United Streetcar LLC ready to roll

November 10, 12:06 AMPortland Green Business ExaminerPaul Fox

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Car Coupling  Photo: Courtesy of United Streetcar 

On October 22, the nation's top mass transit official, Peter Rogoff, signed a contract that guarantees the federal money ($75M ) Portland-area agencies anticipated for the east side extension of the Portland streetcar project, which started construction during the summer. The $150M extension will run from the Pearl District across the Broadway Bridge to Lloyd Center and south to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

The supplier of the streetcars for this project will be United Streetcar LLC, currently a wholly owned subdivision of Oregon Iron Works located in Clackamas Oregon.  I spoke with Chandra Brown, a vice president of Oregon Iron Works who also serves as President of United Streetcar LLC last week shortly after her return from a “Rail-Volution” conference in Boston. When I asked when Oregon Iron Works first got the idea that they could build streetcars, she said that it was in 2005 when someone told her that there were no manufacturers of modern streetcars in the United States. She said that she initially had trouble believing that that was true, but when she researched it and found that was the case, she persuaded Oregon Iron Works to tackle the job.

Connecting the systems  Photo: Courtesy of United Streetcar

The success of Portland's streetcar, and United Streetcar being the only manufacturer of modern streetcars in the U. S. has led to a steady stream of visitors from other municipalities hoping to replicate Portland's success with their own streetcar systems. In the course of this month United Streetcar will be hosting delegations from places as diverse as Washington D. C. and San Antonio. The future looks bright. United Streetcar has an order for 6 cars for the east side expansion in Portland, and a probable order for 7 cars from the city of Tuscon Arizona as soon as that contract receives final approval.  Currently around 20 or so people are employed mainly in the design and planning aspects of developing projects.  At the height of the work building the prototype, which is now in a test phase running on the Portland Streetcar line, 60-70 people were employed. More skilled workers will no doubt be needed when the prototype testing has been completed and the time for delivery of cars for the east-side Portland Street Project is at hand.

Finished prototype being tested  Photo: Courtesy of United Streetcar

 The first ten of Portland's streetcars were built by Skoda in the Czeck Republic, but for the rest they can proudly bear the lable: Built in the USA.

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