KFOX-TV reports: The PCC line in EL PASO, Texas will complete its testing phase and open to the public November 9th. The 4.8-mile line was built with $97 million in state funds. No federal funds were used. This permitted the use of Europene girder trolley rail. Six PCCs that had been used by El Paso City Lines, buit originally for San Diego, CA, were rebuilt by Brookville Equipment, Brookville, Pennsylvania. Each one has a unique color scheme. The streetcars will be equipped with Wi-Fi, air conditioning, LED boards and accessibility for disabled riders.
Interesting; glad to see rail transit returning after ~ 45 years. I saw, but did not ride, the international streetcars while passing through El Paso in 1973.
press release from Brookville:
BROOKVILLE's off-wire capable Liberty Modern Streetcar was honored as the Technical Innovation of the Year at the 2015 Global Light Rail Awards in London.
Upcoming Events
North American Tunneling ConferenceWashington, DCJune 24-27, 2018Booth #430
BROOKVILLE, Pa. – On Sunday, October 14, 2018, the fifth of sixth PCC streetcar vehicles to undergo a complete overhaul and modernization program arrived at its destination in El Paso, Texas, marking the 50th PCC streetcar vehicle Brookville Equipment Corporation has delivered since entering the market in 2002, and serving as a fitting commemoration of a century of delivering custom-manufactured rail equipment to a host of industries for 100 years.
In August 2018, BROOKVILLE also delivered the fourth in an order of five of its modern Liberty Streetcar vehicles with onboard energy storage system (OESS) to the City of Milwaukee, marking the 100th streetcar vehicle the company has designed and built, restored, or to which it has made major contributions. BROOKVILLE has since delivered the fifth and final vehicle to Milwaukee.
“It’s exciting to achieve both of these key streetcar delivery milestones in our 100th year of operations,” said BROOKVILLE Vice President of Business Development Joel McNeil. “The Liberty Streetcar and our PCC restoration programs demonstrate the BROOKVILLE teams dynamic and diverse range of manufacturing skills, and our ability as an organization to both preserve and modernize historical fleets and develop modern transit vehicles for the American cities of tomorrow.”
Later this year, BROOKVILLE will also share major milestones with three customers, as new streetcar lines open in cities around the country. The City of Milwaukee’s streetcar line, dubbed The Hop, will open on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, and operate five Liberty Streetcars with OESS. Less than a week later, on Thursday, Nov. 8, the City of El Paso will begin revenue service for its fleet of six restored and modernized PCC streetcar vehicles, which have been out of service since the 1970s. Finally, on Friday, Dec. 14, The City of Oklahoma City will open its streetcar line, which will operate seven Liberty Streetcars.
BROOKVILLE will ship one more PCC streetcar vehicle to El Paso and one additional Liberty Streetcar vehicle to Oklahoma City in the coming weeks, wrapping up two major orders. BROOKVILLE is also currently rebuilding a fleet of 16 PCC streetcars for San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA), with 10 vehicles completed as of October 2018. Earlier this year, BROOKVILLE celebrated the shipment of its 25th PCC restoration for SFMTA.
With more than 100 vehicles delivered, BROOKVILLE has also continued to pick up new orders in recent months, including for its next-generation Liberty vehicle, the Liberty NXT, for Valley Metro’s Tempe Streetcar (six vehicles), Sound Transit’s Tacoma Link LRV Extension (five vehicles), and the City of Portland (two vehicles).
ABOUT BROOKVILLE EQUIPMENT CORPORATION – STREETCAR DIVISIONHeadquartered in Brookville, Pa., in the scenic foothills of the Allegheny forests, Brookville Equipment Corporation is a world class American manufacturer of innovative powered transportation solutions for the mining/tunneling, rail freight and passenger transportation industries. BROOKVILLE contributed to the first American manufactured streetcars since the 1950s in 2001 and has modernized, manufactured and remanufactured PCC and heritage streetcars and trolleys for the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA), the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA) and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Building upon the company’s 95 years of rail-mounted vehicle manufacturing experience and over a decade of streetcar manufacturing, BROOKVILLE introduced the innovative Liberty Streetcar design in 2012, with the pilot order delivered to Dallas, Texas in 2015. Later in 2015, the Liberty Streetcar onboard energy storage system (OESS) was honored with the LRTA’s Global Light Rail Award for ‘Technical Innovation of the Year.’ Additional Liberty Streetcars have been ordered by or delivered to M-1 RAIL in Detroit, the City of Oklahoma City, the City of Milwaukee, Valley Metro (Tempe Streetcar), Sound Transit (Tacoma Link) and the City of Portland, Oregon.
And here is one on test:
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"The 4.8-mile line was built with $97 million in state funds. No federal funds were used."
As if some how the funds that come out of the state taxpayer's pockets are different than those that come out of their pockets for the federal government. A taxpayer subsidy is a taxpayer subsidy irrespect of the pocket it comes out of.
I was in El Paso last month and had an opportunity to watch some of the shakout runs.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
While yes, it all comes out of the taxpayers pockets, it does come with a different set of regulations, usually less onerous. It is relevant.
matthewsaggie While yes, it all comes out of the taxpayers pockets, it does come with a different set of regulations, usually less onerous. It is relevant.
Most taxpayers don't care about the regulations. Mostly they care about being a few dollars lighter in the pocketbook for an El Paso streetcar that appears to be a tourist attraction.
I go to El Paso four or more times a year. The streetcar is neat. But it will not do much to help most people in El Paso get around town.
It's relevant to the people who read these pages in this Forum. If all you are concerned about is taxes, then you are right, its not relevant.
It would appear that the residents of the area wanted their streetcar, or they would not have elected officials that used their local tax money for the project. Whether the line is a giant toy or useful transportation does not effect, in this case, the fact that the project had enough local support to make it a reality.
Ridership figures will tell us whether it is or is not useful transportation. This should be of interest as a guide to the general usefulness of such projects. Possibly someone can do the research and tell us what the ridership is right no, not only for this, but for the other new streetcar projects, Kenosha, Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City, Portland, Atlanta, Milwaukee. My guess is that some are useful transportation and others are not. The F heritage line in San Francisco is a great success.
What amazes me about this whole thing is:
1. They were running streetcars in El Paso as late as 1974.
2. They managed to make PCC cars ADA compliant. If they can do that why do we have all these new hideous designs coming out?
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