At the 2016 American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Rail Conference, John Rhone, VP capital design and construction for Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) spoke to the upcoming developments in the Dallas Streetcar during the session "Streetcars with a Different Twist." The streetcar debuted in April of 2015 and the current system runs on a 3.2 round-trip line. The streetcar also connects with DART’s light rail.
“The bar had been set, we had identified that we wanted to build a streetcar to go alongside the largest light rail system in North America,” said Rhone.
Rhone explained that DART utilized innovative off-wire technology for its Oak Cliff line. Like other agencies have mentioned, they did face challenges when moving forward with a combined service with the light rail and the streetcar.
"We operate from our central rail facility. We had to work on training mechanics and operators and determine where they put the vehicles and where the parts would be stored,” explained Rhone.
Another challenge was installing the streetcar line across the Houston Viaduct Bridge. The bridge is around 100 years old and there were certain considerations when it came to the rail installation.
“One of the restrictions we had, we could not install any overhead catenary poles,” Rhone said.
Streetcar with a Twist
Making the streetcar innovative, and a first in America, is that it operates as a hybrid. To make it across the Houston Viaduct Bridge the streetcar runs on batteries. The streetcar was designed and manufactured by Brookville Equipment Corp. in Pennsylvania — which Rhone said was also something that was very important to DART. They wanted to have an American-designed streetcar. Being a hybrid it has the ability to switch from catenary lines to electricity.
With the heat in Dallas, Rhone said that they were also concerned about what that would do to the vehicle. “That brings challenges. The battery generates heat and that can affect the lifecycle of the battery so we had to wonder how long it would operate and would it get stuck? So each streetcar contains 15-sub-packs.”
The streetcars also feature a train operators display (TOD) which is integrated with the vehicle control, this allows it to alert operators of how much remaining power there is. “We wanted to have the display provide instant insights so they is also a real time remote monitoring system,” explained Rhone.
Developing for the Future
“Currently we have a southern extension that is under construction and is .75 miles,” said Rhone. “Union Station to Omni is an upcoming streetcar extension for the future.”
With the plan to extend the lines, DART has two new vehicles arriving this year, also designed by Brookville.
“The first will arrive next month and the second the following month. They will be going into operator in August of this year,” explained Rhone.
Rhone said that DART has been able to adapt and develop a successful maintenance program and can account for time between standard maitnance and in the event of a failure.
“Innovating our technology for the Dallas Streetcar is something that we are very proud of,” said Rhone. “The battery technology is something that is really a new innovative idea and we’ve really stepped up and have been successful in our street car design.”
