Light Rail Subway

[orulz]

Chicago has a small subway. I don't know if its a part of the more well known "EL" or not.

[kayman]

I love light rail subways. They are the best of both worlds, you get the underground effect of a heavy rail subway without all the extraordinary costs.

[penisathome]

Septa has these lightrail lines:

City: 10, 11, 13, 15, 34, 36

Suburbs: 101, 102

The city line (10, 11, 13, 24, 36) all travel underground in Center City and part of University City (aka West Philadelphia)

http://www.septa.org/maps/subway_surface.html

All photos from http://world.nycsubway.org/us/phila/subway-surface.html

In this photo the left track is the trolley and the right is the Market-Frankford subway/elevated line

[lammius]

If any of you guys subscribe to Mass Transit Magazine you'll notice this issue's cover story is about George Warrington (Exec Director of NJ TRANSIT) and the agency's expansion under his watch. It discusses the recent addition of a new line on the Newark City Subway (light rail) between Newark Penn Station and Broad Street RR Station.

Mass Transit Magazine December 2006/January 2007 Issue

While NJ Transit may have been built on the back of commuter rail lines, it's increasingly the light rail lines that are getting all the love. In fact, taking the light rail to the commuter train station is being billed as the system's best-kept secret. Add to that the RiverLine and Hudson-Bergen lines and you have what may be the system's fastest growing segments.

This growth has sparked growth around the systems as well. In Hudson County, almost 4,500 housing units have sprung up within walking distance of the light rail line in the last six years. Warrington notes that there is a clear link between the Hudson-Bergen line and the economic growth around it - pride.

"[it]is proudly owned by the communities. Similarly here in Newark, the new light rail extension is proudly owned by the city of Newark and our new mayor, Corey Booker," says Warrington.

"In that sense, the municipalities through which it operates also take a lot of pride in the opportunity and the role that having that railroad in their downtown brings to those [communities.] It's one of the reasons why there isn't a municipality that wouldn't love one day to have a railroad station in town because it can transform it."

[Atlside]

A portion of San Francisco's Muni light rail is subway with the BART.

Downtown Pittsburgh has a subway light rail system.

[urbanbna]

dallas has one light rail subway tunnel at city place station. it has more in the works with all the new lines that were approved and starting construction.

check out the DART site http://www.dart.org

[Recchia]

Cool to see so many passengers on the HBLR in Jersey! Does it get as packed as the PATH ever?

[lammius]

Cool to see so many passengers on the HBLR in Jersey! Does it get as packed as the PATH ever?

[Recchia]

The PATH, however, is PACKED during peak hours. At least when commuter trains get packed you can stand in the vestibule. On PATH there's no escaping the sardine situation. I'm always amused watching people get off commuter trains in Newark and running, shoving, diving through the PATH turnstiles and into a waiting PATH train trying to get a seat and filling up the train. The poor people at the next stop, Harrison, hardly have a chance to get some standing room.

[dan326]

What's the difference between heavy rail and light rail?

[lammius]

What's the difference between heavy rail and light rail?

[Cotuit]

I'm always amused watching people get off commuter trains in Newark and running, shoving, diving through the PATH turnstiles and into a waiting PATH train trying to get a seat and filling up the train. The poor people at the next stop, Harrison, hardly have a chance to get some standing room.

[TheGerbil]

Pittsburgh's light-rail is underground within Downtown. They're also about to add a new underground section as they extend it north. I can't find any good pictures, though.

[tracer1138]

What's the difference between heavy rail and light rail?

[Snowguy716]

You can create a third rail system that is wedged underneath a lip on the rail underneath the street, so basically hte only way to get electrocuted by it would be to wedge your hand or something inside the rail and grab around for it... in which case, the consequences are obviously deserved

Most heavy rail outside of cities has overhead wires. It is mostly just subways that have the 3rd rail.

[lammius]

Yeah I don't think the electrification generalization (LRT = overhead / HRT = 3rd rail) is a good one to make. All of AMTRAK's regional rail on the Northeast Corridor and I believe most of the rest of their network run on overhead electric wires. Furthermore, both LRT and HRT often run with diesel (DMU/RDC) or dual-mode diesel/electric.

The RiverLINE LRT in southern New Jersey is the first low-floor articulated DMU (Diesel Multiple Unit) to operate in the US.

[Cotuit]

Yeah I don't think the electrification generalization (LRT = overhead / HRT = 3rd rail) is a good one to make. All of AMTRAK's regional rail on the Northeast Corridor and I believe most of the rest of their network run on overhead electric wires. Furthermore, both LRT and HRT often run with diesel (DMU/RDC) or dual-mode diesel/electric.

[tampasteve]

All of AMTRAK's regional rail on the Northeast Corridor and I believe most of the rest of their network run on overhead electric wires.

[dtown]

Yeah, im quite sure its only the NE Acela line that is overhead electric.

[penisathome]

Amtrak's overhead electric operations are from Boston, Mass to Washington D.C. and from Philadelphia, PA to Harrisburg, PA.

[Snowguy716]

I remember seeing a few diesel trains running in Austria that served rural routes where electrification was just not worth the cost. It was always so weird to see them leave the station, because they belched out a bunch of smoke as they left and didn't get nearly the acceleration that electrified rail got. Also, they were much louder.

[dougmatic]

Won't light rail subways really not be much more cost efficient than heavy rail subways? I always thought that the tunneling costs were a lot greater than the cost of the actual cars. Therefore, light rail subways would save some cost because light rail is cheaper than heavy rail, but the tunneling costs are still there. I'm not saying that it's not cheaper because it is, but not that much cheaper because the majority of the costs are in tunneling.

[Cotuit]

Won't light rail subways really not be much more cost efficient than heavy rail subways? I always thought that the tunneling costs were a lot greater than the cost of the actual cars. Therefore, light rail subways would save some cost because light rail is cheaper than heavy rail, but the tunneling costs are still there. I'm not saying that it's not cheaper because it is, but not that much cheaper because the majority of the costs are in tunneling.