This is something I would like to have seen. “Driver, put your hands out the window where we can see them. Keep your hands off the controller. Pull down the pantograph…”
I did hear of someone getting an “exhibition of speed” ticket when operating a PCC. Story was that he was having a drag race with an auto after the traffic light turned green.
I suspect the writer needs to learn how to convey facts.
If the Light Rail has a operator (and I would expect that it does) I would suspect that he stoped the vehicle so police could remove the combatants.
Amtrak trains are routinely stopped where they can be met by police for the removal of unruly passengers. In most case these stop are NOWHERE near any scheduled Amtrak stop.
Yes, I recall a passenger on the California Zephyr who was acting very weird, wandering through the train from car to car. Finally, he began pulling suitcases down from the overhead racks. That was enough for the crew. I was listening on my scanner as they made plans to have the Iowa state police meet the train at a highway crossing in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night. The passengers all cheered as the goofball detrained and was lead to a waiting squad car.
The drag racing PCC car event occured on the Washington, DC Frendship Heights line (30 or 32, different downtown destination), and if I rememger that is Wisconsin Avenue. I don’t know whether it was uphill (away from downtown, away from Georgetown) or downhill.
That might have been a similar event, the one I was thinking of took place in L.A. Still interesting to note that a PCC can accelerate fast enough to draw attention from law enforcement. I suspect the officer in question stopped the PCC, but hardly think he was able to get it to “pull over”.
That must have been many, many years ago as the 30/32 lines had been all-bus when I moved to DC in 1977! Only the #32 route of the two has survived the many changes that METRO has instituted over the years; it runs from Friendship Heights at Wisconsin Circle all the way to Naylor Road SE.
I am 79. I remember visiting Washington with my parents at age 4 in 1936 and seeing the counduit only center-entrance streetcars that were gone before WWII. Rode the whole system that was intact after WWII, definitely including Frienship Heights, and even rode the Branchville-Beltsville one car (deck roof, double-end) single track shuttle. Was back in DC for the first opening of the first part of the Metro.
MY eight grade had a trip to Washington in the winter of 1944-1955m with Mr. Contini, our home room teacher, in charge. B&O Royal Blue line both ways from NYC, Columbus Circle B&O connecting bus terminal, dinner in the diner, the works. Morning we were to leave, we were to meet at say 10AM on the street in front of the Statler, our hotel, to be transferred by chartered bus to Union Sta. I packed and had an early breakfast and went off to ride the streetcars. Came back in time but was balled out anyway for leaving the group - age 13. Ed Shell later became a Methodist Minister, but worked for Capitol Transit, and at age 16. 1948, he got me into one of the Georgetown plow pits, either on Cabin John or Frendship Heights, don’t know which.
30 and 32 were where the 20 pre-PCC 1935-built streamlined cars ran, 10 from St. Louis and 10 from Brill. Generally they were used only during rush hours.
My visits to Washington becuase my Aunt Sue was a WAAC assigned to Washington and she kept her government position after WWII as a civilian.
Dave, since streetcars were operated in Washington until 1962, was the conduit system not still in use in the area in which overhead wires were forbidden? I remember visiting Washington in 1953, with my high school class, and seeing the tracks with the opening for the conduit, in front of Union Station.