Waterfront Streetcar
| Waterfront Streetcar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Car 272 eastbound on Main Street,
at the Occidental Park stop |
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| Overview | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Type | heritage streetcar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Status | Discontinued | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Locale | Seattle | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Termini | Broad Street at Alaskan Way Jackson Street at 5th Avenue |
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| Stations | 9 (4 standing, 5 demolished) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Services | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opened | May 29, 1982 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Closed | November 18, 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operator(s) | King County Metro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rolling stock | 5 Melbourne W2 trams | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Line length | 1.6 mi (2.57 km) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Electrification | Overhead wires, 600 V DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Waterfront Streetcar, officially the George Benson Waterfront Streetcar Line, was a 1.6-mile (2.6 km)-long streetcar line run by King County Metro in Seattle, Washington, so named because much of its route was along Alaskan Way on the Elliott Bay waterfront.
Service began on May 29, 1982, the first streetcar run in Seattle since April 13, 1941.
Service was officially suspended on November 18, 2005, when the maintenance barn and Broad Street station were demolished to make room for the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park. A large portion of the trackage and four additional stations were demolished in spring 2012 as part of the construction project drilling a deep bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
Streetcar service was replaced by King County Metro Route 99, which operated along Alaskan Way until February 2011 when construction forced Metro to reroute the line to 1st Avenue.
King County Metro announced in January 2016 that a private venture would launch a fundraising effort to retrofit two of the historic Waterfront Streetcar vehicles to run alongside modern Seattle Streetcar vehicles on the Center City Connector along 1st Avenue.
Service began on May 29, 1982, which was the first streetcar run in Seattle since April 13, 1941. The first three streetcars had been brought to Seattle from Melbourne, Australia, by George Benson (1919–2004), a former pharmacist, who was a Seattle City Councilman from 1973 to 1993. They had been Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board cars 482, 512 and 518, and they kept those numbers in Seattle. Two more Melbourne streetcars were acquired between 1990 and 1993. All were W2-class trams that had originally been built between 1925 and 1930. In 1990, the line was extended by one-quarter mile, along Main Street and 5th Avenue, to Jackson Street, to connect to the International District/Chinatown Station of the then-new Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. The extension opened for regular service on June 23, 1990. The line's fourth ex-Melbourne streetcar, No. 272, entered service earlier that month. A fifth car of the same type, No. 605, entered service on June 1, 1993.
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Wikipedia