More photos and videos: https://www.daytodayla.com/2019/09/13/trolley-at-the-americana-glendale/
https://www.instagram.com/americanabrand/reel/CzZnfXdRJuW/
Manufacturer’s website: https://www.gomacotrolley.com/Resources/pages/glendale_trolleys.html
Two open-style trolley cars, #1717 and GiGi, are in Glendale, California. They were completed and delivered in 2008, and are being used at a shopping and residential center.
They are a similar style to the J.G. Brill open-style cars currently in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Tampa, Florida. The first car, #1717, is 33 feet long and battery-powered, and the unpowered second car, GiGi, is 22 feet long and pulled behind the first car. The grand opening for the “Americana At Brand” project was May 1-2, 2008.
Construction photos: https://www.gomacotrolley.com/Resources/pages/construction_glendale.html
Awesome! Looks like it just rolled out of the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.
If you read the trolley’s brochure on the manufacturer’s website, it says it was designed by George McGinnis, the last of the Imagineers hired by Walt Disney.
This was most favourite (only favorite) location within LA California. Its a shame this is only a outdoor shopping center and the tram is only used as an attraction/ride. Everything else I saw outside this location was too car centric and repetitive in layout and design.
This entire one block community is a high density, car free community with shopping, restaurants, entertainment and transit. Its a perfect example of what the rest of LA and north America should strive to be. Excellent use of space and planning.
My favorite place in LA back when I lived there in the 90s was Broadway in downtown.
It was an older downtown made for walking, with gallery arcades of immigrant mom-and-pop shops, and Clifton’s Brookdale cafeteria (now some kind of nightclub).