https://www.foxessellfaster.com/blog/af ... ple-split/

The gist of this story is now also being reported by the (paywalled) Washington Post:



They only got six streetcars, as per Wikipedia:



So: Does one go to the National Capital Trolley Museum? Or is this a "trolley" story best ignored by historians?

I rode the system once, when a group of real-ale drinkers/transit fans and I organised a "pub crawl" of brewpubs and beer bars along the network, which we accessed by MARC trains from Baltimore and Metro subway trains. I believe every last one of those chosen bars has now closed or changed hands by now.......

I can't believe that the cars are "at the end of their useful lives" given how long they have actually been in service there. Given they are of a similar type to those used in Portland & Seattle, they may be an attractive purchase by another US operator.

I rode the line in 2016 and it wasn't exactly heavily patronised, despite it being a fare free operation. Each car seemed to have a resident police officer on board as well, which wouldn't have helped the operating costs!

One of the United Streetcar built vehicles seen in 2016......

The DC mayor just announced plans to replace the streetcars in two years, with electric buses using the overhead trolley wires.

It should be remembered that the initial three cars arrived in (I believe) 2010, and sat around for years waiting to be put into service. I even remember one car being trucked for display at a street festival somewhere as a promotion, long before the track was finished or even started.

And it's perhaps 20 years old, tech-wise. See the other thread about technological obsolescence.

Washington Post article, at Internet Archive:

https://archive.is/CjgQ6

At least NCTM is standard gauge. So maybe one could go there. NCTM's sister museum
the Baltimore Streetcar museum from what i heard a long while back from someone there is supposed to get one of the MTA's light rail cars when those get replaced. How they would run one on wide gauge Baltimore track is beyond me. It would probably become a display.
BSM has their hands full enough with the Ma & Pa roundhouse project let alone getting a car from the MTA and work on their other cars. NCTM probably has the space for one of the DC cars. Makes me wonder what will happen to the Metro cars when they get replaced.

To me it's an example when you build a "Starter" line for an intended network build out and never build the rest of the network, the Starter can wither and die.


Brian Helfrich

Thank you for thinking of NCTM.

At the moment we are 100 percent occupied for collection storage.

Wesley

The DC Metro cars have been in the process of retirement and scrapping for about a decade now, with much of the scrapping taking place in a Baltimore scrapyard near the B&O Museum.

Baltimore Metro cars? No idea.

If the Wash streetcar is a failed project the local museum would greatly regret not having one of the cars to show future generations.

There's a valid debate over whether museums such as these should show successes or also failures.

In the auto world, people tend to fawn over the rare Tuckers, Edsels, Deloreans, race cars, hot rods, etc., but then often fail to appreciate the everyday cars that more people really drove--the Model T and A Fords, the VW Beetle, the Toyota Corolla, etc. But when Grandpa drags the grandkids to the Vista Cruiser station wagon just like HE used to have and drove their parents in, suddenly it clicks.

In transit terms, this DC Streetcar may go down as the biggest "light rail" transit boondoggle in the nation's history. Is that something to present in a museum supposedly dedicated to preserving the history of rail transit? A "black eye" to the members and visitors that still advocate for light rail and streetcars in the future? Is there anything to "learn" from one of these fiascos?

Should someone have worked to preserve the PRR S1 and S2 locos? And where would it/they be today? Ditto N&W's Jawn Henry steam-turbine?

Sometimes when preserving and presenting rail and to be more exact transit history it serves a purpose to show not only the results of successful designs and and what made a company successful but also the developmental and not so successful cars.
As far as a failed system. Sometimes you have cars themselves that were successful but the company that used them failed for one reason or another. There are many museums today that have saved cars from companies that failed either because of obsolescence, mismanagement or some other poor planning. I don't think the DC cars themselves are
a failure, but more in the manner of how they were used.

IRM has a pre PCC car that was not a success. But it was a developement in the PCC design. BSM has a rusted out shell (which will never be restored) of a 1920 Brill trailer that was used for barely ten years that wasn't successful. (BSM does know of a more intact trailer that could be restored in East Baltimore but thats another story) During the mid 1950's George Nixon who went on to be the founder of BSM and who was behind getting the Baltimore historical streetcar collection saved was offered a Brill Brilliner by BTC. The only car of its type in Baltimore. The Brilliner was never a success like the PCC was. Yet George turned BTC's offer down. There are many at BSM who wish it had been saved.

Citing the PRR you also had the FF1 ,L5, electrics,and the K5 4-6-2 and Q1 4-4-6-4 locomotives. Look what came from these. The GG1, the T1 (with a new one being built today)and the Q2. Some museums probably wish they had these to at least display to show how a bad design helped create something more successful. The few McKeen motor cars that exist today could also be used as an example of a failed design that lead to something more successful such as the Brill and EMC motor cars and the Budd RDC.
Yeah i get it....Its kinda like Amtrak not wanting to display GG! 4876 (a successful design) at Union station because of the accident it was involved in.

I always wondered why that gg1 wasn't stuffed and mounted. I'm surprised, as all the guts of the locomotive that was in the accident was removed years ago,leaving the new shell with the old number.

How would that work?

My understanding is that streetcars uses a single overhead wire that is the positive side of the electrical circuit and that the steel rail is the negative side of the electrical circuit.

Electric buses don't run on rails, so they require two overhead wires - one positive, the other negative. So won't Washington's overhead wire system have to be completely rebuilt before electric buses can run off it?

First, it's a 2.2 mile system. They only would have to rebuild two tracks' worth of overhead for that distance, provided they don't extend it.

Second, this is the Company Town of Bureaucracy. It's entirely probable they will find a way to order some experimental "rechargeable" hybrid buses that recharge off the overhead and run a bit further into Anacostia or Georgetown or wherever, at the cost of another $200 million for six buses............ and then don't perform as advertised......

Of course, just ordering whatever Dayton or Philadelphia still use would be far too simple.......