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103-605: The Portland Vintage Trolley was a heritage streetcar service in Portland, Oregon , United States, that operated from 1991 to 2014. It operated on a portion of the MAX light rail system, and for a brief time also operated on the Portland Streetcar system, in downtown and nearby areas. Service was provided with replicas of a type of Brill streetcar, nicknamed the "Council Crest" cars, which last served Portland in 1950. The service

206-603: 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

309-515: 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

412-493: A conductor who identified historic points of interest along the way. After May 1994, rides were free, but donations were accepted. On December 22, 2013, the service operated for what was, at the time, scheduled to be the last time, as a result of a decision by TriMet on December 11 to sell the two remaining Gomaco -built Brill-replica streetcars (511 and 512) to a group planning a streetcar line in St. Louis , Missouri. Earlier in 2013,

515-489: A continuation of the earlier cars' number series, and in tribute to them. On the front of the replica Vintage Trolleys is painted a slogan that once adorned the ends of their antecedents, See Portland from Council Crest , a reference to the views of the city available from the route's upper terminus, atop Council Crest . The old trolleys had all-wood bodies, whereas the replicas have steel frames, concealed by wood, for better safety and durability. Because they would be sharing

618-475: A design of streetcar which the J. G. Brill Company supplied to Portland in 1904. Those ten cars were originally numbered 201–210, but were renumbered 501–510 in 1905 and kept those numbers for the remainder of their working lives, which ended in 1950 with the abandonment of Portland's last three city streetcar lines. Although Brill cars 501–510 were not restricted to the Council Crest route, they provided all of

721-507: A large theatre, as well as a box office , four parking garages, a 40,000-square-foot (3,700-square-meter) convention facility, several restaurants and bars, and a large public space, the Rose Quarter Commons . The Moda Center is a 785,000-square-foot (7.29-hectare), 19,980-seat multipurpose arena. The arena is divided into two major sections, an upper and lower bowl, separated by a level of luxury boxes . The arena opened in 1995, and

824-523: A short length of track and overhead wire were built along Northeast 11th Avenue near Lloyd Center mall. The first two vehicles, numbered 511 and 514, were delivered in August and November 1991, respectively, and service was inaugurated on November 29, 1991, operating daily for the first month. The third car, No. 513, arrived in January. Car 512, the last arrival and the only one of the four to be completed in 1992,

927-695: 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

1030-401: 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

1133-911: 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

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1236-616: Is located south of the arena, in an underpass where the tracks cross under Interstate 5. A separate station, the Interstate/Rose Quarter station, is located on the western side of the Rose Quarter campus and serves riders on the Yellow Line . Tri-Met also operates several bus lines which serve the arena as well as C-Tran's express routes 105 and 105X. The Rose Quarter offers over 2,600 parking spaces for Rose Quarter patrons on

1339-523: Is still actively used for Portland Winterhawks hockey games. The arena is also used for concerts, circuses, rodeos, ice shows, and conventions, and hosted the 2007 Davis Cup final between the United States and Russia. The Coliseum is known as the "Glass Palace". Two MAX Light Rail stations serve the Rose Quarter area. The Rose Quarter Transit Center is located on the Red , Blue and Green Lines, and

1442-622: 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

1545-811: Is the current home of the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association . The Moda Center previously hosted home games for the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League , and the Portland LumberJax of the National Lacrosse League . It is also used for concerts, circuses, rodeos, ice shows, and conventions. The Veterans Memorial Coliseum is a 12,888-seat multipurpose arena located on

1648-729: 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

1751-688: 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

1854-538: The City of Portland in 2001 for use on the new Portland Streetcar line, while the other two cars remained with TriMet for continued use on the original Vintage Trolley route. Car 514 was moved (towed) to the new line from TriMet's trolley carbarn next to Rose Quarter MAX station on January 7, 2001. It was used for the first test trips on the line's first completed section (in Northwest Portland) later that month, because

1957-545: The Delmar Loop Trolley . The TriMet board approved the sale on December 11, after which the final two days of Vintage Trolley service were December 15 and December 22, 2013. At that time, TriMet indicated that the two trolleys were expected to be moved to St. Louis in mid-2014, but in April 2014 TriMet posted a more precise date for the planned move, of August 2014, and noted on its newly reinstated Vintage Trolley web page that

2060-779: 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,

2163-692: 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

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2266-785: 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

2369-498: The transit mall in downtown Portland, from Union Station to Portland State University (PSU). Introduced in 1991, Vintage Trolley service operated on most weekends or at least most Sundays, from March through December, in all past years through 2010, and ran seven days a week from 1994 through 1999. However, starting in 2011 the service was heavily reduced, operating on just seven dates per year, and it remained at that reduced level for its final four seasons. Rides were narrated by

2472-619: The "Banfield Light Rail" project, renamed Metropolitan Area Express , or MAX , shortly before its 1986 opening. Another impetus for the plans was a concern by the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission that introducing a modern light rail system would have a detrimental impact on the character of two downtown historic districts though which the line would pass, the Skidmore/Old Town and Yamhill Historic Districts. Operating vintage streetcars during off-peak hours

2575-1202: 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

2678-692: 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

2781-420: 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

2884-475: 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

2987-457: 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

3090-709: The City owns the remainder of the Rose Quarter premises. VSE are responsible for managing all Rose Quarter properties. Management and operation of the Rose Quarter is contracted out to AEG. Who is under contract to run the Garden until August 2008. The Rose Quarter was created in 1993, when significant parts of the parking lot of the Memorial Coliseum were transferred to the Oregon Arena Corporation , an operating company owned by Paul Allen , to facilitate construction of

3193-744: 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

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3296-568: 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

3399-505: The MAX line, because they were using separate lanes not shared with other traffic, but on the new streetcar line they would be mixing with general traffic. These modifications were made to both cars before they entered service, but car 513 was not moved to the new line until September 2001. The Portland Streetcar line opened on July 20, 2001, and Vintage Trolley service on it began on July 28. On this route, one Vintage Trolley car (of two available)

3502-461: The MAX stations along the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) route. A round trip took approximately 30 minutes, and the headway varied between 30 minutes and 45 minutes. Effective in 2011, the service was heavily reduced, as a result of budgetary constraints caused by the recession's impact on TriMet's finances, from about 30–35 dates per year in recent years to just seven dates. Although the 2011 schedule included Vintage Trolley service on every Sunday during

3605-534: 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,

3708-755: 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

3811-463: 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

3914-423: The Rose Garden Arena, later renamed the Moda Center . As part of the agreement, the Oregon Arena Corporation would be given the right to jointly manage both the new arena and the existing Coliseum, as well as other facilities and amenities on the grounds. The new arena would soon be christened the "Rose Garden", and the grounds of the Coliseum would be reborn as the Rose Quarter . The City of Portland hoped that

4017-400: The Rose Garden and the underlying land, together with the rights to manage other Rose Garden properties; and formed a new corporation, Portland Arena Management LLC ("PAM") to manage the property acquired in the bankruptcy proceedings. PAM soon hired Global Spectrum to operate the arena and the remainder of the Rose Quarter. In 2007, Allen repurchased the arena from the creditors, along with

4120-467: The Rose Quarter campus. Built in 1960, it was the original home of the Portland Trail Blazers. Three NBA Finals have been played within its walls, and twice the Larry O'Brien Trophy has been secured on its hardwood, once by the Trail Blazers in 1977, and once by the opposing Detroit Pistons in 1990. It remained the Blazers home court until the team moved into the larger and more modern Rose Garden Arena (since renamed to Moda Center) in 1995. The arena

4223-413: 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;

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4326-562: 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

4429-410: 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

4532-508: 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

4635-406: The arena is also available. The Rose Quarter is jointly owned by the Vulcan Sports and Entertainment (VSE) and the City of Portland . (VSE) is a subsidiary of Vulcan Inc. , a holding company owned by Paul Allen which manages Allen's various sports-related properties. Tod Leiweke is the current president of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment. VSE owns the Moda Center and the underlying land;

4738-412: The building of the arena would lead to other renovation or development in the Rose Quarter district, but as of 2007 this has yet to materialize. Several restaurants and bars operate on the Rose Quarter property. Oregon Arena Corporation managed the entire Rose Quarter, including those portions still owned by the city, until it was dissolved in a 2004 bankruptcy . The arena creditors took possession of

4841-460: 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

4944-439: 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

5047-458: 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

5150-402: 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,

5253-409: 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

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5356-478: 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. Rose Quarter The Rose Quarter contains two multipurpose arenas and

5459-416: 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

5562-430: 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

5665-402: The end of Vintage Trolley operation on the city-owned Portland Streetcar line, in 2005. All Vintage Trolley service on the TriMet-owned MAX system since 2001 had used cars 511 and 512. On December 6, 2013, TriMet announced that it had tentatively decided to sell the two remaining cars (511 and 512) to a group in St. Louis , Missouri, which was planning to build a heritage streetcar line there,

5768-446: 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

5871-429: 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

5974-439: 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

6077-438: The first modern Škoda car had not yet been delivered. It was then decided that the two replica-vintage streetcars should receive a few modifications before entering service, primarily the addition of exterior mirrors and turn signals, which had been omitted when they were built in 1991 because the 1903 cars on which they were based had lacked them. These features had been viewed as unnecessary when these cars were operating only on

6180-409: The four replica "Council Crest" streetcars, Nos. 513 and 514, would be transferred to the Willamette Shore Trolley line, to replace a historic streetcar that had been serving that line since 1996 but had broken down in 2010 and not been repaired. Car 514 was moved to the Willamette Shore Trolley line in March 2013, and car 513 was moved on September 8, 2014. Those two cars had not run in service since

6283-465: The last arrival, No. 512, was delivered on April 23, 1992. The four cars built in 1991–92 by Gomaco have the same red-and-cream colors as the original 1904 cars and include most of the latter's features, such as padded rattan seats with reversible backrests, carved oak interiors, brass handrails, pull-down window shades and doors which can only be manually opened and closed, by the motorman (operator) or conductor. They were given fleet numbers 511–514 as

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6386-444: 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

6489-402: 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

6592-437: The latter was the final day of service. Portland Vintage Trolley service began operation on November 29, 1991, on a 2.3-mile (3.7 km) section of TriMet's first MAX line, between Lloyd Center and Galleria/SW 10th Avenue station in the West End of downtown, including crossing the Willamette River on the Steel Bridge . The idea of operating vintage streetcars in Downtown Portland had been proposed at least as early as

6695-419: The mid-1970s, as a way to lure back to the city center shoppers who increasingly preferred suburban shopping malls. One of its most enthusiastic and influential proponents was Portland businessman Bill Naito (who later became the first president of Vintage Trolley, Inc.). However, the idea only finally began to garner growing support following the 1978 approval to construct a light rail system in Portland,

6798-528: The months of January and February each year (except the first year). However, midday service (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) on weekdays was usually provided during the month of December to entice more shoppers to downtown and the Lloyd Center during the holiday shopping season. From mid-1994 through 1999, Portland Vintage Trolley service operated seven days a week, March through December. Hours of operation were 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends and holidays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays to Fridays. In 2000, Vintage Trolley service

6901-475: 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

7004-421: 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

7107-461: The other two Gomaco cars were transferred from Portland Vintage Trolley service to the Willamette Shore Trolley (WST) fleet, although their entry into service there was delayed to 2014 (and one of the two cars was not moved to the WST line until 2014). However, after the transfer of streetcars 511 and 512 to St. Louis was delayed from spring to September 2014, TriMet scheduled two additional dates of Vintage Trolley service: May 25 and July 6, 2014, and

7210-403: The peak holiday shopping season, in the last weeks of the year, otherwise the only scheduled operating dates of the entire year were the three Sundays nearest to Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day — specifically May 29, July 3 and September 4, 2011. The route, frequency and hours of operation (on days of operation) remained unchanged. The schedule of operating dates followed

7313-415: 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

7416-585: The premises. The spaces are distributed among four parking garages and two uncovered parking lots. In addition, arena management operates a pair of off-site parking lots with 1,700 additional spaces, located several blocks from the arena. Both off-site facilities are located on the MAX Light Rail line, which provides service to the Rose Quarter. Parking prices vary depending on the event, typically between US$ 8 and US$ 15 per vehicle. The parking garages are operated by City Center Parking. On-street parking near

7519-457: The same pattern in subsequent years, and the scheduled dates of operation in 2013 were May 26, July 7, September 1, and four consecutive Sundays from December 1 through December 22. Even after TriMet discontinued Fareless Square (latterly known as the Free Rail Zone), in downtown, rides on Vintage Trolley remained free, but donations were welcomed. In early 2013, it was announced that two of

7622-456: The same tracks as MAX, they also were equipped with a more modern style of current collector to draw power from the overhead wires , a cross between a pantograph (the type of collector used by MAX) and a bow collector , instead of the trolley poles which the city's original trolley cars used. Streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in the United States) is

7725-514: The service in 2000. Until the end of May 1994, the fare to ride the Vintage Trolley was $ 1.00, valid for a round trip. However, fares were eliminated effective June 1994; all rides were then free, and continued to be free for the remainder of Vintage Trolley's existence (but donations were accepted). This was the case even though the route extended outside what were then the boundaries of TriMet's Fareless Square free-ride area. (Fareless Square

7828-533: The service on that line, and so came to be known by Portlanders as the "Council Crest cars". Two of the original Council Crest streetcars, 503 and 506, are preserved by the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society at its museum in Brooks , and Gomaco was able to use those cars as patterns for the replicas. The first of the faux-vintage trolley cars, No. 511, arrived on August 16, 1991, while

7931-551: The service was changed to a completely different route, but which is also a section of the MAX system. Commencing on September 13, 2009, Vintage Trolley service operated along the recently rebuilt Portland Transit Mall , on 5th and 6th Avenues in downtown, between Union Station and Portland State University . The service now used only one car and ran from 10:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. on its days of operation, which initially continued to include most Sundays from March through December. Passengers were permitted to board or alight at any of

8034-630: The service would operate on two dates in 2014, May 25 and July 6, with the latter being the (revised) final day of service. The service ran for the last time on July 6, 2014, as planned, and cars 511 and 512 left Portland for St. Louis on September 9, 2014. The four streetcars/trolleys—these two terms are synonyms in most parts of the United States—were built by the Gomaco Trolley Company , of Ida Grove, Iowa , in 1991 and early 1992. They were designed to replicate, as closely as practicable,

8137-529: 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

8240-545: 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

8343-416: 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

8446-460: 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

8549-427: 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 ,

8652-804: 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

8755-409: 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

8858-524: 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,

8961-401: 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

9064-665: 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

9167-536: Was also discontinued (modified), in mid-2009. Until mid-2009, the Portland Vintage Trolley continued to serve the route it had followed since opening 18 years earlier, from the Lloyd District to Galleria/SW 10th Avenue station in downtown Portland, running on Sundays from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., half-hourly, using two cars, but the final day of service along that route was August 23, 2009. In September 2009,

9270-486: 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

9373-561: Was delivered on April 23, 1992, and entered service on June 21 of that year. The service was wheelchair -accessible, but with facilities for disabled riders limited to two stops along the route: a section of high-level boarding platform at the Lloyd Center terminus and, in downtown, a wheelchair lift at the Yamhill District MAX station . From 1992 through May 1994, service was provided on weekends and holidays only, and suspended for

9476-454: Was expanded in 2001 and then encompassed the entire Vintage Trolley route. It was renamed the "Free Rail Zone" in 2010, but was discontinued in 2012.) From mid-2001 through 2005, Portland Vintage Trolley also served a second route, operating on the Portland Streetcar line from Northwest Portland to Portland State University (PSU) on Saturdays and Sundays, year-round. Two of the four streetcars (Nos. 513 and 514) were transferred from TriMet to

9579-482: 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

9682-466: Was managed by Vintage Trolley Inc., a non-profit corporation, and the cars were owned and operated by TriMet , Portland's transit agency. For 18 of its 23 years, the service followed a 2.3-mile (3.7 km) section of what is now the MAX Blue Line , between Lloyd Center and the west end of downtown. In September 2009, the route was changed to a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) section of the MAX system, along

9785-655: Was never needed. Vintage Trolley service on Portland Streetcar was temporarily suspended around the end of November 2005, in part because of maintenance problems with the two cars, and in part because the opening of the Portland Streetcar's extension from PSU to RiverPlace in March 2005 caused operations difficulties with the Vintage Trolley cars. This suspension eventually became permanent, and after November 2005 Portland Vintage Trolley operated only on its original route, between Downtown Portland and Lloyd Center, until that route

9888-533: Was reduced to Sundays only, and the hours reduced slightly, to noon to 6. This reduction came about in part because TriMet had opened a second light rail line in September 1998, with a resultant doubling of the frequency of service along the section of the MAX line used by the faux-vintage streetcars. An additional reason was that a trust fund originally set up to pay for the operation had become mostly depleted by this time; TriMet took over most financial responsibility for

9991-598: 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

10094-464: Was seen as a way of alleviating those impacts. Plans to operate a vintage trolley service on a portion of the MAX line were approved by TriMet in 1987. Some of the costs would be paid by TriMet, some by the federal government, and some by Vintage Trolley, Inc. An order for three replica trolleys was placed (a fourth car was added later), a carbarn was built in the Coliseum (now Rose Quarter ) area, and

10197-616: 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

10300-616: 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

10403-411: 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

10506-409: Was used at any given time, providing hourly service and replacing a regularly scheduled modern Škoda streetcar. Originally, it was predicted that the two Vintage Trolleys would be needed as spares on the Portland Streetcar line, in case more than one modern car were unavailable for the scheduled service, but the modern cars proved to be sufficiently reliable that the use of vintage trolley cars as spares

10609-851: 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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