Por Jocelyn Maggard | Reportero SDUN

Labor Day weekend marks the last weekend the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) will be selling commemorative tickets to ride the recently opened vintage streetcar around the Silver Line loop.

A refurbished streetcar, built circa 1946, began taking the public on a roundtrip ride through Downtown on Saturday August 27.

After 3,000 volunteer hours and $85,000 of private money, the trolley was ready to ride.

MTS Chairman Harry Mathis had the dream to bring streetcars back to San Diego. Mathis found a vintage trolley car in Lake Tahoe where it had been rusting under pine trees.

“The car you see today is in many respects better than it was when it left the factory in 1946,” said Mathis. “This beautiful vehicle is like a time machine. Riding on it can take you back to the days when these wonderful street cars were in service all over San Diego.”

In July 2005, The San Diego Vintage Trolley Inc., a non-profit subsidiary, was approved by the MTS Board of Directors to raise funds to restore the trolley so it could run on San Diego’s streets again.

In 1892, John D. Spreckels used his entrepreneurial smarts to launch the San Diego Electric Railway Company after buying a failed streetcar operation, bringing streetcars to the city.

When streetcars declined in popularity during the 1930’s in the wake of busses and the success of Henry Ford, the President’s Conference Committee created the PCC Streetcar by improving the style and comfort of the cars, spurning a renaissance in the mode of transportation.

The vintage trolley, also called streetcar #529, is one of the 5,000 PCC cars that were manufactured between 1937 and 1949. San Diego operated 28 cars during that time.

Ray Krum, resident of San Diego and enthusiast of anything that runs on a track, remembers riding the streetcars around the city as a teenager; he took a ride and said he enjoyed his ride on the refurbished car he took on the morning of August 28.

He noticed many similarities between streetcar #529 and the originals, but said the window cranks were new additions and that pushing in knobs on the side of the window opened the old windows.

Along with Krum, there were approximately 20 passengers aboard the trolley, and an MTS representative selling tickets at the transit center said there were almost 200 riders the previous day.

The Silver Line starts at the transit center on 12th Street and Imperial Ave. and travels along Harbor Drive to C Street and then goes to Park Boulevard, returning to the transit center.

Mathis says streetcar #529 isn’t it for San Diego; there are five more ready to be restored.

Balboa Park celebrates its 100th birthday in 2015 and there is the hope a vintage trolley will run from Downtown to the Park in time for the Centennial.

Robb Schupp, Director of Marketing and Communications for MTS, said MTS is conducting the City/Park Streetcar Feasibility Study The project was first presented in April and it will go through workshops until the report is examined in November according to the project’s Steering Committee calendar.

The report will cost $117,500. SDG&E will put forth $11,400 and a little over a thousand dollars will come from MTS, and Caltrans will pay the rest, said Schupp. No public money has been used in the restoration and no public money will be used for the study, he added.

When the uptown neighborhoods were being developed, PCC cars offered access to the neighborhoods from the downtown area, and the Feasibility study looks into adding cars back into these areas.

City Council Member Todd Gloria rode streetcar #529 on its maiden voyage on August 18 and spoke favorably of the new mode of transportation.

“Looking to the past has given us great ideas for improving public transportation for San Diego,”
said Councilmember Todd Gloria. “The Silver Line will add a fun and useful element to our current trolley service, and more streetcars will improve mobility through our urban neighborhoods.”

Streetcar #529 will run around the Silver Line loop on the weekends and select holidays. Tickets are $2 for adults and $1 for seniors and disabled passengers.