7 ms·

Bring on the light rail revolution. North America desperately needs more light rail options. High speed as well, but one step at a time.

bobthepanda 8y ago
Don't forget heavy rail and regional rail! European EMUs and DMUs will go a long way towards making passenger rail in the US feasible again. It's ridiculous how few places in the US have even considered subway anymore. Seattle's light rail, for example, is pretty much a subway except for one at-grade segment.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I don't think the rolling stock is anywhere near the top of the list of reasons that passenger rail doesn't work in most of the US. This change will benefit regional systems that are already established but I don't see it making much of a difference beyond that.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    It's not, but it's certainly a factor. EMU and DMUs are not manufactured on a regular basis in the US due to the different requirements and the size of the market, so each order is essentially an expensive custom order. The rolling stock that does exist here usually performs less well. Because of the cost of (and in some cases impossibility of) buying multiple-units, passenger railroads here are operated using a locomotive and some railcars; this is very inefficient, especially for commuter or regional rail which stops and starts fairly regularly. DMUs would almost certainly be cheaper and more performant to run.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  because of cost. seattle's system is a multi billion dollar boondoggle. costs for just three stations went up by half a billion dollars on a current expansion that was to only cost two billion. systems like Seattle's burn through so much money because politicians in the local area get to decide who gets service and how instead of focusing on who needs service and where. then throw in the billions that system is already backlogged on maintenance and it will fold under its own weight if not cut back services on other parts to pay for the rail. If you took all the money people spent to buy, maintain, and insure, their vehicles, then topped it off with the money the highway fund put into the roads to support it the cost per mile is one third what mass transit it costing. light rail isn't flexible to the needs of a changing city. it however appeals to a romantic version of transit that does not exist nor did it ever outside of two or three cities in the world of which only one is in the US though if you push it Chicago can almost count. Instead it benefits politicians who love ribbon cutting and paying off contributors.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Have you ever been outside the USA? Transit obviously can and does work in the vast majority of the world. We can’t really win the battle with roads. For one thing, we are running out of places to put new roads in big cities, so bandwidth is already pretty constrained. For another, single occupancy vehicles aren’t very energy efficient, nor can they be.
    - burfog 8y ago
      We can live in small cities. There, roads work fine. The energy efficiency issue isn't so clear. Single-occupancy vehicles don't run empty, at least until self-driving makes it possible. In typical systems, trains are pretty empty.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        I haven’t sat on an empty train in a big city in a long time. If it’s a small city without a lot of economic activity, it makes sense that your trains would run empty.
        burfog 8y ago
        Small cities don't have trains. Maybe you consider Boston to be a small city? They have some pretty empty trains, particularly the commuter rail. (yes it leaves the city, but that is the whole point of something that we aren't calling a subway)
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        That’s funny, since the last time I was on a commuter train was in Boston from Wesley to downtown. It was pretty packed as well.
        masonic 8y ago
        I haven’t sat on an empty train in a big city in a long time Come check out San Jose's VTA.
gok 8y ago
This isn't about light rail. This is about allowing lighter train cars--that aren't designed to survive collisions with freight trains--on regional rail lines.
- ams6110 8y ago
  And many regional lines are also freight lines.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    And pretty much all of Amtrak outside the Northeast.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > that aren't designed to survive collisions with freight trains They are designed to survive collision with freight trains. In Europe we also have freight trains on our passenger tracks. They're just designed to survive them in a different way - by deforming to absorb impact rather than being rigid to resist it.
  - gok 8y ago
    They're designed to be survivable for the humans on the trains cars, as opposed to the cars themselves :)
    - mcv 8y ago
      Exactly. Nobody cares about the cars, it's about the contents. And a train that cannot deform, will come to a very sudden stop when it hits an unmovable object, which is not going to be good to the occupants. Crumple zones are generally better. Downside is that that's probably where the train driver is. Preventing collisions is definitely the better approach.
      - kpil 8y ago
        The procedure is to slam the emergency brake, then run as hell, as far back as you can get.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
Where's the funding going to come from? USA has no money for infrastructure. MTA is struggling in NYC. Seattle's light rail is going to be completed in 2041+ and is being paid through a regressive car tab tax. I think it's a pipe dream that rail or transit will ever be improved other than very modestly in the USA. Plenty of money and land for pipelines though https://i.imgur.com/IdwIHQB.gif https://i.imgur.com/IdwIHQB.gif
- com2kid 8y ago
  Seattle's light rail is coming online one station at a time. As each station is brought onboard, ridership explodes in the surrounding community. Tokyo's railway was built up over more than a century, infrastructure takes time.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  In other words, if we can become less dependant on oil / natural gas (i.e. pipelines for them) we'll have more money for mass transportation. The irony is, our love of personal transportation is foregoing our transition to trains and such.
  - x220 8y ago
    >if we can become less dependant on oil / natural gas we'll have more money for mass transportation how do you figure that?
    - chiefalchemist 8y ago
      Bump up to the comment I commented on. That said something along the lines of "but there's plenty of money for pilelines." I wasn't figuring. I was summarizing and contexting.
- provolone 8y ago
  According to the article, this change should make rail cars cheaper.
masonic 8y ago
Light rail is the worst of both worlds: the slowness of a bus with the route inflexibility and capital expense of rail. Silicon Valley's VTA Light Rail has the worst rate of return of any transit agency in the country, if not the world.
- tim333 8y ago
  The Docklands Light Railway has worked quite well. It gets you from A to B much quicker than a bus although the top speed is not high, by avoiding jams etc. It's also driverless unlike the busses.
  - masonic 8y ago
    The parent comment referred specifically to North America. No doubt London is quite different.

bobthepanda 8y ago

Don't forget heavy rail and regional rail! European EMUs and DMUs will go a long way towards making passenger rail in the US feasible again. It's ridiculous how few places in the US have even considered subway anymore. Seattle's light rail, for example, is pretty much a subway except for one at-grade segment.

ams6110 8y ago
I don't think the rolling stock is anywhere near the top of the list of reasons that passenger rail doesn't work in most of the US. This change will benefit regional systems that are already established but I don't see it making much of a difference beyond that.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  It's not, but it's certainly a factor. EMU and DMUs are not manufactured on a regular basis in the US due to the different requirements and the size of the market, so each order is essentially an expensive custom order. The rolling stock that does exist here usually performs less well. Because of the cost of (and in some cases impossibility of) buying multiple-units, passenger railroads here are operated using a locomotive and some railcars; this is very inefficient, especially for commuter or regional rail which stops and starts fairly regularly. DMUs would almost certainly be cheaper and more performant to run.
Shivetya 8y ago
because of cost. seattle's system is a multi billion dollar boondoggle. costs for just three stations went up by half a billion dollars on a current expansion that was to only cost two billion. systems like Seattle's burn through so much money because politicians in the local area get to decide who gets service and how instead of focusing on who needs service and where. then throw in the billions that system is already backlogged on maintenance and it will fold under its own weight if not cut back services on other parts to pay for the rail. If you took all the money people spent to buy, maintain, and insure, their vehicles, then topped it off with the money the highway fund put into the roads to support it the cost per mile is one third what mass transit it costing. light rail isn't flexible to the needs of a changing city. it however appeals to a romantic version of transit that does not exist nor did it ever outside of two or three cities in the world of which only one is in the US though if you push it Chicago can almost count. Instead it benefits politicians who love ribbon cutting and paying off contributors.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Have you ever been outside the USA? Transit obviously can and does work in the vast majority of the world. We can’t really win the battle with roads. For one thing, we are running out of places to put new roads in big cities, so bandwidth is already pretty constrained. For another, single occupancy vehicles aren’t very energy efficient, nor can they be.
  - burfog 8y ago
    We can live in small cities. There, roads work fine. The energy efficiency issue isn't so clear. Single-occupancy vehicles don't run empty, at least until self-driving makes it possible. In typical systems, trains are pretty empty.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I haven’t sat on an empty train in a big city in a long time. If it’s a small city without a lot of economic activity, it makes sense that your trains would run empty.
      - burfog 8y ago
        Small cities don't have trains. Maybe you consider Boston to be a small city? They have some pretty empty trains, particularly the commuter rail. (yes it leaves the city, but that is the whole point of something that we aren't calling a subway)
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        That’s funny, since the last time I was on a commuter train was in Boston from Wesley to downtown. It was pretty packed as well.
      - masonic 8y ago
        I haven’t sat on an empty train in a big city in a long time Come check out San Jose's VTA.

gok 8y ago

This isn't about light rail. This is about allowing lighter train cars--that aren't designed to survive collisions with freight trains--on regional rail lines.

ams6110 8y ago
And many regional lines are also freight lines.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  And pretty much all of Amtrak outside the Northeast.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> that aren't designed to survive collisions with freight trains They are designed to survive collision with freight trains. In Europe we also have freight trains on our passenger tracks. They're just designed to survive them in a different way - by deforming to absorb impact rather than being rigid to resist it.
- gok 8y ago
  They're designed to be survivable for the humans on the trains cars, as opposed to the cars themselves :)
  - mcv 8y ago
    Exactly. Nobody cares about the cars, it's about the contents. And a train that cannot deform, will come to a very sudden stop when it hits an unmovable object, which is not going to be good to the occupants. Crumple zones are generally better. Downside is that that's probably where the train driver is. Preventing collisions is definitely the better approach.
    - kpil 8y ago
      The procedure is to slam the emergency brake, then run as hell, as far back as you can get.

prolikewh0a 8y ago

Where's the funding going to come from? USA has no money for infrastructure. MTA is struggling in NYC. Seattle's light rail is going to be completed in 2041+ and is being paid through a regressive car tab tax. I think it's a pipe dream that rail or transit will ever be improved other than very modestly in the USA. Plenty of money and land for pipelines though https://i.imgur.com/IdwIHQB.gif https://i.imgur.com/IdwIHQB.gif

com2kid 8y ago
Seattle's light rail is coming online one station at a time. As each station is brought onboard, ridership explodes in the surrounding community. Tokyo's railway was built up over more than a century, infrastructure takes time.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
In other words, if we can become less dependant on oil / natural gas (i.e. pipelines for them) we'll have more money for mass transportation. The irony is, our love of personal transportation is foregoing our transition to trains and such.
- x220 8y ago
  >if we can become less dependant on oil / natural gas we'll have more money for mass transportation how do you figure that?
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    Bump up to the comment I commented on. That said something along the lines of "but there's plenty of money for pilelines." I wasn't figuring. I was summarizing and contexting.
provolone 8y ago
According to the article, this change should make rail cars cheaper.

masonic 8y ago

Light rail is the worst of both worlds: the slowness of a bus with the route inflexibility and capital expense of rail. Silicon Valley's VTA Light Rail has the worst rate of return of any transit agency in the country, if not the world.

tim333 8y ago
The Docklands Light Railway has worked quite well. It gets you from A to B much quicker than a bus although the top speed is not high, by avoiding jams etc. It's also driverless unlike the busses.
- masonic 8y ago
  The parent comment referred specifically to North America. No doubt London is quite different.