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92-505: The North South Line ( NS Line ) is a streetcar service of the Portland Streetcar system in Portland, Oregon , United States. Operated by Portland Streetcar, Inc. and TriMet , it travels approximately 4.1 miles (6.6 km) per direction from Northwest 23rd & Marshall to Southwest Lowell & Bond and serves 39 stations. The line connects Portland's Northwest District , Pearl District , downtown , Portland State University (PSU), and South Waterfront . It runs every day of

184-603: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on

276-415: A 0.6-mile (0.97 km) extension south from PSU to RiverPlace. It cost $ 16 million and opened on March 11, 2005. It included a short length of two-way, single-track operation, about 100 yards (91 m) in length along Southwest Montgomery and 4th, equipped with signals for the streetcars to ensure that only one direction was in use at any given time. This segment also includes the steepest grade on

368-515: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in

460-625: A citizen-led advisory committee was established in 1990 that would convince the city to the conduct a feasibility study . Early plans envisioned three lines, with the first running up from John's Landing near the South Waterfront through downtown Portland to Northwest 23rd Avenue in the Northwest District . This proposed line, initially referred to as "Central City Trolley", was predicted to run replicas of cars that once served Council Crest . Project supporters and planners later renamed it

552-510: A heritage streetcar that continues to operate between Portland and Lake Oswego . On August 17, 2007, an extension of the line south of Gibbs Street to Southwest Lowell and Bond opened to better serve the South Waterfront district. This 0.46-mile (0.7 km) extension is a 10-block loop, from Southwest Moody and Gibbs proceeding south on Moody Avenue, east on Lowell Street and north on Bond Avenue to OHSU Plaza at Gibbs. This final extension of

644-695: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It

736-911: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to

828-622: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace

920-585: Is the busiest streetcar route, averaging 8,751 riders on weekdays in September 2018, which is slightly higher than the 8,307 recorded for the same month in 2017. The Portland Streetcar achieved a new system-wide record for average weekday ridership in April 2018, with the NS Line carrying 9,226 passengers. The NS Line is approximately 4.1 miles (6.6 km) long. Its northern terminus is Northwest 23rd & Marshall station in

1012-729: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow

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1104-688: The Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in

1196-544: The Federal Transit Administration for construction, reallocated from TriMet to the city in exchange for a system giving TriMet buses transit signal priority . Procurement and installation of tracks and wiring and the construction of a maintenance barn beneath the Fremont Bridge were estimated at $ 28.2 million and $ 4 million, respectively. In 1999, Czech manufacturer Škoda was selected to provide

1288-879: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,

1380-498: The Portland City Council adopted a route between Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center on Northwest 23rd Avenue and PSU via 10th and 11th avenues, and the following year, called for bids to design, build, and operate the service. The nonprofit Portland Streetcar, Inc., which consisted of leaders from the city's businesses and public institutions, was the only firm to respond to the bid request. The city council authorized

1472-692: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across

1564-785: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of

1656-473: The "Central City Streetcar", after opting instead to employ modern, low-floor trams in the hopes that it would be seen as a transit system rather than a tourist attraction . Several alternative routes were considered in downtown, including the Portland Transit Mall on 5th and 6th avenues, as well as Park and 9th avenues. Both routes were rejected by nearby neighborhood associations. In January 1994,

1748-1202: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included

1840-692: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called

1932-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by

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2024-475: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent

2116-457: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on

2208-744: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for

2300-568: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until

2392-534: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,

2484-755: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73

2576-508: The Northwest District, which is situated on a turning loop near the intersection of Northwest 23rd Avenue and Northwest Marshall Street. Between Northwest 23rd and 10th avenues, the streetcar alignment follows an east–west direction and is split between Northwest Northrup and Lovejoy streets, where cars travel northbound and southbound, respectively. On Northwest 15th and 16th avenues, the line runs beneath Interstate 405 (I-405), passing

2668-869: The OHSU Robertson Life Sciences Building, it crosses the MAX Orange Line tracks, which are joined by the Loop Service alignment for the Tilikum Crossing . The NS Line continues southward, traveling under the Ross Island Bridge as its northbound tracks split eastward onto Southwest Bond Avenue between the lower terminal of the Portland Aerial Tram and the OHSU Center for Health & Healing . The tracks proceed southward and join at

2760-457: The PSU campus, the southbound alignment turns east onto Southwest Market Street and south onto Southwest 5th Avenue, while the northbound segment turns east onto Southwest Mill Street and travels diagonally through PSU's Urban Plaza. The NS Line includes a short section of bidirectional single-track , about 100 feet (30 m) long, on Southwest Montgomery Street just east of Southwest 5th Avenue before

2852-686: The Portland Streetcar line, because it was the only line in the system. However, with the opening of the system's second line on September 22, 2012, the original line was designated the North South Line (abbreviated as NS Line) to distinguish it from the newly built Central Loop line (CL Line), later renamed A and B Loop . The NS Line runs for approximately 18 hours per day on weekdays, 16 hours on Saturdays, and 15 hours on Sundays. During weekdays, NS Line trains begin service at 5:45 am heading southbound from Northwest 23rd & Marshall station;

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2944-720: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but

3036-554: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;

3128-453: The Southwest Lowell Street turning loop, which is occupied by the line's southern terminus, Southwest Lowell & Bond station. The NS Line serves 39 stations, of which 24 are shared with the Loop Service. Each platform is equipped with a ticket vending machine , real-time display system, and line information signs. All stations are accessible to users with limited mobility . Connections to MAX Light Rail are available at five stops across

3220-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using

3312-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at

3404-487: The United States and Portland's first new streetcar service in fifty years. Opening day celebrations were held at various points along the line, and free rides were offered for three days. Four streetcars initially operated on weekdays, while three streetcars and one vintage trolley ran on weekends. The Portland Streetcar had recorded 6,000 to 8,000 daily riders by September 2001, exceeding 1996 projections of between 2,700 and 4,700 riders per day. In 2004, construction began on

3496-537: The Willamette Shore Trolley in 2013. Streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in

3588-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since

3680-460: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this

3772-439: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which

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3864-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being

3956-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,

4048-445: The city for use on the Portland Streetcar line. The service operated on Saturdays and Sundays, using one car at a time, from approximately 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, on regularly scheduled trips that otherwise would be operated by a modern Škoda car. They were non- wheelchair accessible. Vintage Trolley service on the Portland Streetcar was temporarily suspended near the end of November 2005, in part due to maintenance problems with

4140-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In

4232-568: The classic tramway built in the early 20th century with the tram system operating in mixed traffic, and the later type which is most often associated with the tram system having its own right of way. Tram systems that have their own right of way are often called light rail but this does not always hold true. Though these two systems differ in their operation, their equipment is much the same. Portland Development Commission It has controversially sought to establish measurable standards for workplace diversity among its contractors. In May 2017,

4324-399: The closures permanent, having reduced travel time through downtown by two minutes. Some decommissioned platforms were later converted into Biketown stations. From 2001 to 2005, Portland Vintage Trolley service operated on the NS Line on most weekends. Of four replica 1904 Brill streetcars owned by TriMet and in use on the MAX Light Rail system between 1991 and 2014, two were transferred to

4416-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for

4508-430: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy

4600-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams

4692-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled

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4784-435: The entrance to the Portland Aerial Tram, linking the lower campus of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) to its campus atop Marquam Hill . These stations received a connection to the Lair Hill neighborhood that was otherwise cut off by Interstate 5 (I-5) with the opening of the Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge on July 14, 2012. Until 2012, the north–south streetcar line had no route name, being referred to only as

4876-439: The fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905

4968-403: The first northbound train departs Southwest Lowell & Bond station at around 6:27 am. Service begins later on weekends at approximately 7:24 am. End-to-end travel takes approximately 35 minutes. Headways run from as short as fifteen minutes between 10:00 am and 7:00 pm on weekdays and Saturdays to a maximum of 20 minutes for all other times. The final southbound train to run

5060-423: The full length of the line on weekdays departs from the northern end at 10:30 pm while the final northbound train departs the southern end at 11:15 pm. The last five trains on weekdays and Saturdays travel southbound from Northwest 23rd & Marshall and terminate at Northwest 18th & Lovejoy, with the last train arriving at 11:53 pm. On Sundays, service ceases earlier at 11:07 pm. The NS Line

5152-408: The inaugural line of the Portland Streetcar system and the first second-generation streetcar service in the United States with its use of modern vehicles. The line has since been extended to RiverPlace and the South Waterfront. Having previously had no distinct route name, it was designated the North South Line in September 2012, when the system opened its second service, the Central Loop Line, which

5244-444: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in

5336-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and

5428-530: The line and a connection to the Portland Aerial Tram, which links the South Waterfront and Marquam Hill campuses of OHSU, can be made at the Southwest Moody & Gibbs and OHSU Plaza stations. In February 2016, four stations—Northwest 10th & Everett, Northwest 11th & Everett, Southwest 10th & Stark, and Southwest 1st & Harrison—were temporarily closed as part of a trial run to speed up travel times, particularly at stops that were prone to vehicular collisions. The following month, Portland Streetcar made

5520-403: The line cost $ 14.45 million. The extensions collectively increased the one-way length of the line to 4.06 miles (6.53 km). On November 3, 2011, the streetcar line began using new double-track on a realigned section of Moody Avenue, which was built as part of the $ 66 million Moody multimodal project. Two stops—OHSU Plaza and Southwest Moody & Gibbs—were built directly adjacent to

5612-402: The line turns south onto Southwest 4th Avenue. The section along the latter street was also single-track originally, until being doubled in 2014. The line travels for one block along 4th before turning onto Southwest Harrison Street. The line enters RiverPlace via Southwest River Parkway where it turns south onto Southwest Moody Avenue, running beneath the I-5 and I-405 interchange . After passing

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5704-509: The line's first five streetcars, valued at $ 12 million. The streetcar order was expanded to seven in 2001 to provide enough cars for a planned extension of the line from PSU to RiverPlace . Construction of the Central City Streetcar began on April 5, 1999, marked by a groundbreaking ceremony. Crews from Stacy and Witbeck started utilities relocation work along Northwest Lovejoy Street that same day; relocation work on 10th and 11th avenues followed in June. Track-laying occurred one week after

5796-475: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be

5888-421: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system

5980-415: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by

6072-404: The start of roadway demolition and progressed southward through downtown. Workers reached the PSU campus in June 2000 by the time university officials resolved the alignment of the tracks, placing the northbound segment diagonally though the newly built Urban Plaza and the southbound segment through the northern end of the campus. The 7,800-square-foot (720 m) maintenance barn that would house

6164-400: The streetcar alignment, providing $ 9.6 million. The Portland Development Commission redistributed $ 7.5 million in tax increment funds from the South Park Blocks urban renewal area that had been earmarked for TriMet 's cancelled South/North Corridor project; this was used to extend the streetcar route through the PSU campus to Southwest 5th Avenue. Only $ 5 million came from

6256-407: The streetcar project in July 1997. The cost of the project amounted to $ 56.9 million (equivalent to $ 93.5 million in 2023 dollars), with the city covering the largest share. City parking bonds provided most of the city's contribution at $ 28.6 million. In September 1998, the city council created a local improvement district to collect funding from properties situated within two blocks of

6348-462: The streetcars was 90 percent complete by August. Line testing commenced in January 2001 using one of two replica-vintage trolleys that would be transferred from TriMet's Portland Vintage Trolley for planned weekend use on the streetcar line. The project's completion, initially targeted for February, was pushed back to May due to delays in pole and power line installation. The delivery of the first streetcar, which had been expected in late February,

6440-419: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in

6532-496: The system's maintenance barn. It turns south on Northwest 10th and 11th avenues in the Pearl District and is joined by cars serving the Loop Service. On this segment, trains travel northbound on 10th Avenue and southbound on 11th Avenue, passing The Armory and Powell's City of Books . The line enters Southwest Portland and upon traversing West Burnside Street . It crosses the Blue Line and Red Line tracks of MAX Light Rail on Southwest Morrison and Yamhill streets. Just north of

6624-554: The system, 8.75% in the block of Southwest Harrison Street between 1st and 2nd avenues. Another extension of 0.6 miles (0.97 km) south to the lower terminus of the Portland Aerial Tram on Southwest Gibbs Street in the South Waterfront opened on a temporary ballasted track on October 20, 2006. It was initially a bidirectional single track, operating on a right-of-way acquired from the Willamette Shore Trolley ,

6716-545: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of

6808-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than

6900-460: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off

6992-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,

7084-581: The two cars, and because the opening of the extension from PSU to RiverPlace in March 2005 caused operations difficulties with the faux-vintage trolley cars. The Vintage Trolley service, which resumed in May 2005 after a five-month suspension for repair work on the two cars, continued to end at PSU, not serving the section to RiverPlace. The late-2005 suspension eventually became permanent; the two Vintage Trolley cars were transferred back to TriMet, which transferred them over to

7176-542: The week between 15 and 18 hours per day and operates on headways of 15 to 20 minutes. The restoration of streetcar service, which last operated in Portland in 1950, began with the efforts of a citizen advisory committee in 1990. After nearly a decade of planning, construction of the Central City Streetcar project began in 1999. With the opening of its first 2.4-mile (3.9 km) segment on July 20, 2001, it became

7268-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of

7360-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating

7452-524: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,

7544-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing

7636-665: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated

7728-484: Was also delayed by the acquisition of a line-of-credit deal, established as a form of insurance in the event the cars did not work out. The first car finally arrived in April. The first 2.4 miles (3.9 km) of the Central City Streetcar, later renamed to "Portland Streetcar", opened on July 20, 2001, from Northwest 23rd Avenue to PSU. The line was notably the first "second-generation streetcar" system in

7820-486: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as

7912-482: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia

8004-438: Was later re-branded as the A and B Loop . Planning for the restoration of streetcar services in downtown Portland , which had ceased operating in 1950, was considered as early as the 1970s, when businessman and philanthropist Bill Naito led an effort to convince downtown property owners to help build a vintage trolley line. In response to recommendations to develop a streetcar network by Portland's 1988 Central City Plan,

8096-598: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to

8188-616: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including

8280-616: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to

8372-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line

8464-851: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in

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