MTS San Diego Trolley Silver Line Vintage Trolley

[tonyw79sfv]

San Diego's Metropolitan Transit System debuted supplementary service colored as the MTS San Diego Trolley Silver Line operating the downtown loop section with restored vintage PCC streetcars on 29 August 2011. From the looks of the pictures, they are vintage cars with the exception of modern day pantographs instead of the original trolley poles (much like the Memphis MATA Trolley).

So this marks California's third historic streetcar service after San Francisco's F Market line and San Pedro's Waterfront Red Car (albiet with replicas). Of course there's also the original PE cars still active in the IE at the OERM.

www.sdvintagetrolley.com/

www.sdmts.com/vintagetrolley.asp

[James Fujita]

prior to San Diego's vintage PCCs, there were "San Diego" PCCs in San Francisco on the F Line.

Nice to see that San Diego finally has some PCCs of their own.

I'd like to see Los Angeles get some PCCs in Red Car colors, but the high platforms of the Blue Line make it trickier than for San Francisco or San Diego.

[thanks4goingmetro]

This line is just like my hometown's 3 streetcar lines, they use vintage trolleys modified with modern pantographs (but supports high platforms on one line). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATA_Trolley

I hope the Downtown Los Angeles streetcar line gets a few PCCs to mix in with the modern streetcars. Maybe more when the streetcar line expands to multiple lines

[James Fujita]

some types of vintage trolleys can work with high platforms, as long as they can convert from steps to level-floor boarding. The Red Car replicas in San Pedro operate that way.

However, I do not think that is possible with PCC Cars.

I could be wrong, but in any case, I don't think streetcars and platforms really work well together; especially not the sort of street-running that they have in mind for downtown Los Angeles.

[bobdavis]

Earlier this week, I finally made it to San Diego to ride the Vintage Trolley. It only runs during limited hours during the week (10 AM to 2 PM, Tuesdays and Thursdays). There's only one car available right now--it looks wonderful, but has a rather jerky acceleration at some point. One criticism I've heard is that SD transit all-day passes and transfers are not honored; it's $1.00 cash in the farebox. Passengers enter through the center door; the front doors are blocked by the wheel chair lift. There's a uniformed fare inspector sitting by the fare box, so the motorman just runs the car--rather like the 2-man PCC's in San Francisco during the late 40's and early 50's. When I rode it, there were only a handfull of other passengers, so one wonders how long this run will last. It would be fun to charter the car and take in on some of the other lines, but single-end PCC's don't like to run backwards for long distances, so they're probably restricted to the downtown loop. At least it provides traffic for the formerly rarely-used south to west track through the 12 & Imperial station.