Trainspotting with NPI: Watch a Link light rail test train crisscross Lake Washington on overhead power for the very first time

View some incredible videos of trains rolling across Lake Washington as part of the very first live wire test of a LRV vehicle on the floating bridge segment of the 2 Line - and get ready to travel light in 2026!

As auto traf­fic died down last night, Sound Tran­sit took anoth­er mon­u­men­tal step towards get­ting light rail across Lake Wash­ing­ton with the com­mence­ment of "live wire" train test­ing on the unopened Seat­tle-Mer­cer Island seg­ment of the 2 Line.

Short­ly before mid­night, as a crowd of enthu­si­as­tic tran­sit advo­cates and rail­fans watched, a sin­gle Siemens-made light rail vehi­cle car­ry­ing Sound Tran­sit staff and con­trac­tors began zip­ping back and forth across the tracks on the Homer M. Hadley Memo­r­i­al Bridge, which also car­ries west­bound Inter­state 90 across Lake Wash­ing­ton. Unlike in July, when the train was towed across the bridge, this test was con­duct­ed using over­head pow­er, just as you might infer from the moniker "live wire" testing.

"A sin­gle light rail vehi­cle will trav­el at incre­men­tal speeds between 10 and 55 mph to test pow­er sys­tems between Mer­cer Island and Jud­kins Park sta­tions, includ­ing the I‑90 bridge," Sound Tran­sit advised in a media advi­so­ry pub­lished a few hours pri­or to the begin­ning of the test. "This live wire test­ing is con­duct­ed at night so that expect­ed elec­tri­cal arc­ing can be observed and documented."

"Live wire test­ing is the sec­ond phase of Sys­tem Inte­gra­tion Test­ing, which lasts sev­er­al months. Fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the live wire test­ing phase, the project will move into the sig­nal test­ing phase. While live wire test­ing is being con­duct­ed on the bridge, the stray cur­rent and cathod­ic pro­tec­tion sys­tems will be mon­i­tored remotely."

NPI livestreamed the test train's first run across the bridge as it hap­pened, which also coin­cid­ed with what appeared to be a mete­or show­er light­ing up the sky above.

Sub­se­quent runs con­tin­u­ing through 4 AM oper­at­ed at high­er speeds.

Sound Tran­sit's Hen­ry Ben­don joined observers at the tun­nel por­tal view­point to cel­e­brate the first run, describe what it had been like to be down below as we were watch­ing from our van­tage point, and share that all had gone well.

After miss­ing the July tow test, The Seat­tle Times dis­patched vet­er­an trans­porta­tion reporter Mike Lind­blom and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Nick Wag­n­er to cov­er the begin­ning of live wire test­ing. Mike's sto­ry and Nick­'s pho­tos are here.

I've chron­i­cled a num­ber of live wire tests for NPI in the past, but noth­ing com­pared to this one. After so many years of plan­ning, design, and con­struc­tion, it was a thrill to be a wit­ness to the very first light rail train to cross Lake Wash­ing­ton on over­head pow­er, and share the his­toric moment with oth­er proud tran­sit advocates.

I haven't for­got­ten that a cho­rus of naysay­ers once said light rail across a float­ing bridge would nev­er work. Nor I have a for­got­ten that Tim Eyman and Kem­per Free­man Junior once engi­neered an ini­tia­tive intend­ed to pre­vent this moment from ever tak­ing place by block­ing the con­struc­tion of the 2 Line. (Vot­ers reject­ed that scheme.)

We are oh-so close now to get­ting this project shipped at last, and deliv­ered to a patient region that is eager to be able to use light rail for cross-lake journeys.

Future rid­ers, this install­ment of Trainspot­ting is for you!

Let's get to the videos and photos.

This archived livestream video shows what it was like to see the test train emerge from Mer­cer Island and roll across the lake to the Mount Bak­er Tun­nel. It includes an audio track that will give you a sense of the par­ty atmos­phere at the tun­nel por­tal viewpoint.

This pho­to shows the test train mak­ing its way across the bridge for the first time.

This video shows the test train return­ing to Mer­cer Island, com­plet­ing its first roundtrip. Note that this video has no audio.

This pho­to shows the train mak­ing the return trip.

This video was tak­en from the Homer M. Hadley Memo­r­i­al Bridge and gives you a sense of what it was like to watch the train going by from the walk­way and bike path.

This was a lucky snap -- it shows elec­tri­cal arc­ing as the test train is about to head into the Mount Bak­er Tun­nel after a high­er-speed run across the bridge.

Here's one final on-bridge video show­ing the test train going the oth­er way.

Let's wrap up with some close-up train photos.

Night­time, low light pho­tog­ra­phy is extreme­ly chal­leng­ing -- a lot of work went into bring­ing you these images and videos. NPI is a Four Thirds / Micro Four Thirds pow­ered media orga­ni­za­tion and has been for near­ly two decades. We like that mul­ti­ple man­u­fac­tur­ers sup­port the stan­dard and offer rugged, weath­er-sealed gear that keeps going when oth­er sys­tems quit due to prob­lems like overheating.

We use both Pana­son­ic and OM Sys­tem bod­ies and optics designed by Pana­son­ic, Olym­pus, and Leia in our work. For the pho­tos and videos tak­en on the bridge itself, I select­ed a pair of G Series Vario-Sum­milux lens­es, which have extreme­ly wide max­i­mum aper­tures and pro­duce sat­is­fy­ing results at night. Longer-range images and videos from the por­tal view­point were cre­at­ed with a pair of mighty Olym­pus M.Zuiko tele­pho­to lens­es that offer advanced image stabilization.