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| PHOTOS & VIDEO: Jerusalem Light Rail Preview Ride (Part 1) (1094264) | |||
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PHOTOS & VIDEO: Jerusalem Light Rail Preview Ride (Part 1) |
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Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Tue Aug 16 16:29:30 2011 Today, a special "first ride" of the Jerusalem light rail was made available to people working on the light rail project and their families in advance of the public opening this Friday, August 19. Originally, this had been scheduled for late June, but was canceled and rescheduled to today about a week ago. As one of many contractors working on the project, I was invited to attend. The festivities started off with food, followed by two brief speeches in the Ammunition Hill amphitheater. We then walked over to the nearby Ammunition Hill station to set off on our journey. I had been on a stationary train in the French Hill depot back in September 2009, but this was my first time on a moving train on the main line. Additionally, hardly anyone outside the train along the route had ever seen a train with passengers on it, so the expressions on their faces as we went by were priceless.A train passes through Ammunition Hill without picking us up:  They have 3 days to get this fixed, Hebrew and Arabic are read from right to left (backwards to an English speaker) but not upside down:  Ticket machine on the platform at Ammunition Hill, these had been boarded up until just a few days ago (though some remain this way still):  Next train display (rotates between information in Hebrew, English, and Arabic), the station signs have been installed above the vending machines at a few stations but not at most:  A train comes by in the other direction while we wait for ours:  And heads off towards Pisgat Ze'ev:  Our train arrives and picks us up:  As I said, the expressions on people's faces as we passed by were priceless. We had to stop at red lights and simulated station stops. The doors didn't open, but that didn't mean people didn't try to press the buttons in vain attempts to get them to do so.  Inside of the train:   Here are two interior shots from September 2009 with no people on board:   Passing the New Gate:  On Derech Yafo, the main street in Jerusalem that was converted into a pedestrian mall to accommodate the light rail right of way:    Here is the view from inside of the train as we go down Yafo and through Kikar Tzion at the end of Ben Yehuda Street: Looking up King George Street from the inside of the train:  More passersby:  One of the kids of a coworker of mine enjoying the ride:  Passing over the Strings Bridge at the city entrance:   At the Kiryat Moshe Station at the end of the bridge, we got off and headed over to the opposite track to wait for a train to take us back to Ammunition Hill. I'll post photos from that part of the trip in part two. Here I am posing for a photo while walking from one track to the other: 
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