Welcome to Cincinnati, streetcar

The streetcar is home now.

Some 250 people from infants to the elderly lined a block of Race Street in Over-the-Rhine on a chilly Friday evening to welcome the city's newest resident: a 77-foot, 76,850-pound modern streetcar vehicle. They clapped and cheered as the flatbed tractor-trailer carrying the streetcar came to a stop after a two-day, nearly 600-mile journey from the manufacturing plant in Elmira Heights, New York.

"This is a huge thrill," 92-year-old Earl Clark said.

The streetcar is expected to start running without passengers along part of the 3.6-mile Downtown and Over-the-Rhine route in the next few weeks. That will kick off a rigorous, months-long testing phase. The city expects to take delivery of four other streetcar vehicles by the end of February. If testing goes as planned, the $148 million streetcar system will officially open to the public on Sept. 15.

As Clark stood on the sidewalk admiring the orange-and-white streetcar, the Sayler Park resident reminisced about riding Cincinnati's original streetcar system on the final day of operations, April 29, 1951. He is a streetcar enthusiast who has ridden streetcar and passenger-rail systems across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Clark plans to ride the Cincinnati streetcar when it opens.

"These streetcars have changed quite a bit over the years," Clark said, smiling.

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Other streetcar enthusiasts thoroughly enjoyed the moment, snapping iPhone photos and posting Twitter messages. They cheered when crews completed the hour-long process of unloading the streetcar from the truck bed onto the rails embedded in Race Street. About 30 minutes later, crews finished towing the streetcar into the $12 million maintenance garage, located just north of Findlay Market.

There was no formal public ceremony held, and Mayor John Cranley was among several City Hall leaders who did not attend the event. Amy Murray, Chris Seelbach and David Mann were the only City Council members believed to have attended the event.

Former Mayor Mark Mallory and ex-Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls joined the crowd for a moment that many wondered may never happen. Mallory and Qualls were pioneers of the project nearly a decade ago, and the streetcar has been mired in controversy centering mostly on costs almost ever since.

Mallory declined an Enquirer reporter's request for an interview.

"It's taken a village!" Seelbach said on social media. "Streetcar is here!"