Battery Powered Streetcars (Trams) in Seattle, USA - First Hill Line 2021 (4K)

[@xxxbear]

I saw a trolley bus in the end of your video. I'd like to see more Seattle's trolleybuses .

[@timosha21]

Stay tuned ;)

[@Waltervazquez599]

Brilliant video my friend 🖐😎

[@iliaskara090ytgreece]

Amazing with electrical tram 😀😀😀😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

[@scottyerkes1867]

Interesting concept. Philly experimented with a bus using power from a battery.

[@TransitAndTeslas]

I love the Seattle neighborhood of Masks Required. Heard it’s a nice place.

[@metrofilmer8894]

Yep. Not to mention that masks are becoming more and more rare(barring the delta variant) as roughly 80% of the city is vaccinated. First hill is a pretty nice place overall

[@MrSquareart]

Great video!!!!!!!!

[@rodgerp.639]

I wonder why there aren't doors at each end of the streetcar and why there is a single rather than double door at the end. The door situation would seem to impede rapid entering and exiting. I'm surprised that the paint scheme is so dull. That said, I enjoyed this and your other videos.

[@Fan652w]

Extremely interesting video! How frequent is the tram service, and what are the fares? On a different point, 'in-motion charging' trams and trolleybuses are becoming quite common in Europe.

[@shanewalters2565]

Most streetcars in most US states and cities are free now, there are some you have to pay for, but almost all are free

[@joeygardner88]

It runs every 12 minutes during peak hours, 15 during the day off-peak, and 18-25 in the early morning and evening. The fare is $2.25.

[@BeavKsam]

@@shanewalters2565 ???

[@eugeneking1462]

Is that high pitch sound created by inverters?

[@luisstransport]

Great video

[@bannatrinadarao3789]

The time is getting closer to run normal railways by electric

[@cooperredmond2949]

Why use battery power when there is already overhead lines?

[@GlintOrothorn]

The first Hill line only uses batteries on its inbound trips because there is no space for an overhead wire due to the wires in place for the trolley bus Network. Outbound trips use the overhead wire for a good majority of the trip but some operators managed to make more than one full round trip off wire which is not necessarily recommended with the current technology that we have today limiting operations to roughly 5 miles off wire.

[@BeavKsam]

👍👍

[@SamNYC2000]

How does the battery-powered operation work?

[@AcXr50]

One way up, we charge with the wire. The way back down we go in wireless mode (battery) you just raise and lower your pole (pantograph) in certain areas.

[@trainstramstrolleystravel7692]

How much of this line is under wire?

[@GlintOrothorn]

The entirety of the inbound trips Capitol Hill Pioneer Square are battery operated due to there being no space for an overhead wire. The entirety of the trip from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill is under wire because there was a sufficient space to put up an overhead wire. So half a round trip is under wire well the other half is under battery. Also most operators will go off wire One stop prior to reaching the end of the line where they can still be on the wire in the terminating station at Capital Hill which begs to differ is that an operational thing to speed up the turnaround or is that driver discretion based off of Total charge that the streetcar unit has, I don't know the answer to that I'm just curious like a lot of people who see that operational pattern would be.

[@MarwiX_CZ]

Czech tram!

[@44jess453]

Nooo I missed premiere

[@richj2709]

It takes multiple hours on fossil fuel power generation systems to charge the batteries and the batteries are very expensive to build and not recycled. Maybe one day this will be a viable option!

[@GlintOrothorn]

First of all these street cars are fully charged via overhead wires on their outbound trips they only operate on battery on the inbound trips due to the lack of available space for an overhead wire specifically for the streetcar. Most of the wires you see in the video are for the trolley bus Network that use Broadway as a alternative to having to always go downtown in order to reach the bus base. Also most of Seattle's electricity if not just about 100% of it comes from renewables sources such as wind or hydro power. Now as to whether the batteries are easily recyclable I think these ones are designed to have an extremely long lifespan in comparison to other batteries designed and built around the time as these were initially built. I feel like given how long these batteries are expected to last and the fact that the streetcar can run under overhead power rather than the batteries while both charging the batteries and while operating like normal these batteries have a longer lifespan because they're not consistently being used. The fact that these street cars currently can make a full round trip off wire but is not safe to do so due to the fact that the batteries can't necessarily sufficiently support one and a half round trips means that these batteries do get used more often than they could be limited to. Either way I believe that this is a great technology that Seattle is implementing and will show other cities that you don't always have to put up the catenary wires because one they may be ugly to could be a potential danger if you are going through a heavily residential area where a lot of kids or teens play outside and might want to try to mess around with the wire or you're needing to have some way of supplying electricity to your street cars but there's not sufficient places to hang the wire due to you needing to put up too many support posts and support wires for catenary wire system or you have too many historic buildings or too many buildings in which property managers building managers and whatnot don't want the wires hanging from the building. So being able to operate partially on battery and switch over to an overhead wire where a wire can be used is a great thing and means the cost of building a streetcar line extension could be a little cheaper if you're able to go with a battery powered option for your street card Network when it's being built initially. I feel like Seattle is doing the right thing with all of what it does for public transit especially when it comes to how it's electricity is supplied. As mentioned in the description of this video sound transits cancel Link light rail station which led to the construction of this was unfortunate but was done for a safety reasons and speaking of sound transit's Link light rail nearly 100% of the electricity used by Link light rail is 100% renewable energy and unlike the street cars showing in this video they are consistently powered by an overhead wire.

[@AstorCa]

Why can't a tram be Beautiful in the US? 🙁

[@janpavelek2097]

Věry interesant, they Are streetcar Škoda Inekon feom thé Czech republic, But allwhere in thé Czech Are power ONLY with trolley lines. Je Is firat city to ušetříte IT with baterry power.

[@BirbarianHomeGuard]

A useless line. Faster to walk during rush hour due to shared right of way. Constantly bothered by homeless people.

[@bradleym3240]

I hate these streetcars so much. Why is every city in America that has a new streetcar system using these exact same streetcars? They are the same in Washington, Oklahoma, here, and pretty much every other city. They make such an unbearable high-pitched noise as they pass. I also wonder why there isn't a small door on both sides of the car. These are just so tiny and useless used more as a way to promote fake advancements in a city. I hate how they look and how they only have one pantograph. These are hideous. No one actually uses these. Their bell also sounds disgusting. Why is it playing a bell sound through a tiny speaker? Why are they also so slow? They are slower than a car. The point of a tram is to get places without needing to wait in trafic.

[@apluto12-z3e]

People like trams over buses, and the the fact that's its on rails gives it a sense of permanence, which helps development, which raises property taxes. So cities love it.

[@CaseysTrains]

Oklahoma, Detroit and Dallas has Brookville Liberty Streetcars made in PA, Kansas City and Cincinatti uses CAF Urbos Streetcars made in New York. Only Washington D.C., Seattle, and Portland share these Czech-Built Streetcars from Skoda/Inekon so no they are not all the same. And in the case of KC, the street car actually goes somewhere with some decent ridership and is getting one hell of extension that's tripling it's size.

[@lemonade4181]

Ok boomer from the suburbs.

[@pulda015]

No, the point of trams in the USA at least..... Is for the gentrifiers to display their dominance. Construction displace small businesses who can't afford to maintain themselves during months/years of construction so that "investors" can then swoop in like vultures and buy up everything on the cheap so that they can then raise property values by controlling inventory and then displace people further.

[@Brian_rock_railfan]

Awesome video