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Light Rail on display downtown

hgupta

By hgupta
in Memphis

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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According to the article that is the Siemens S70 LRT vehicle. This vehicle is used in Houston and on the new line being constructed in Charlotte. You can see some photos of the train being tested in Charlotte here.

Basically this train is offered as what you see in those photos, though no doubt it will be painted differently for Memphis. It has a top speed of 55mph, seats about 70, and has standing room for about 240 people. These numbers will vary somewhat based on accomidations for the handicapped, bicycles, luggage, and other options.

It is electrically powered by overhead catenary. The trains can be operated in tandem to double capacity, and even in triple pairs, but the platforms need to be built to accomidate trains of that length.

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memphis born Whistle-Stop

memphis born

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Check out this guys blog for more pictures:

http://www.memphislightrail.blogspot.com/

I think its a great idea for people to preview what a light rail car is. I wish CSX would let it run the Cordova line though

Bears, I 'm with you I really wish something could be worked out between the city and CSX. Nashville opened their commuter rail last month,and I know ours would attract a lot of ridership especially Midtown, Fairgrounds, Shelby Farms and Cordova. The city leaders and Csx should reach some sort of financial agreement for the overall good of the community. Here's a link

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/midsou...5054738,00.html :cry:

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bluff2085 Hamlet

bluff2085

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Bears, I 'm with you I really wish something could be worked out between the city and CSX. Nashville opened their commuter rail last month,and I know ours would attract a lot of ridership especially Midtown, Fairgrounds, Shelby Farms and Cordova. The city leaders and Csx should reach some sort of financial agreement for the overall good of the community. Here's a link

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/midsou...5054738,00.html :cry:

It's interesting that the article mentions the Norfolk Southern tracks running through the Poplar Corridor--and that Memphis has already approached N-S, with little success, about the possibility of using their tracks. Too bad that turned out to be a dead end. If only there were some incentives in place to get Norfolk Southern out of the city--their leftover tracks would be a nice gift to Memphis.

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Rardy Burg

Rardy

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Nashville has commuter rail. Commuter rail serves a different need than intracity light rail.

It's 31 miles from downtown Nashville to Lebanon. That's very comparable to one of the first routes Memphis plans to launch: downtown Memphis to Berryhill Road in Cordova.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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It's 31 miles from downtown Nashville to Lebanon. That's very comparable to one of the first routes Memphis plans to launch: downtown Memphis to Berryhill Road in Cordova.

Electrified light rail costs $50M/mile. In other words, 1 mile of LRT costs more than the entire Nashville CR line. If they are planning to build a 31 mile LRT line, then I see a huge issue with costs coming.

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Bears Hamlet

Bears

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I believe the MPO has dabbled with the idea of rerouting all rail traffic around the city because of the threat of a terrorist attack or derailment. Norfolk Southern goes right through the heart of the city so it certainly will get rerouted if the plan goes thru. Plus, many citizens complain about the trains that stop and block roads, even though there is an ordinace that bans trains blocking roads for a long time (I forget how long exactly) which isn't enforced. BTW, check out the wording on the poll in the CA "Now Nashville commuters have a light rail system, would Memphis use such a system if available today?" They are two completely diffrent systems. First of all, most people in Metro Memphis live in Shelby County. Once your out of Shelby County, there aren't any towns the size of Lebanon for almost 100 miles (except Southhaven but thats planned to be serviced with light rail/monorail). Light rail would work better here than commuter rail.

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Rardy Burg

Rardy

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um cordova is about 13 miles from downtown. soooo no thats not comparible...

sure...if they're able to get CSX. but don't forget that berryhill is on the far east side of cordova. one route i saw put it at like 25 miles...

light rail is costing $400 million, compared to commuter rail at $40 million. my question: why aren't we doing commuter rail instead??

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ricky_the_great Whistle-Stop

ricky_the_great

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sure...if they're able to get CSX. but don't forget that berryhill is on the far east side of cordova. one route i saw put it at like 25 miles...

light rail is costing $400 million, compared to commuter rail at $40 million. my question: why aren't we doing commuter rail instead??

see this is my problem with the light rail system and its application to the suburbs...

i can make it to downtown from cordova in 10-15 minutes using the interstate and 15-30 minutes using the streets. most everyone in cordova/germantown/collierville has a car... so who on earth is going to take a rail, that travels 25 miles to downtown possibly taking 30min to one hour. this system will never gain an appreciable amount of money. everytime i see a MATA bus on germantown parkway... its empty. at most 1-2 people.

and how would you make it a 25 mile trip from downtown to cordova. canada road/houston levee is about 19 miles from downtown. Memphis is a lot more dense than nashville... if you 25 miles from downtown memphis... youre sitting in a farm.

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Rardy Burg

Rardy

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see this is my problem with the light rail system and its application to the suburbs...

i can make it to downtown from cordova in 10-15 minutes using the interstate and 15-30 minutes using the streets. most everyone in cordova/germantown/collierville has a car... so who on earth is going to take a rail, that travels 25 miles to downtown possibly taking 30min to one hour. this system will never gain an appreciable amount of money. everytime i see a MATA bus on germantown parkway... its empty. at most 1-2 people.

and how would you make it a 25 mile trip from downtown to cordova. canada road/houston levee is about 19 miles from downtown. Memphis is a lot more dense than nashville... if you 25 miles from downtown memphis... youre sitting in a farm.

It's 28 miles from the western end of Memphis city limits to the eastern end east of Cordova. And that's just city limits.

I actually agree that ridership from Canada road to downtown will be sparse. But what about ridership from Canada to...say...Goodlett Farms/Appling? Or G'town Pkwy to Perkins. I think the shorter distances would attract the greatest volume. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't really know.

I do know that I'd take light rail/commuter rail from my house in East Memphis to my job downtown in a heartbeat, provided the trip took less than 40 mins. But apparently Norfolk doesn't want to share those rails...

Am I misguided on commuter rail? Isn't that just as feasible for Memphis, considering it's 30 miles +/- from Collierville to downtown?

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ricky_the_great Whistle-Stop

ricky_the_great

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It's 28 miles from the western end of Memphis city limits to the eastern end east of Cordova. And that's just city limits.

I actually agree that ridership from Canada road to downtown will be sparse. But what about ridership from Canada to...say...Goodlett Farms/Appling? Or G'town Pkwy to Perkins. I think the shorter distances would attract the greatest volume. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't really know.

I do know that I'd take light rail/commuter rail from my house in East Memphis to my job downtown in a heartbeat, provided the trip took less than 40 mins. But apparently Norfolk doesn't want to share those rails...

Am I misguided on commuter rail? Isn't that just as feasible for Memphis, considering it's 30 miles +/- from Collierville to downtown?

i dont know what scale youre using but from downtown. using simple surveying and scaling on a qaud map of the region its 26 miles even taking the circumfrance of the earth into account to Macon TN. well past the shelby county/fayette county border which sits approximatly 20 miles from downtown.

if the qaud map calculations i made isnt enough... you can take a look at mapquest's scale

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formt...tn&zipcode=

which matches up with my calculations. cordova is approximatly 14 miles.

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Rardy Burg

Rardy

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i dont know what scale youre using but from downtown. using simple surveying and scaling on a qaud map of the region its 26 miles even taking the circumfrance of the earth into account to Macon TN. well past the shelby county/fayette county border which sits approximatly 20 miles from downtown.

if the qaud map calculations i made isnt enough... you can take a look at mapquest's scale

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formt...tn&zipcode=

which matches up with my calculations. cordova is approximatly 14 miles.

GoogleEarth claims that it's 24 miles from the Mississippi River to the Fayette County line "as the crow flies". If you follow I-40 to Hwy. 64 you get the 28 mile figure.

At any rate, the actual figure is somewhere between 10 miles and 50 miles from downtown to Fayette. :P

BTW, Google Earth shows Macon as 32.29 miles as the crow flies east of downtown Memphis. Driving distance is about 5 miles further. You might ought to look to see where MapQuest is showing downtown to be... It might be considering "downtown" to be the geographical center of Memphis. That would explain the discrepancies.

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ricky_the_great Whistle-Stop

ricky_the_great

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GoogleEarth claims that it's 24 miles from the Mississippi River to the Fayette County line "as the crow flies". If you follow I-40 to Hwy. 64 you get the 28 mile figure.

At any rate, the actual figure is somewhere between 10 miles and 50 miles from downtown to Fayette. :P

BTW, Google Earth shows Macon as 32.29 miles as the crow flies east of downtown Memphis. Driving distance is about 5 miles further. You might ought to look to see where MapQuest is showing downtown to be... It might be considering "downtown" to be the geographical center of Memphis. That would explain the discrepancies.

i wasnt following the roads, but even on the qaud map which is an official map(qaud map) done by the United states geological survey (USGS). shows my figures to be correct. I even calculated the error.

these qaud maps are accurate to abotu 10 metres... soooo i'll take the qaud map over googleearth anyday(especially if its the free google earth version.

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