page_title: MATA Trolley
section_title: Rolling stock
hierarchical_section_title: MATA Trolley / Rolling stock
caption_attribution_description: English: Car 1979 of the Memphis Area Transit Authority's Main Street Trolley system is a vintage-style trolley built by the Gomaco Trolley Company in 1993. This photo shows the car when it was still using a trolley pole, before the pole was replaced (in early 2003) by a pantograph, and in the paint scheme it wore originally.
context_page_description: The MATA Trolley is a heritage streetcar transit system operating in Memphis in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It began operating on April 29, 1993. Service was suspended in June 2014, following fires on two cars. After nearly four years and repeated postponements, the reopening of the Main Street Line took place on April 30, 2018.
  The last line of Memphis’ original streetcar network closed on June 15, 1947.
  Since opening the system has been extended twice and now consists of three lines, operated by the Memphis Area Transit Authority. These lines are the Main Street Line, the Riverfront Loop and the Madison Avenue Line; however, service on the last two lines is temporarily suspended. In the 2011–12 fiscal year, 1.34 million trips were made on the system, a 23.1% year-on-year growth – the highest of any light rail system in the contiguous United States.
context_section_description: The trolleys used are almost all restored, vintage streetcars. The original three cars in operation on opening day were all formerly used in Porto, Portugal, and are Car 187, circa 1927; Car 194, circa 1935; and Car 204, circa 1940. These cars are each 30 feet 6 inches (9.3 m) long,
  7 feet 10 inches (2.39 m) wide and weigh 25,820 pounds (11,710 kg) without passengers. The cars were restored by Kerns-Wilcheck Associates of Memphis. Three additional ex-Porto cars  (156, 164 and 180) joined them within weeks, and the fleet had six cars (all ex-Porto single-truckers) by May 1993.
  Between the mid-1990s and 2003, the fleet expanded considerably in both number and capacity with the arrival of ten reconditioned Melbourne, Australia W2-class cars, all but one (Car 417) supplied by Gomaco Trolley Company. Other additions were single-truck Car 1979 that was built new by Gomaco in 1993, as a demonstrator; double-truck Car 1794 that was originally an open-sided car from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but was heavily rebuilt and enclosed before entering service in Memphis, and, in early 2004, a replica Birney Safety Car – again, manufactured by Gomaco, similar to those used on the TECO Line Streetcar in Tampa, Florida, and the Metro Streetcar in Little Rock, Arkansas.
  The fleet and overhead wires were converted from trolley pole to pantograph current collection in early 2003, during a three-month suspension of service which started on January 5, 2003.
  An eleventh reconditioned Melbourne car, W5-class 799, was purchased in 2006 by MATA with a view toward eventual restarting of trolley service.
caption: Gomaco-built number 1979, with a trolley pole, in its original livery. By 2003 all of the trolley poles were replaced by pantographs.
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