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On Tuesday, the District Department of Transportation released the above images of the city's three streetcars being loaded up for shipping. That's good news, considering D.C. taxpayers have been paying to store the streetcars in the Czech Republic for over four years now. DDOT says these images show the streetcars being loaded onto flatbed trucks in the Czech Republic and then arriving in Hamburg, Germany. They are expected to make it to D.C., by ship, in mid-December.
But as with seemingly all things streetcars, it's once again our job to warn you not to get too excited. As Tommy Wells' office rightly points out, "there’s still a lot of work left before they are running up and down H Street and Benning Road." The city is busy working on laying the tracks for these two lines, but they aren't expected to be up and running until 2012 at the earliest, and even that date assumes that all the relevant zoning and funding issues get sorted out in a timely manner.
DDOT took some heat for having spent $10 million on these streetcars so many years ago without any place to put them, so where exactly are they going to put them now? They'll be stored at the Greenbelt rail yard, DDOT spokesperson John Lisle said, and DDOT will pay WMATA to maintain them there. Sounds like a good enough plan, but if that was always a possibility, couldn't the city have moved the streetcars to Greenbelt years ago?
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The city is busy working on laying the tracks for these two lines, but they aren't expected to up and running until 2012 at the earliest
Seeing as they lingered in the Czech Republic for 4 years, I'll look for them in downtown DC around 2014.
2010 in Anacostia.
Yeah, that .75 mile line from Suitland Parkway to 2750 South Capitol Street is gonna come in real handy when I have to go to Saint Elizabeths to have my head examined by the ghost of Ezra Pound.
You have to start somewhere!
They look exactly like the Circulator buses!! That's going to confuse the hell out of me.
Back on the old timey trolley, Liz
But as with seemingly all things streetcars, it's once again our job to warn you not to get too excited.
I know I know, but woooohoooo these look awesome.
Considering the 28.3% unemployment rate in Ward 8, what would it take to manufacture some of these here? I know there's a lot to it - education, materials, manufacturing facilities, but could it possibly be cheaper than storing them in Czech Republic and shipping them across land and sea?
There's only one company in the USA that builds streetcars: Oregon Iron Works.
Would you want to ride in something built and maintained by a DC Public School dropout?
We gotta get 'em early. First step: toy versions of the ones pictured above this Christmas.
Your cynical take (in many ways justified) and the headline of that link ("First American-Made Streetcar In 60 Years") pretty much sum up a lot of the underlying issues that have led us to where we are, economically speaking.
One would hope that the current administration would put its (our) money where its mouth is and start investing in light rail infrastructure, and that would include production as well as maintenance. But half-a-century is a long time to be out of the streetcar business. Europe and Asia have made all the technological advances in rail technology and America would have to play catch up. Hopefully, they can learn from other nations' mistakes and leapfrog current light rail limitations and go straight for hoverstreetcars. At the very least, DC will be in the vanguard of high-speed bbq-sauce-lev poop chute transit.
Laying the tracks . . . . without a plan for wires.
Maybe they can roll them up and down O Street in Georgetown, pulled by horses.
Actually that's not a bad idea. Though the residents would probably sue the city because the sound of the hooves disturbed a senators breakfast
Considering the amount of manure a horse-driven trolly would generate, that would certainly give the Flaming Gaylord Poop Chute a run for its money. And its feces.
How about streetcars pulled by convicts as a form of punitive labor?
2012? We can't even enjoy our shiny new streetcar system before the world ends? Yep, great planning, DDOT!
So who will be the first suicide victim with these new streetcars ... and can we purchase a big old rusty front loader to scrape them off the tracks?
Just stick a cow catcher on the front.
DDOT already planned for such a contingency and purchased several cowcatchers in 1870. They've been sitting in a warehouse in Schleswig-Holstein since the Franco-Prussian War. They're expected to ship shortly.
Hellbound Train I'm on it's track
Too late now to turn my back
Conductor coming ticket in his hand
Come to claim my soul
Take me to his land
Hellbound Train I been so wrong
Too late now I'm moving on
Conductor standing watch in his hand
Got to get aboard take you to his land
I'm going down the road on the Hellbound Train
Take a long look lady 'cause you won't see me again
Take a last look lady, yes hard and long
'Cause I'm going down the road on the Hellbound Train
Hellbound Train driving slow
Move on down to the Hell below
Conductor please won't you lend a hand?
Got to get on board take me to your land
Yes I know I've been so wrong
Too late now I'm moving on
Hellbound Train I'm on it's track
Moving down I can't look back
I'm going down the road on the Hellbound Train
Take a long look lady 'cause you won't see me again
Take a last look lady, yes hard and long
'Cause I'm going down the road on the Hellbound Train
I'm going down the road on the Hellbound Train
Take a long look lady 'cause you won't see me again
Take a last look lady, yes hard and long
'Cause I'm going down the road on the Hellbound Train
Lost and flying down the road on the Hellbound Train
Lost and flying down the road on the Hellbound Train
Hand and hand with the devil
Kim Simmonds/Andy Silvester Chrysalis Music Ltd.
Four years in storage... plenty of time to Czech for defects.
The Cold War ended awhile ago...
Well, DC already wrote the company a Czech a long time ago...
This whole thing is playing out like a bad Czech-ov story...
That whole country has a Czech-ered past. When they're not squatting on our streetcars they're getting their Sudetenland annexed by you-know-who. I'll give you a hint. The only person worse than him is Jim Graham.
Now wait just a cotton pickin' minute! Leave Mr. Chekov out of this!
So by the time the last one is in service, it will be a "new" 8 year old car? WTF?
And are they being stored OUTSIDE in a rail yard once they get here? Cause that will just do wonders for their condition.
Well, of course they're storing the streetcars outside. The Czechs hired them out for the last couple of years as homeless shelters. I just hope DDOT has plans to get rid of that godawful Czech hobo smell. It's the sort of musky bouquet that a strawberry Capricorn air fresher just can't eradicate.
By George, I think you just solved the homeless crisis, Pirate!
From a former Michigander - thanks for buying American DC.
Thanks for killing street cars across the US Michigan.
+1. Thanks for nothing GM.
Hey, don't lay all the blame on GM. There's plenty to go around. What about Standard Oil and Firestone Tires?
Firestone killed things other than streetcars!
Michigander, to your state, thanks for running the entire US economy into the ground with decades of shoddy workmanship, poor planning, lack of innovation, and periodic pleas for bailouts.
At least these car execs have good taste in Gulfstreams.
Hey everyone, hold on a second, although they killed the streetcar, Michigan does deserve credit for creating other growth industries.
bssb: i gotta say, i don't get the marines reference. could you explain it to a dumb michigander? thanks!
Will these be contra-flow street cars?