http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/officials-preliminary-investigation-shows-operator/nm4PP/
I’m thinking the $1.5 million operating budget loss just went up. Having a supervisor ride along to remind the driver how to drive will push the costs up.
It’s good to know if I ride this thing that there are at least three cameras filming everything. You can never have too much video. At least this will discourage robberies!
The driver was truly a hero!
Very cool! I like the slight bump felt by the streetcar and the shove and smash felt by the driver parked in front of the streetcar. Great choice of places to stop 🙂
It may not be obvious unless you’re familiar with the route, but the SUV is stopped for a red light. The cross street is a fairly major street, and the streetcar street is a relatively minor street. Because the street also has a bike lane, there was nowhere else to be. I have another video I didn’t post that might have even been near that location.
And there is the question of the streetcar driver. When you watch closely, it seems he doesn’t do anything at all except watch. Licensed? I wonder.
Several recent passenger rail accidents have involved the driver having a sudden shift change and the driver having trouble staying awake. His behavior is odd, to say the least.
The streetcar weighs about 45,000 pounds empty, which is probably 15 to 20 cars in mass. The SUV was probably totaled but all things considered did its job of protecting the passengers pretty well.
In addition to more training and supervisor ride-alongs, it won’t be long before politicians demand that “positive train control” be installed for the Charlotte streetcar system.
Actually, they alreadyy have it, except for the genuine Charlotte streetcar which is in storage. To get to/from the storage area, the streetcars have to traverse the Lynx LRV system. It’s a logistics problem as the streetcars have a maximum speed much slower than the LRVs.
You might have noticed the streetcars are using a pantograph, which is not “normal” for a double ended Birney car, at least in the United States. The LRV track is wired for a pantograph, not a “trolley” (no frogs at switches, for example)
How about using some eminent domain to use taxpayer money to build a new football stadium on that trolley line? That will add to the ridership and make the free rides loved by all the football fans. lol
Right idea, wrong sport. The line ends at the recently refurbished Time Warner arena, home of the NBA team – but within easy walking distance of the NFL stadium, the new AAA Baseball stadium and the NASCAR hall of fame. Meanwhile, the ice hockey team recently moved back to the Bojangles Coliseum, which was “the” stadium back in the 1970s for Wrestling, Indoor football and Reverand Ernest Angley healing deaf children.