Willamette Shore Trolley

2 weeks ago

Our open house this month was a success and brought us a few new volunteers!

Would you like to become a volunteer and learn how to operate a trolley? Come visit us at our next prospective volunteer open house on Saturday April 13th! Drop by the depot at 311 N. State Street in Lake Oswego any time between 10:00 and 12:30. We hope to see you there! ... See MoreSee Less

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Willamette Shore Trolley

2 months ago

We have an extraordinary announcement.

Last summer, we brought Vintage Trolley 513 into service. This, combined with the new siding under Sellwood Bridge, resulted in our being able to run two trolleys in opposite directions, on opposite timetables.

Now, we're taking another momentous step forward.

One week ago, we brought Vintage Trolley 514 into the car barn for the last time under the power of its old DC motors. We're now working to remove them from the trolley, along with several other components that will be obsolete when 514 reenters service. Much of that equipment will be going to other trolleys around the country as we trade for equipment that will work properly with 514's new configuration.

This means that we have taken 514 out of service, and for the time being we are back to operating with just one trolley - Vintage Trolley 513.

In preparation for the new batteries that will power the trolley, we're removing and replacing several components - and many of those components have not and will not arrive for several months. Changing the inner workings of Trolley 514 will be a time-consuming process, but we think you'll love the end results as much as we will - like one day running without having to push and pull a noisy generator cart for power.

Many of you might be wondering when Trolley 514 will be back in service. To answer that, let us be clear: We do not know. We do not have a time schedule for this. We do not want to give false hope that in some time frame we'll have both trolleys back in service, only to let you down.

This is a long and complicated process. We're combining equipment from two by-gone eras with technology from the future. There are definitely things that will come up, and challenges that have not been dealt with before. Once we get all those parts working together, we'll need to run extensive testing. And after that, we need to get our crews trained to operate a trolley that our volunteers know so well, but will have been turned into a piece of equipment unlike any other on earth.

We're working with a company called EVDrive. If you haven't heard of them, you should have. They created the world's fastest street-legal Corvette. We'll link to a video of that Corvette testing on the Space Shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the comments below.

So, when we bring 514 back into service, will it be running on batteries? Frankly, we don't know. That's one of many questions we can't answer just yet. There are several factors in play. Whether the batteries have been installed at that point or not, we will be able to run with the generator as we do now, but the trolley will run much more efficiently. For instance, when we want to stop the trolley right now, we have a few different methods for doing so - all of them having something to do with creating friction and heat. With the new AC motors, we'll be able to convert that energy into voltage.

This won't be a quick process, but when it's all done, you'll be able to take a ride on a unique trolley. We hope the work we have begun will be the source of breakthroughs for years and decades to come.

In the meantime, we will continue to use Vintage Trolley 513 as our primary trolley, and Trolley 514 will be ready to return to service when it is ready.

Thank you for riding along on this adventure, and thank you for your continued support as we take the Willamette Shore Trolley into the future! Stay tuned for updates! ... See MoreSee Less

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