bend?

Anonymous said...

I spoke to some PEPCO workers, and asked how long it would take to put up the overhead power wires. They said given the foundation casings are laready installed, they could get all the poles in a few weeks depending if they do it with one crew or get several going.

if they had 2-3 crews setting poles and 4 crews puling wire, it's a fast job.

Now signalling may take a lot longer as all that needs to be qualified and designed and interfaced with the traffic signals.

The big work imho is getting the turnarounds worked out.

It'd be nice if they ran the eastern turnaround down to either Kingman Island or to the back side of the PEPCO plant. It makes it a lot easier to stretch the system to run out to Minnesota or benning road station and that's the ultimate goal if you want a real corridor on Benning.