The atmospheric railway, the original gadgetbahnen – With appologies to I. K. Brunel
The atmospheric railway can be said to be the first ‘gadgetbahnen’ as it was the first attempt to replace regular railway locomotives with atmospheric trains. On paper, the atmospheric railway was a sure winner but in revenue service a failure. What surprises myself is that this complicated transit mode ever worked at all, as the Dalkey atmospheric railway operated forAi??Ai??just overAi??Ai??a decade (29 March, 1844 to 12 April, 1854 !
Those who fail to read transportation history are doomed to repeat the same expensive mistakes!
The following is from Exeter Memories.com
Ai??Ai??http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/atmospheric_railway.php
The concept behind an atmospheric or vacuum railway was simple. Instead of a conventional steam engine, the railway would have stationary engines at either end. A pipe ran down the middle of the rails, and the lead carriage had a piston head that fitted into this pipe. The engines would generate a vacuum in the pipe by use of suction, and the pressure change would pull the carriages from one end of the line to the other.
Theoretically this should produce a cost saving, as the engines need not move their own weight or carry fuel with them.
The Dalkey Railway
Brunel’s interest was probably peaked by the Dalkey railway in Ireland. A test for atmospheric pressure, the railway only used the pressure uphill with the downhill stretch powered by gravity.
The speeds it was capable of were highlighted in an incident. During a test, the motive carriage (the carriage with the piston) was not coupled to the train by accident. When the train was triggered it made the ascent in 1 minute fifteen seconds, at an average speed of eighty-four miles an hour. The terrified engineering student Frank Ebrington, who was the only passenger, was helped out at the far end unharmed but rather stunned. Mr. Ebrington could be considered, at the time,Ai??Ai??the fastest man in the world!
The problems with the concept
As Ebrington’s adventure proved, one of the other problems was that those in the train were being driven by people running an engine several miles away, with no idea of local conditions and at that time, no way to let them know of a problem. Also because of trains’ varying weights, the pressure needed would vary, and sometimes trains would stop short of the station or hit the buffers with a bone-rattling impact.
To drive this required huge steam engines. These would have been a fairly standard design, but Brunel was pushing the limits of engineering again, and there were frequent problems.
Creating the South Devon Railway
He persuaded the GWR board that the average life of a locomotive was only ten years, and that the stationary engines would last longer. This must not have sat well with Gooch, whose “North Star” engine worked for almost fifty years and eventually outlived the Broad Gauge rails it ran on. However since installing the pumping engines took longer than expected, Gooch’s engines ended up pulling the first trains on the rails.
Part of the problem was the length of the railway. The pipes for the centre all had to be of an exact diameter, with a slot running down them in exactly the same place. With Victorian methods this precision was not easy to achieve repeatedly over enough components to complete the route. The slots were sealed with overlapping pieces of leather to prevent the loss of pressure but permit the motive piston to pass through. At each joint the pipe rivets were reinforced with caulked yarn to prevent the air entering. Valves were needed at each station, level crossing, pumping station and more.
Ai??Ai??Water in the pipes from rain of condensation rotted leather and affected the seal. A breakdown in the pumping station prevented any train moving on the line, and the entire system depended on a perfect air-tight seal for miles. A nudged or misaligned valve and the trains came to a halt. In winter the leather seals in the slots froze solid.
By June 1848, the increased cost of coal, and maintenance, incurred a loss for the previous six months, of Ai??A?2,487. The actual running cost was more than 7 pence per mile higher than a locomotive hauled railway. Brunel discovered that each pumping engine required almost three times the power that he first calculated to exhaust the pipe, primarily due to leakage.
Plans were made to improve the system to prevent failure in the future and reduce running costs. A rubber valve was ordered, and the feasibility of galvanizing the valve was investigated, to prevent corrosion. The cost was estimated at Ai??A?1,160 per mile of some Ai??A?25,000 in total.
However, by August, the directors of the railway were becoming impatient with Brunel, and indeed, Brunel was becoming disillusioned with the project. Brunel had submitted a verbal report to the directors on 1 August when he outlined the difficulties so far encountered with the system. He considered that virtually the whole of the valve would need replacing, a job that would take a year, and that the underpowered pumping engines would need a good deal of work to upgrade them. As a consequence, he did not recommend that the atmospheric working be extended beyond Newton Abbot, and recommended that the expense of putting the system right could not be justified, unless Samuda would guarantee the works.
Closure
On 29 August, the Board of the South Devon Railway Company decided that atmospheric working would cease on the 9 September. From that date steam locomotives replaced the pumping houses, and the atmospheric equipment sold off. One pumping engine found its way to a lead mine near Ashburton, and some of the pipe was used to drain the marshes of Goodrington for the Dartmouth and Torbay Railway Company. The only reminder of Brunel’s Atmospheric Caper is the engine house at Starcross. Nothing can be found of the pumping houses at Turf and Countess Wear, although the Exeter St David’s pumping house had a water tower added to it before it was removed quite recently.
Brunel was heavily criticized by the board of the South Devon Railway, some of whom had questioned the fees that Brunel had negotiated. Brunel countered this charge by stating that he had reduced the fee for his workmen on the system, had not taken his own Ai??A?6,000 fee and had lost Ai??A?20,000 of his own money which had been invested in the venture.
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Sources – The South Devon Railway by R H Gregory, Exeter to Newton Abbot by Mitchell and Smith, and the Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by I Brunel (son of IKB)
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Why we built with LRT – first published in December 2008, updated August 17, 2009
The following was first published in December 2008 and is being reproduced here because of popular demand.
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What is Light Rail Transit or more commonly known as LRT?
According to the Light Rail Transit Association (www.lrta.org) Light rail is a mode that can deal economically with traffic flows of between 2,000 and 20,000 passengers per hour per direction, thus effectively bridging the gap between the maximum flow that can be dealt with using buses and the minimum that justifies a metro. But there is more, by track-sharing with existing railways on their rights-of-ways, means that LRT can effectively and affordably service less populated areas, with rail public transport.
Streetcars are also light rail, but operate on-street, in mixed traffic, with little or no signal priority at intersections. The main difference between LRT and a streetcar is the quality of rights-of-way, where a streetcar operates on-street, LRT operates on a reserved rights-of-way or a route that is reserved for the sole purpose of the light rail vehicle. An excellent example for a reserved rights-of-way is the Arbutus Corridor. Ai??Ai??A reserved rights-of-way can be as simple as a HOV lane with rails, to a lawned park like route with trees, hedges and flowerbeds.
LRT, in itA?ai??i??ai???s various forms is used in over 600 cities around the world and is the first choice of transit planners for affordable, customer friendly public transport. The German city of Karlsruhe (City population 275,285) has taken light rail to a new standard, by track sharing with mainline railways and operating, what is called tramtrains. In Karlsruhe, one can board a tram, on-street, on the pavement and alight, on-street in Ohringen some 210km (130 mile) later, with the tram acting as a streetcar, light rail vehicle and a passenger train! KarlsruheA?ai??i??ai???s light rail network now extends over 400 km. (250+ mile) of route, servicing scores of small towns and villages with high quality public transit at very little cost simply because the tram can use existing railway tracks.
This new form of light rail is now called TramTrain and is used in over 10 cities around the world and is being planned for, in almost 20 more.
In British Columbia, TramTrain can be a useful tool for implementing a high quality A?ai??i??E?railA?ai??i??ai??? transit service, not only in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, but in Victoria (E & N Railway) and the Kelowna/Vernon rail corridor as well. The question is: Why does TransLink and the BC government reject modern LRT out of hand and continue to build with dated SkyTrain light metro?
The last of the interurbans #2 – Mason City, Iowa: Iowa Traction Railroad
The following is from Jon Bell’s web site. Jon Bell is anAi??Ai??Associate Professor Department of Physics and Computer ScienceAi??Ai??Presbyterian CollegeAi??Ai??Clinton, South Carolina 29325 USA
Although the Iowa Traction Railroad (IATR) hasn’t carried passengers since 1936, I’ve included it on this site because it is a link to a mode of electric passenger transport that was once common in the United States, especially in the Midwest (basically the region extending from Ohio westward to Iowa). The IATR is one of the last surviving electric interurban railroads in the U. S., and the only one that still uses electric locomotives to haul freight in regular service. (The East Troy Electric Railroad in Wisconsin also hauls freight, but only occasionally, on demand.)
The IATR extends about ten miles from Mason City westward to Clear Lake, running mostly as a single-track line next to the north side of Cerro Gordo county road B35 (19th Street SW in Mason City). A half-mile branch in Mason City connects it to the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad which runs parallel to the north. It also connects to the Union Pacific Railroad via a short interchange track at a crossing with that railroad. The IATR’s office and shops are at the hamlet of Emery, about halfway between Mason City and Clear Lake on road B35.
The IATR began life as the Mason City & Clear Lake Railway on 4 July 1897. At first, it did good business carrying passengers to the resort town of Clear Lake, who arrived in Mason City on steam railroads. It even carried passenger cars switched from those railroads, to provide a one-seat ride. As automobiles became common, this traffic decreased, and passenger service ended in 1936.
However, like several other Iowa interurbans (and unlike most interurbans elsewhere), the MC&CL had a solid base of freight traffic, switching carload freight between steam (later diesel) railroads and online customers. In 1950, new owners changed the name from “Railway” to “Railroad.” In 1961, the line changed hands again and was renamed the Iowa Terminal Railroad (ITR). The ITR acquired another nearby interurban, the Charles City Western Railway, which ended electric operations in 1968 after a tornado destroyed much of the overhead wire, and was abandoned completely some years later. Finally, in 1987 the remaining ex-MC&CL line was sold one more time, to David Johnson, its present owner, who gave it its present name.
The current working equipment consists of four small electric “steeplecab” locomotives built 1917-1923 by the Baldwin-Westinghouse partnership. The IATR’s predecessors acquired them secondhand from other interurban railroads. I think these are the only locomotives of their type that still “work for a living,” and are not part of a museum operation.
http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/MasonCity/
From Charlie Smith & The Georgia Straight – Canada Line subsidy will be felt for years to come
Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight is probably the regions best reporter on transit issues as he has researched SkyTrain and all other transit issues for almost two decades and his insight to RAV andAi??Ai??SkyTrain issues clearly demonstrate this. What is not mentioned is that RAV will drain money away from the bus system, simply because TransLink will skim bus fares as RAV fares. In the real world of transit operations, when transit customers transfer from bus to metro or LRT, the fare is apportioned between the modes. Example if a $4.00 fare is paid and the transit customer uses bus then transfers to metro/LRT, the $4.00 fare is apportioned $2.00 for bus and $2.00 for metro/LRT. If the transit customer transfers once again tom a bus the apportioned fare should be $2.66 for buses and $1.34 for metro.
TransLink doesn’t apportion fares but collects fares in one pot and will give RAV the full fare, leaving the buses short. The same trick is used on SkyTrain, where 80% of SkyTrain ridership first take a bus to the metro, andAi??Ai??has hobbled the bus system, creating large deficits, while at the same time TransLink makes the claim that SkyTrain fares are covering operating costs. One wonders how a subsidizedAi??Ai??metro system can claim that itAi??Ai??pays its operating costs, when in fact it is subsidized?
The present SkyTrain system is subsidized by over $200 million annually and no doubt the RAV line will also be subsidized for the lifetime of the metro system.
Canada Line subsidy will be felt for years to come
By Charlie Smith
The 19-kiliometre Canada Line will open with great political fanfare on Monday (August 17).
The public will be allowed to ride for free from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. on the line, which runs from Waterfront Station to Richmond Centre and to the airport.
But that’s when the free ride will end. TransLink has already acknowledged that it might takeAi??Ai??until 2013Ai??Ai??before the Canada Line generates 100,000 riders per day.
AndAi??Ai??that could beAi??Ai??bad news for taxpayers and transit riders.
InTransit B.C. Limited Partnership, which is the private operator, has signed a 35-year deal with TransLink. And TransLink has guaranteed to subsidize Canada Line ridership shortfalls of less than 100,000 per day.
If TransLink, as a publicly funded body, wants to maintain public trust, it should report this subsidy on a quarterly basis.
TransLink is seeking an additional $450 million per year to enhance the transportation system.Ai??Ai??If it gets its wish, thereAi??Ai??will be new vehicle-registration chargesAi??Ai??as well asAi??Ai??tolls on Metro Vancouver bridges, including those connecting Vancouver to the North Shore.
TransLink had better hope that the peak-oil theorists are wrong. Because if they’re correct, it will hit the transportation authority in three ways:
* Airport traffic will diminish, reducing ridership on the Canada Line.
* Rising fuel prices will cause people to curtail driving, which will reduce the amount of fuel taxes (12 cents a litre) rolling into TransLink’s coffers.
* Fewer people will be driving over tolled bridges including the Golden Ears Bridge. In the latter case, TransLink will have to offset this by providing greater subsidies to the private operator, just like it will do with the Canada Line if airport traffic diminishes.
The Canada Line is a primary reason whyAi??Ai??TransLink is in a financial pinch. I can recall two municipal politicians–Vision Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie and former North Vancouver City mayor Barbara Sharp–voting in favour of the line in 2004 after a motion passed calling for a $1.35-billion cap on public financing.
The $1.35-billion figure is obviousAi??Ai??fiction after the operating subsidies are included in the equation.
Louie and Sharp cavedAi??Ai??in the face ofAi??Ai??pressure from the Vancouver Board of Trade, the Vancouver Sun editorial board, the Vancouver Airport Authority, and the provincial and federalAi??Ai??governments, which all wanted the line built.
If drivers, homeowners, and transit riders all end up payingAi??Ai??a great deal more in the coming years, they can lay part of the blame on Louie and Sharp.
But they weren’t the only TransLink directors responsible. Senator Larry Campbell, former SurreyAi??Ai??mayor Doug McCallum, Surrey councillor Marvin Hunt, former Langley City mayor Marlene Grinnell, Richmond mayor Malcom Brodie, and former Coquitlam mayor Jon Kingsbury all voted in favour of the Canada Line.Ai??Ai??
It’s worth noting that LarryAi??Ai??Campbell’s friend, SFU criminologist Neil Boyd, cast the deciding vote at the regional board in favour of a $4-billion plan that helped finance TransLink’s contribution. At the time, Boyd represented Bowen Island on the regional board.
If the Bowen Island council had left the then-mayor Lisa Barrett on the board, the transportation plan likely would never have been passed because Barrett was a staunch opponent of building the Canada LineAi??Ai??as a P3 project. Barrett, now a Bowen Island councillor, also didn’t believe the earlyAi??Ai??forecasts that 100,000 people would be riding the Canada Line in 2009.
Because of a seeminglyAi??Ai??insignificant decision–replacing a regional board director in a tinyAi??Ai??island municipality that had one vote at Metro Vancouver–the public might end up paying much higher transportation costs in the future.
http://www.straight.com/article-247732/canada-line-subsidy-will-be-felt-years-come
From the Guardian News Paper – A transport tax would get us moving
The following is from the Guardian.co.uk and is worthy of debate.
A Transport tax would get us moving
We should take a leaf out of France’s book and ask employers to help rehabilitate our ailing transport system
Rob Williams
In many European countries, there is an understanding that transport is important to a modern economy. Here in Britain, transport might occasionally become a key issue when petrol prices shoot up and the government doesn’t reduce fuel duty quickly enough, or when the trains grind to a complete halt A?ai??i??ai??? but that’s not enough.
It’s now two years since one of the two consortiums involved in the public private partnership project to renew the London underground collapsed, leaving Transport for London with a hefty bill and Gordon Brown with egg on his face.
Funding of the rest of the tube upgrade work remains uncertain and there are continuing doubts about the Tories’ commitment to building London’s Crossrail. Although construction started in May, there is still uncertainty about whether this project will ever be completed.
In other parts of the country, notably Leeds, Liverpool and Portsmouth, proposed tram schemes were scrapped by the Labour government, after millions of pounds had been spent developing the plans, in large part because of the uncertainties about costs and funding. If funding was one of the main impediments A?ai??i??ai??? even before the credit crunch A?ai??i??ai??? to providing a public transport system fit for the 21st century, then maybe we should look across the Channel to see why the French have one of the best local transport networks in the world. Those who gain from a good public transport should pay something towards it. As the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) says, “employers and retailers both gain from the provision of public transport services which give them access to a wider labour market and retail market respectively”. The most important source of funding for local public transport projects in France is the versement transport (transport tax), or VT for short.
The tax, which applies only to companies with more than nine employees, takes up to 1% of their payroll. The rate may be increased if the transport authority plans to implement, or has already implemented, a service A?ai??i??ai??? metro, tramway or busway. In those cases, the rate may be raised to 1.75% (and higher in the Ile de France/Paris region) and so is designed to take more from larger employers. Since 1992 all French transport regions with more than 20,000 inhabitants have had the right to introduce the VT. This tax can only be used for public transport investment, and can also help to pay operational costs.
As a report for the Passenger Transport Executive Group said, the amount of locally generated fundingAi??Ai?? can be staggering: “As an example, the local transport authority in Lyon A?ai??i??ai??? a city roughly the size of greater Sheffield A?ai??i??ai??? applied a VT rate of 1.63% in 1999, which generated over Ai??A?105m for investment and operations of public transport in that year alone.”
Most importantly, the VT contributes to long-term stability in public transport funding, which we do not have in the UK. Studies in France have confirmed that the VT does not have a significant effect on labour costs, nor on company location. It has a very limited taxation impact (less than 1% of the overall French tax burden). It is a powerful tool for financing and developing public transport in France, which is why the VT has been introduced in more than 85% of urban areas. Almost 40% of the costs of public transport in France are financed by the VT.
In the UK, governments have consistently failed to grasp the fact that an integrated transport policy is a major element of urban development and regeneration. Few, if any, leading politicians fully understand that good public transport facilities can improve social mobility, enabling people in poorer areas travel to work in more prosperous parts of their region.
Good transport links are also crucial to the prosperity of private companies. In London, the City’s workforce is almost wholly dependent on public transport to get them to and from the office. Growth and international competitiveness are dependent upon good transport infrastructure.
Despite the credit crunch, the UK, and especially London, is awash with money. Companies in the City regularly state that without improvements in public transport, they may be forced to relocate elsewhere.
This is surely an opportunity for Lord Adonis, a transport minister who actually seems to have a vision, to demand that employers around the country put their money into the pot, and make a real contribution to getting our cities moving again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/16/transport-tax-france-uk
The SkyTrain lobby – "Pixie Dust planning"
One finds it interesting how the SkyTrain lobby warps the truth to suit it’s own ends. What the SkyTrain lobby is really saying is that; “We completely discount over oneAi??Ai??hundred and fifty yearsAi??Ai??of rail/light rail/metro development, to support a unconventional, proprietary railway.” That only seven such systems have been built (actually there are two types of SkyTrain systems, the old UTDC ICTS/ALRT system and Bombardier’s updated ART system), with two of the systems, Vancouver’s SkyTrain and Toronto’s Scarborough Line, being forced upon the operating authority by senior governments, is testament of the non-popularity of the light metro. The SkyTrain version that has managed a few sales is Bombardier’s ART light-metro system, which has been sold as a “prestigious” airport people moversAi??Ai??or fun-fair transit system and only Kuala Lumpur operates a ART system as a regionalAi??Ai??metro system, along side both conventional light-metro and monorail.
The UBC SkyTrain boys and girls take umbrage with RFV posting of a letter sent to various news papers, so let’s have a look what they say.
First of all, once again, there are many cities in the world with A?ai??i??Ai??SkyTrainA?ai??i??A? technology (or A?ai??i??Ai??SkyTrain-likeA?ai??i??A? technology, fully grade separated systems like the Canada Line). Ai??Ai??A full list of the cities can be found on our website. Ai??Ai?? It is known that SkyTrain is marginally more expensive compared to conventional rail and LRT, but there are many benefits with SkyTrain technology. Ai??Ai??In fact, BombardierA?ai??i??ai???s SkyTrain is the front runner for HonoluluA?ai??i??ai???s upcoming metro system. It is heavily based on the SkyTrain system inAi??Ai??Vancouver, due to the lower capital costs.
As mentioned previously, there are only seven cities that have built with theAi??Ai??SkyTrain ICTS/ALRT/ART system, overAi??Ai??a 30 year span.
SkyTrain can cost up to ten times more to install (TTC ARTS Study) than light rail. When compared to other North American Light Rail systems, SkyTrain cost 2 to 5 times more to install and operating costs for ALRT/ART are higher than comparable LRT systems.
This isAi??Ai??Honolulu’s second attempt to build with SkyTrain as the first attempt collapsed due to massive cost of the light-metro. One doubts that SkyTrain will be built in Honolulu, especially when politicians have just found that the costs quoted in Vancouver for SkyTrain were direct costs only, not total costs which is the norm in the USA. The same issue sunk the Seattle Monorail project. It also must be remembered that Honolulu’s planners want an elevated system, yet their projected ridership numbers do not warrant such an expense.
The projected ridership for the Canada Line is 100 000 passengers per day. Ai??Ai??There is a need for a reliable, high capacity, and high frequency rapid transit connection between downtown Vancouver and Richmond City Centre and the ridership on the suburban bus routes along. The ridership on the 98 B-Line, serving the same corridor as the Canada Line (and in which the Canada Line was built to parallel), clearly shows this. There is a reason why the 98 B-Line is one of the busiest bus routes in the region with the second highest ridership levels, second only to the 99 B-Line. Both are express services that rival the speed of other transportation modes along their corridors.
The projected ridership for the Canada line is pure ‘pixie dust’, as it assumes that almost three times more people from Richmond, South Delta & Surrey will use transit to Vancouver than presently do and is not based on scientific assessment, rather it is a political guesstimate.
Yet when the 98-B Line bus was instituted in Richmond, ridership dropped from what the old 403, 402, and 401 bus routes withAi??Ai??directAi??Ai??services to Vancouver, carried. Again the SkyTrain lobby ignores the singular fact that forced transfers deters ridership.
The Canada Line is expensive, but will be worth it in the long run as it puts Vancouver in a competitive economical advantage over most North American cities that donA?ai??i??ai???t have a metro connection to the airport.
This comment is absolutely silly, if the author took time to investigate; in North America, rapid transit systems that connect to the airport, including Chicago and San Fransisco, see little ridership.
The Ministry of Transportation has made it clear that road tolls would not be implemented on existing road infrastructure. Ai??Ai??While TransLink has suggested its implementation, there are no concrete plans. Ai??Ai??It will also be difficult for TransLink to implement these as most of the regionA?ai??i??ai???s roads and bridges are under Ministry of Transportation jurisdiction and not TransLink.
Oh yes and the premier who runs the Ministry of Transport, promised not to sell BC Rail, nor implement the HST. Again, this statement shows the naivetA?Ai?? of the author.
The Canada Line may be costly to extend and expand, but that is with all transit infrastructure. Ai??Ai??Taking a car will not be faster than taking a bus plus the additional transfer at Bridgeport. Ai??Ai??Currently, busing from Richmond to Downtown takes about 45 minutes during most hours of the day. With the bus integration effective on September 7th, the new transfer will take about 5 minutes for an average person to walk from the bus loop up to the platform. Ai??Ai??Assuming one just misses a train at Bridgeport, the next train will arrive in 3 minutes during peak hours. Ai??Ai??It takes 19 minutes to SkyTrain from Bridgeport to Waterfront Stn. Ai??Ai??Total time on transit with the transfer from Richmond takes 27 minutes, 18 minutes faster than bus, not counting the the 10 minute wait for Oak Street Bridge. Ai??Ai??And with a shortened route for south of Fraser express buses, it enabled TransLink to run a higher frequency for these routes with more buses running on a shorter route, and without having to deal with the congestion on the bridges and roads into Vancouver nor the congestion in Downtown.
Again, the author discounts the great cost differences for LRT and SkyTrain. Sorry, taking the car will be faster and more convenient as studies have shown that for residents in South Delta and South Surrey, being forced to take RAV will increase average journey time, especially off-peak,Ai??Ai??which isAi??Ai??hardly a good selling point. Again, I must remind theAi??Ai??SkyTrain lobbyAi??Ai??it is not the speed of the ‘rapid transit’ that attracts customers but the speed and ease of the entire journey; RAV. with forced transfers whichAi??Ai??will not be an attractive alternative.
Unless buses feeding RAV run on the same frequencies as RAV, they will not be competitive with the car. Your numbers are misleading as your 5 minute transfer time is not realistic. Most car drivers would spend another 15 minutes in their car rather than take a bus, transfer to RAV and transfer again to another bus. RAV is just not a competitive alternative to the car.
It is is absolutely false that subways require 400,000 to 500,000 boardings per day to justify its existence. Capacity of subway systems, or rather ALL rail systems, is dependent on the frequency of trains, the size of trains, and most importantly the ultimate platform size of trains. It has NOTHING to do with train infrastructure being built underground. Many underground systems have been built to deal with ridership less than 500,000 boardings per day.
Actually it’s not false but very accurate that a subway needs 400,000 to 500,000 passengers a day to justify the investment. The figure comes from UBC Professor Condon but it is also illustrated by the fact that subways are avoided at all costs due to high costs. You can build a subway with less ridership potential, but be expected to pay higher subsidies to support it. Finally your comment is illogical, for if a subway was viable for ridership flows of 100,000 a day, more cities would be burrowing underground.
Just to remind you, Capacity is a function of headway and the following illustrates the capacity of RAV, SkyTrain and LRT at 90 second headways.
Cap. of 3 Calgary LRV’s (capacity 175 /car)Ai??Ai??- 90 second headways: 23,625
Cap. of 6 Mk.1 ALRT cars (Capacity 75/car) – 90 sec. headways: 20,250
Cap. of 4 ART cars (Capacity 110/car) – 90 sec. headways: 19,800
Cap. of 2Ai??Ai??ROTEM cars (Capacity of 163 per car) – 90 sec. headways: 14,670
Cap. of a 3Ai??Ai??ROTEM carsAi??Ai??(Capacity 163 per car)Ai??Ai??- 90 sec. headways: 22,005
And finally, to suggest that these subways, or our own SkyTrain and Canada Line, are heavily subsidized would be equivalent to saying it did not cost a penny to build them in the first place.
But you refuse to admit that they are subsidized and try to pretend that they are not.
While it was unfortunate that the Canada Line was built using cut-and-cover construction, the actual cost of cut-and-cover and bored tunnel isnA?ai??i??ai???t as significant as it really is: in fact, a bored tunnel is only marginally more expensive. Ai??Ai??Cut-and-cover was used to guarantee the completion of the Canada Line system before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Ai??Ai??In the end, we have a rapid transit link that arrived three months ahead of schedule. Ai??Ai??However, TransLink did not switch construction methods. Ai??Ai??It was assumed that the Canada Line would have been built using tunnel boring machines while the construction methodology had always been up to the bidding consortium’s.
And if we had built with LRT instead, we could have had it in operation two years ago, your argument is without foundation.
The lawsuit by Cambie St. merchant, Susan Heyes, was not just against TransLink, but also the private company which will be operating the Canada Line. Ai??Ai?? The cost of the lawsuit is split between the two, meaning less burden on taxpayers. Ai??Ai??The case is being appealed. It is unfortunate that many merchants suffered from construction, but at the same time merchants should remember they will benefit from the Canada Line down the road.
PassengersAi??Ai??in subways do not see surfaceAi??Ai??stores and restaurantsAi??Ai??and do not get off trains to patronize them. The opposite is true for light rail, where merchants adjacent to the LRT line see about a 10% increase in business once the line opens. Your comments are disingenuous.
The cost ofAi??Ai??theAi??Ai??project soared due to inflated materials prices and the cost of labour. The $1.3-billion figure was first pushed around when the project was first proposed in 2002, and surely you wouldA?ai??i??ai???t ignore the fact that there was a wide gap between the date of when the project was proposed and the date of when construction actually started: higher construction costs are to be expected. Ai??Ai??
The costs soared because the costs for subway construction were deliberately misleading from the start! The switch from SkyTrain to a generic metro was done to save the cost of over 40 km. ofAi??Ai??the expensive reaction rail needed for the Linear Induction Motors.
The Canada Line is not half the capacity of the proposed light rail system on Arbutus. Ai??Ai??The ultimate capacity of the Canada Line is 15 000 passengers per hour per direction, which is the capacity of the current Expo Line during peak hours. Ai??Ai?? Yes, the trains on the Canada Line are short, but they are also wide and can carry 400 passengers at crush-load capacity and can handle an addition hundred passengers with a third A?ai??i??Ai??C-carA?ai??i??A?.
Actually the capacity of a Canada Line car is 163 passengers, using the industry standard of all seat occupied and standees @ 4 persons per m/2; the figure of 200 per car is derived at crush loading, all seats occupied and standees @ 6 persons m/2. Do the math, even with the third car, the RAV LineAi??Ai??barely matchAi??Ai??LRT’s capacity of over 20,000 persons per hour per direction.
Ai??Ai??In addition, more trains can be added to the Canada Line; the control system can handle a train every 90 seconds, just like our current SkyTrain. Ai??Ai??LRT cannot do that because itA?ai??i??ai???s not automated. Ai??Ai??Furthermore, LRT cannot be faster than current Canada Line unless it was built with metro standards, being fully segregated from traffic. Ai??Ai??As stated in the City of VancouverAi??Ai??technicalAi??Ai??study completed Ai??Ai??in 1999, SkyTrain, or in our case, the Canada Line, will have an average speed of 35 km/hr, 10 km/hr higher than LRT. Ai??Ai??Just looking at the shorter trains is simply shallow-thinking.
You are dead wrong here. Light rail can operate at 30 second headways, and do it day in and day out on scores of LRT operations around the world. Actually LRT can operate at a faster commercial speed than metro if it is designed to. RAV faster commercial speeds come from sacrificing stations along the line. By your logic, having no intermediate stations and an extremely fast metro line would attract hundreds of thousands of riders – NOT! Obviously you haven’t done any research on transit and your lack of knowledge on the subject is telling.
The Arbutus corridor is also a longer route that would have increased travel times to upwards of 30-minutes. The route also lacks employment centres needed to attain ridership (On Cambie you have: Central Broadway business district, City Hall, VGH and medical campus, future hospital and developments at 33rd Avenue, ChildrenA?ai??i??ai???s Hospital, Oakridge Centre which will be redeveloped, and Langara Colleg. Cambie is also near the centre of the city, unlike Arbutus. Arbutus only the has western tip of Central Broadway and Kerrisdale for employment centres).
You overstate the employment centres as hospitals, with nurses and staff working odd shifts and 12 hour days are not good transit revenue generators. The real question about employment centre is how many people working at those employment centre, live near RAV to use it?
The Arbutus route had the higher density and the many shops spread along it’s route would have also been good revenue generators, a fact ignored by RAVCo. & Co. Again you confuseAi??Ai??commercial speed with journey speed; a slightly longer trip, serving more destinations, may have attracted more customers.
Not so sure how the carbon tax or HST has anything to do with the Canada Line, but now that it is brought up, the carbon tax simply encourages people to consume less, which leads to more public transit users. Ai??Ai??How is that a bad thing? Ai??Ai??The HST has nothing to do with the ridership, cost, or success of the Canada Line.
Actually the HST has a lot to do with the RAV and Evergreen Lines as the provincial government needs the extra revenue to pay for their hugely expensive transportation projects, your ignorance of this is nothing short than appalling.
We believe the Canada Line is a crucial transportation link to Metro Vancouver and puts us in an advantage to many cities. Ai??Ai??World-class cities all have metro links to the airport, namely London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and San Francisco, not light rail. Ai??Ai??Vancouver would be the first city in Canada to have rail infrastructure to the airport, let alone a metro line instead of LRT, and the second city in the North American west coast with a metro to the airport, behind San Francisco and the successful BART system.
What foolish nonsenseAi??Ai??which smacks of ‘penis envy’. Vancouver doesn’t have the population as Tokyo, hong Kong and San Fransisco to support a metro, let alone a metro connection to the airport. did you know that BART line to San Francisco’s airport carries a mere 10,000 a day?
Just for the record, the Canada Line is designed with the Millennium Line extension in mind, built as SkyTrain, as there are provisions for a future underground Cambie Station for the Millennium Line with connections to the Canada Line station.
Again, more nonsense as RAV and SkyTrain are non-compatible and will not be able to provide direct service, which is proven to attract ridership! Anyone one can build underground stations next to each other if they are willing to spend the money on it.
I will remind the SkyTrain lobby once again Gerald Fox’s (noted U.S. transit expert) comments on the Evergreen SkyTrain Line;
“IA?ai??i??ai???ve no desire to get drawn into the Vancouver transit wars, and, anyway, most of the rest of the world has moved on. To be fair, there are clear advantages in keeping with one kind of rail technology, and in through-routing service at Lougheed. But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.
Ai??Ai??It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding. In the US, all new transit projects that seek federal support are now subjected to scrutiny by a panel of transit peers, selected and monitored by the federal government, to ensure that projects are analyzed honestly, and the taxpayersA?ai??i??ai??? interests are protected. No SkyTrain project has ever passed this scrutiny in the US.”
The last of the interurbans #1 – East Troy, Wisconsin: The East Troy Electric Railroad
The following is from Jon Bell’s web site. Jon Bell is anAi??Ai??Associate Professor Department of Physics and Computer ScienceAi??Ai??Presbyterian CollegeAi??Ai??Clinton, South Carolina 29325 USA
AlthoughAi??Ai??the East Troy Electric RailroadAi??Ai??is mainly a museum and excursion operation, the East Troy Electric Railroad is also one of only two common-carrier railroads in the United States that still haul freight using the low-voltage DC electric interurban railway technology of the early 20th century. (The other one is the Iowa Traction Railroad in Mason City, Iowa.) It thereby qualifies as one of the last electric interurban railways in the U.S.
The village of East Troy is about 35 miles southwest of Milwaukee. From 1907 to 1939 it was the terminus of one of the interurban electric railroad lines of the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co. (TMER&L). When TMER&L abandoned this line beyond Hales Corners in 1939, the village bought the 6.4-mile section between East Troy and Mukwonago, in order to preserve freight service for local businesses. The village continued freight-only operation, using electric locomotives to haul freight cars between East Troy and a junction with the Soo Line Railroad at Mukwonago.
Beginning in the early 1970s, the Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society operated a museum service on the line, but they were forced to close in 1983. In 1985, the Wisconsin Trolley Museum started a new museum operation, under the name East Troy Electric Railroad, and took over operation of the freight service from the village of East Troy. In 1995, the museum bought the line from the village. It still operates freight service on demand, but there haven’t been many freight movements in recent years.
http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/EastTroy/
A letter to the Editor the Vancouver Sun will not print
The following letter to the Editor of the Vancouver SunAi??Ai??was sent to Zweisystem because the author knows full well that the Can West media Empire will not print it. What this letter shows that the region is bereft of any credible transit and transportation reporters and many important and embarrassing stories are missed by the mainstream media. Isn’t about time that Vancouver’s two dailies stop being cheerleaders for the status quo and start investigating real transit stories.
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Today’s editorial praising the RAV/Canada Line was predictable; the Vancouver Sun supported this behemoth since its inception.
Sadly, the paper has done its readers a disservice as the Canada Line metro/subway is the epitome of failed transit philosophy from the 1950’s. Has the Sun’s Editorial Board ever noticed that no one is building with SkyTrain and very few with metro? Ever wonder why?
Metro/subways are never planned for unless projected ridership on the line exceeds 400,000 to 500,000 a day. If a metro line does not carry such numbers it must be heavily subsidized; the fewer the passengers the higher the subsidy! Higher subsidies translates into road tolls and higher property taxes.
But there is more. Subways have proven very poor in attracting new ridership and the Canada Line may very well force more people into cars.
The Canada Line is too costly to be extended and as designed will only offer faster journey times to those who live and work near RAV stations. For many, taking the car will be faster than taking a bus transferring to RAV at Casino Junction and possibly transferring to another bus to complete their journey.
One can lose upwards of 70% of potential ridership per transfer.
A metro system’s speed does not attract ridership itself, rather it is the speed of the overall journey that is important. Studies have shown that RAV will increase journey times for most current bus customers, who will lose their direct ‘Express’ buses and be forced to transfer onto the metro.
According to the group DoRav Right, who did an independent audit of the RAV/Canada Line, the cost was near $2.5 billion, not the $2 billion quoted by the BC Liberal Government.
The Canada Line P-3 was a charade and the consortium which built the subway used cheap foreign labour and a ‘bait & switch’ from bored tunnel to cheaper cut-and-cover subway construction. The recent successful action by Cambie St. merchant, Susan Heyes, against TransLink, may wipe out any cost savings the switch as more merchants are now suing TransLink. At no time did the consortium assume risk on RAV, as the taxpayer will soon find out.
The sad fact about the RAV/Canada Line, as its costs soared above the original estimate of $1.3 billion, the scope of the project was greatly reduced. As built, RAV/Canada Line has roughly half the capacity of a light rail line built down Cambie St. or the dreaded Arbutus Corridor. To bring the RAV metro up to just LRT’s capabilities, one would have to invest at least another billion dollars and do the cut-and-cover thing all over again on Cambie St.!
What the RAV/Canada Line really is, is a hugely expensive, politically prestigious, under built metro system, like a cheap Xmas train-set, that will fail to attract sufficient patronage to justify its construction.
And one wonders why TransLink is in such financial peril and Campbell has forced the phony ‘carbon’ or gas tax and HST onto the public?
Light Rail Committee
Box 105, Delta, BC
V4K 3N5
Kassel, Germany invests in tram train. Will Gordon Campbell’s government do the same for the valley?
Ai??Ai??
What Zweisystem would like readers to note is the the cost of the 122km or 75.8 mile Kassel Tram-Train projectAi??Ai??was CAD $278.55! The same amount of money will roughly buy just over 2 km. of SkyTrain! 75.8 miles is roughly the same distance of the Vancouver to Chilliwack Interurban.
The following is from Railway Technology.com
Key Data
Special Characteristics:
First fleet operation of diesel-electric/electric hybrid vehicles
RegioTrams:
THE PROJECT
To enable better transit between Kassel and its satellite communities, decisions were made in the early 1990s to extend urban services onto lines that had become freight only. The project took on a new dimension following the 1999 study Schiene 21 that was to lead to the connection of DB passenger lines to the Kasseler Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (KVG) tram network.
Prior to the delivery of the RegioTrams ordered in 2001, trials took place on the Kassel-Warburg line using Bombardier-built vehicles leased from SaarbrA?A?cken, another German tram-train operator. In providing frequent services with new stock that allows for more transfer-free journeys, the project is regarded as a key element in the obligation of regional transport authority Nordhessische VerkehrsVerbund (NVV) to the half-million people in its area.
The project cost A?ai??sAi??180m, with an approximate infrastructure/rolling stock proportion of 95/85 shared amongst several partners. Federal and state governments represent the main funding sources (90% of total), with contributions also from local authorities benefiting from the service.
The new mode is designated and marketed as RegioTram, with routes identified RT2 (to Hessich Lichtenau); RT3 (Warburg, Nordrhein-Westfalen); RT4 (Wolfhagen) and RT5 (Melsungen-SA?A?d).
INFRASTRUCTURE
To create what has become a 122km RegioTram network, it was necessary to add new track totalling 10km. Signalling has been modified to account for higher frequencies. The line west from the Hbf carrying RT3 and RT4 and DB regional services, the HarleshA?Ai??user curve, has had stations added to serve the western suburbs of Kassel.
A key project element was creating a physical link between tram and DB tracks. By re-using part of the tram tunnel that originally ran beneath the Hbf frontage as part of a tram loop, three low-level Hbf platforms for RegioTrams have been created on the south side of the DB terminus tracks.
To restore the tram service at the north-west of the city centre lost to the project, new track was added from Scheidemann-Platz (where RegioTrams join the tram system) to Luther-Platz. RegioTram services have restored importance to the Hauptbahnhof, with RT5 increasing the frequency of links between there and Kassel-WilhelmshA?Ai??he.
ROLLING STOCK
The service is entirely worked by three-car, 75% low floor Alstom Regio Citadis vehicles constructed at Salzgitter, Niedersachsen. Delivered 2004A?ai??i??ai???2005, the air-conditioned fleet consists of two types which are visually near identical. Numbers 701A?ai??i??ai???718 are two-system overhead supply electrics for operation on DB routes (15kV ac) and the Kassel tram system (750V dc). Unlike the trams alongside which they operate, the RegioTrams are bi-directional.
To enable operation to Wolfhagen without disproportionately expensive route re-engineering for electrification, different stock was required. Numbers 751A?ai??i??ai???760 represent a world first in tram fleet operation, fitted with roof-mounted diesel engines to maintain the low floor profile, a hybrid (electro-diesel) for use without an external power supply or through the 750V overhead. The hybrids also are also used as required for routes that are fully wired.
Services are formed of single or double sets. Relative to the two-system electrics, hybrid sets have a reduced standing capacity (127 as opposed to 139) caused by body-side space needed for fuel storage. Both types feature luggage racks and two general-purpose areas to facilitate access for the mobility-impaired and carriage of cycles and prams. The centre car features seating more appropriate to longer journeys. Each set has interior decoration and names drawn from the stories of the Brothers Grimm who settled in Kassel.
THE FUTURE
When the Kassel Hbf connection opened, minor works were still required around the station area. The project stages remaining to 2009 relate to stations on the HarleshA?Ai??user curve, signalling modifications and establishment of a basic 30-minute frequency on RT routes.
Rather than replicate services of DB regional trains over the same routes, the latter now call at fewer stations, enabling faster end-to-end times, with the RegioTrams now serving the intermediate stations.
As with Karlsruhe, Kassel’s tram-train operation has attracted interest from other operators wishing to assess the effectiveness of running vehicles seamlessly between street and railway.
http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/kasseltramtrains/
Mulhouse Light Rail and Tram Train, France: A template for the return of the interurban?
Mulhouse, population 112,260 (2006) isAi??Ai??a small French provincial city that has just built two tram lines but now is expanding their tram service further afield by adding Tram-Train and track sharing with mainline railways. Here, again is another example of small city in Europe, building with LRT and then greatly expandingAi??Ai??tram service via Tram-Train, using existing railway infrastructure. One wonders how many examples of Tram-Train one must show toAi??Ai??TransLink and the provincial transportation ministry, until they get their collective heads out of the sand and start planning for Tram-Train for the Fraser Valley?
Ai??Ai??The following is from SITRAM the operating authority.
A tram-train is a tram designed to run both on the tracks of an urban tramway network and on the existing railways. It allows travel in an extended geographical area without “breaking the journey”, i.e. without changing the method of transport. The Mulhouse tram-train will be the first to be commissioned in France.
The tram-train, also known as an interconnection tramway, will eventually serve some fifteen stations between Kruth and Lutterbach and ten stations on the Mulhouse urban network. This project is sponsored by the Alsace Region with the support of RA?Ai??seau FerrA?Ai?? de France, the SNCF, SITRAM and the Haut-Rhin dA?Ai??partement.
The first tram-train phase concerns public transport services between Mulhouse and Thann St Jacques, due to come into service at the end of 2010. The journey will then be mainly covered by tram-train, running every 20 minutes. This 20 km section will include 18 stops including 7 urban tramway stations in Mulhouse.
Principles of the first phase:
The offer will be regular and transparent in both directions from Mulhouse to Kruth
Services will be increased significantly
Connections will be facilitated in Mulhouse station
Most journey times will be reduced. |
Several infrastructure developments are currently under wayBetween the Stricker roundabout and Lutterbach
Between Lutterbach and North Thann
TheAi??Ai??Tram-Train linewill eventually link the centre of Mulhouse to the municipalities of the Thur valley, over a distance of 37 km. Ai??
The rolling stockTwelve Siemens Avanto tram-train cars have been financed for this scheme by the Alsace Region with the support of SITRAM. A comfortable vehicle with a similar design to the tram, it has higher acceleration/deceleration performance than a standard train:
These 3 characteristics of the tram-train allow a better service for the areas covered, with more frequent stops but also a reduction of the journey time by comparison with traditional trains. The definitive livery selected for the future Mulhouse – Thur valley tram-train was designed by the Spanish graphic designer Peret, who also designed the urban tram livery. The artist had to take into account firstly the graphic identity of the SITRAM trams and buses, and secondly the graphic identity of Alsace TER regional trains. |
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