RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.
Todd's
Transit Guide to
San Diego CA
the San Diego Trolley
Coaster
the Vintage Trolley
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San Diego actually boosts a pretty good variety of steel wheeled things for the railfan, if your into transit: The San Diego Trolley, Coaster, and a vintage trolley system.....
A comprehensive PDF map of the NCTD (North County Transit
District) can be found at:
http://www.gonctd.com/system_map and
http://www.gonctd.com/web_files/nctd-schematic-system-map.jpg . Their
homepage is at: http://www.gonctd.com/
A new S70 trolley #3007 at Old Town, photo by Brett Shoaf, photo from the MTS
website
The most well known of the rail services is probably the San Diego Trolley, well known for their bright red trolley cars. The system is operated by the Metropolitan Transportation System, or simply, MTS.
The San Diego system currently (2011) operates three lines, Blue, Green, and Orange. The Blue line was the first of these to open July 26th, 1981, making it one of the older light rail lines to be put into service. The system has 53 stations.
The original section was known as the South Line, and went from the Santa Fe Depot down to the border. It is now the Blue line.
The Orange line was opened in 1986, and the Green line opened in 2005.
The three lines are supplemented by the Silver line, which runs on Holidays and Weekends, and the Special Event line, which operates when they are having something going on at Qualcomm Stadium. Service to the stadium was initiated in 2005 and has 15 stops. Silver line service was started in 2011, and includes 9 stops on it's route.
The original cars of the Trolley were Siemens' U-2's, which are now 30 years old. Eleven of them have already been sold to a startup system in Argentina. In 1995, they took delivery of 52 SD-100's from Siemens. Starting in September of 2011, the UTA started receiving new Siemens' S70 LRV's. They also have one PCC car on the property.
Amtrak and the Coaster can be caught at the Santa Fe Depot station on the Blue Line, also one stop away from the Orange (and Blue's) line's America Plaza station, AND, the Old Town Transit Center (TC) station, end terminus' of the Blue and Green lines.
MTS has a comprehensive historical timeline at: http://www.sdmts.com/MTS/timeline.asp
MTS also has a great library of photos at: http://www.sdmts.com/MTS/photolibrary.asp
The Coaster is a commuter rail service which runs from San Diego north to Oceanside, a suburb of Los Angeles where it connects with the Los Angeles Metrolink commuter service. Coaster is now now running seven days a week. More info can be found at their homepage: http://www.gonctd.com/coaster
http://www.gonctd.com/userfiles/image/SPRINTER-Time-Schedule_lores.gif
sprinter scedules
San Diego boosts a vintage trolley system, which uses PCC cars. It runs on
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The service is provided by
the San Diego Vintage Trolley Inc, and is a non-profit subsidiary of MTS.
More info can be found at their website:
http://www.sdvintagetrolley.com/
New 10/28/2011
last Modified:
22 Jan 2012
