Tacoma Receives Two Streetcars ...
Two modern streetcars, manufactured by Bombardier Transportation, and shipped from Bremerhaven, Germany, were received by the Port of Tacoma this week for use in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, B.C. We watched this (extraordinarily chilly) morning as the first Flexity streetcar was moved to a trailer for the road trip up to Vancouver.
According to the fine folks from Bombardier, this is the North American debut of a 100% “low floor modern” streetcar. These particular streetcars will be a free service for Vancouver residents, visitors and athletes during the Olympic Winter Games connecting Granville Island to Canada Line using the existing historic railway.
As we hear more and more about rebuilding a streetcar system in Tacoma, this could be the type of vehicle we find on our roads. The City of Toronto recently ordered 204 of these streetcars for their new system. Are we ready?
These streetcars will operate in Vancouver from January 21st to March 21st … Maybe they could drop them off here when they’re done.
A few more photos over on flickr.
More information at Bombardier.com
Update
And, by the way, the 2010 Streetcars are on Twitter.
Filed under: General
14 comments
R RR Anderson December 3, 2009
refulgent beauty
P pegsterdtown December 3, 2009
Hallo schones!!!!
N nosaturn December 3, 2009
I really like Bombardier products. If i were to choose the cars used around here, they have the nicest looking systems that I’ve found on the internet so far, but the bLink car we use are not made by them. If i remember right, the bLink cars are made by a Japanese company… not sure.
J jamie from thriceallamerican December 3, 2009
nosaturn, Link trains are made by Skoda, a Czech Republic company.
These Bombardier’s do look pretty slick, though. Plus “Bombardier” is fun to say!
C Chris K. December 4, 2009
Those Bombardier cars are awesome.
…wait a minute… Sound Transit could totally buy those cars with our $80M in matching funds!
Why send them back to Europe? We could save some money on shipping!
Again, Tacoma Link is not in any official document “bLink.”
T tacoma1 December 4, 2009
Maybe we could paint them with the ST blue wave and T-Link colors real quick, then sneak em onto our tracks. The Canadians may not be able to find ‘em then.
W WesS December 4, 2009
Congrats to the Port of Tacoma for getting the delivery. I’m surprised that the cars weren’t shipped directly to Vancouver. Did we just undercut the price, or is the port of Vancouver not equipped to receive big stuff?
N nosaturn December 4, 2009
Skoda? really? hmm… so they are Volkswagen then HA! the modern VW bus :)
T Tacompton December 6, 2009
Are we ready?! Hell yes! Let ‘em roll down 6th!
J Jesse December 7, 2009
“Bus people”
S Scrubby McPhee December 7, 2009
I propose we take them. The longshoremen will never notice…
A Anandakos December 12, 2009
NoSaturn is right. Link cars are made by Kinki-Sharyo, a Japanese railcar manufacturer.
Skoda cars run on the Portland Streetcar and the South Lake Union Trolley (do the acronym…)
A aw December 12, 2009
Central Link in Seattle uses Kinki-Sharyo cars; Tacoma Link uses Skoda cars. So nosaturn and jamie are both right.
T Thorax O'Tool December 14, 2009
That is a good question. What will Vancouver do with them after 3-21? It seems it’d be stupid to do anything other than keep using them. But then again, Vancouver is like Seattle’s big brother, so the same bone-head mentality probably reigns supreme.
They’ll probably sell them at pennies on the dollar, and in 6-10 years decide to build a streetcar system that would be ideal for those exact type of cars… which they’ll then have to buy again.
That or they’ll just dig a big hole for Hwy 1…