Tucson — Third Streetcar Arrives

January 2014

Tucson's third modern streetcar arrived on the morning of January 7, 2014 from United Streetcar LLC of Clackamas, Oregon.

No. 104 delivered (out of fleet number sequence) by highway stopped overnight at Casa Grande along Interstate 10 and arrived on Tucson's Eighth Street, the pull-in, pull-out carhouse access track, about 4 a.m. Unloading in the predawn darkness took about one hour and then No. 104 was moved into the Sun Link Storage and Maintenance facility for about two weeks of static testing and pre-operational maintenance.

No. 103 remains at the factory in Oregon and is expected to be delivered by February 1. No. 101 arrived in late August and No. 102 followed in mid-October. Andrew Quigley of the streetcar project maintenance team says having three streetcars will allow power load testing since a maximum of three cars will be used at any one time on one side or the other of the double track line. There will be eight cars in the fleet and rush hour service is expected to operate at 10-minute headways on the 3.9-mile, $197 million car line.

Arrival of the fourth car will allow power load testing for the entire system for off-peak headways.

No. 104 was rolled off the highway trailer by gravity onto the single track carhouse access track using a removable rail famp from the trailer down to the street track.