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| Seattle LRV's and trackless trolleys (lots of pictures) (1115039) | |||
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Seattle LRV's and trackless trolleys (lots of pictures) |
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Posted by Dave on Sun Nov 6 08:49:19 2011 Seattle's Metro has 159 electric trolley buses that run along nearly 70 miles of overhead wire, much of it in the downtown central business district. It is the second largest fleet in the country. The current fleet is 59 articulated buses made by Breda and 100 single (non-articulated) buses made by Gillig.Breda:  Gillig:  The light rail system runs from downtown Seattle out to Sea-Tac airport:  Extensions north and south are planned. The 35 cars are made by Kinki Sharyo. The first few stops are underground, through the downtown Seattle transit tunnel shared by LRV's and buses (hybrid, not trackless trolleys):   The cars are 95 feet long and 105,000 pounds, with the ability to be coupled into four-car trains. The operator is Sound Transit:   Once out from the tunnel you pass by Safeco Field. The Amtrak station is nearby:  Station stops are displayed in a LED screen:  Seattle being such an eco-friendly city, many patrons bring bicycles on board and Metro provides them with a place to store their bikes:  Once out of the downtown and industrial areas, the private ROW runs in the middle of the street, through residential neighborhoods:  About halfway to the airport the neighborhood becomes very mixed, ethnically, with businesses run by Filipinos, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, East African, and Ethiopian. We passed several mosques and several halal butcher shops:           About 2/3 of the way to the airport, we pass the shops and storage tracks:    Here's a few shots of the wye into/out of the yard, and you also get a good view of the catenary:    The LRV is just part of a comprehensive rail transit system, both light and heavy:  Approaching the airport the ROW becomes elevated and we see some beautiful scenery, including Mt. Rainier:   The largest station is Tukwila. It had been the original terminus when the line was originally opened in July 2009; the extension to the airport came about 6 months later:  Arriving at the airport it's obvious this is a major hub for Alaska Airlines:     Here's a shot of the articulation section of the car:  On the way back to downtown I grabbed a nice shot of downtown Seattle:  In addition to the Central Link to the airport, Metro also operates a 1.3 mile streetcar line that begins two blocks from the Westlake stop of the Central Link. Microsoft's Paul Allen was a major proponent of constructing the line, to help improve the South Lake Union neighborhood in which his venture capital company, Vulcan Inc., is heavily invested. The streetcar runs from downtown to South Lake Union. The line uses three 2007-built Inekon 12-Trio three-section articulated streetcars. The line is derisively called SLUT, for South Lake Union Trolley:  Homelessness is found in all transit systems:    One block away from the LRV and the SLUT is the downtown terminus for the monorail:  And that's it! I hope you enjoyed this "tour" of Seattle's LRV system. |
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