I happened to be in Detroit this weekend, and just missed the opening of their new streetcar line. I didn't know this was in progress and it had nothing to do with my trip. Wikipedia tells me the line is a scant 5.3km long and has been in the works for a very long time - Detroit's had lots of challenges in recent history, of course.
Rolling stock consists of three-section cars from Brookville Equipment Corporation.The interesting part for me was that large parts of the line are unpowered, and that the powered sections have only a (gently drooping) contact wire -- no messenger. The cars have lithium ion batteries for the unpowered sections. I suppose the fact that speeds are low (it runs in mixed traffic, and takes 24 minutes to travel the 5.3km) means there's less of a requirement for a straight contact wire. Some of the stations had a short (maybe 5m-10m long) overhead electrified metal bar, so the car can recharge somewhat while waiting for passengers to get on or off.
I don't really have a complaint about the OCS here, but it makes for some visual clutter, especially in curves through intersections. The ability to have unpowered curves, transitions from inner to outer lanes, etc. was a stark contrast to some of our turns.
http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/lig...qline.html
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/colum...101320546/
A video of someone driving part of the line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnExSgb12Io
0:38 is a station with the "recharging bar"
1:00 is the start of a powered section
Rolling stock consists of three-section cars from Brookville Equipment Corporation.The interesting part for me was that large parts of the line are unpowered, and that the powered sections have only a (gently drooping) contact wire -- no messenger. The cars have lithium ion batteries for the unpowered sections. I suppose the fact that speeds are low (it runs in mixed traffic, and takes 24 minutes to travel the 5.3km) means there's less of a requirement for a straight contact wire. Some of the stations had a short (maybe 5m-10m long) overhead electrified metal bar, so the car can recharge somewhat while waiting for passengers to get on or off.
I don't really have a complaint about the OCS here, but it makes for some visual clutter, especially in curves through intersections. The ability to have unpowered curves, transitions from inner to outer lanes, etc. was a stark contrast to some of our turns.
http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/lig...qline.html
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/colum...101320546/
A video of someone driving part of the line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnExSgb12Io
0:38 is a station with the "recharging bar"
1:00 is the start of a powered section