The apportioned fare – what is it? Will TransLink do it?

In London England, if one wishes to travel from ones residenceAi??Ai??near Morden Road in South London to the City of London Airport in the East end, one would have to travel in three travel zones, taking a CroydonAi??Ai??Tram Link Tram to Wimbledon;Ai??Ai??transferring to a ‘Southwest Trains’ to Waterloo Station;Ai??Ai??transferring again to the Jubilee Tube; and […]

Volk’s Electric Railway, the oldest operating electric railway in the world.

Today, a history lesson on electric railways. The Volk’s Electric Railway (VER) is the oldest operating electric railway in the world (the world’s first electric railway, in Lichterfelde from 1881, no longer operates). It’s a narrow gauge railway that runs along a length of the seafront of the English seaside resort of Brighton, built by […]

Nottingham’s light rail system – a real P-3 project!

The Nottingham (city pop. 275,000) light rail project should be of interest, because it was and is a true example of a P-3 (Public/Private/Partnership), where the operating consortium, Transdev, not only went to the international banks for financing, but assumed all risk. Today, Nottingham’s NET light rail systems, operates at a profit, even after paying […]

The Last of the Interurbans #4 – The Electroliner, the last great Interurban!

The Electroliners were a pair of electric triple articulated interurban train sets operated by the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad, which ran between Chicago, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These streamlined electricAi??Ai??articulated interurban trains were built by St. Louis Car Company in 1941. Each train set carried two numbers, 801-802 and 803-804. Although the Electroliners […]

International News from Tramways & Urban Transit – Alstom wins Brasilia tramway contract

Ai??Ai?? August 19, 2009 Alstom wins Brasilia tramway contract The Brastram consortium, led by Alstom, has won the EUR265m (CAD$409.1 m)Ai??Ai??contract to build the 8.7km phase 1 tramway, designed to reduce car traffic by 30% on the congested Avenida W3 Sul from Asa Sul to 502 Norte. Alstom Citadis trams featuring APS surface current collection […]

The last of the interurbans #3; the last American Interurban – The Chicago, Illinois / South Bend, Indiana: The South Shore Line

The The South Shore Line, operating on both regular railway tracks and on, on-street trackage, is strong evidence that the Fraser Valley could still do the same in 2009 and beyond. In an age of expensive SkyTrain light-metro and even more expensive, glitzy subways like that RAV/Canada line, it is still interesting to noteAi??Ai??that the […]

Tech. stuff for light rail – The LR55 rail system

What is of interest is that the SkyTrain lobby decry any sort of LRT/streetcar installation on Broadway as catastrophic, yet tram tracks can be laid quite quickly, depending on the method used, in Nottingham, penalties were to applied against the contractor, if tram track installation were to directly affect merchants directly adjacent to the construction […]

Tech. stuff for light rail – Single track and interlaced operations

Since the proposed Interurban will run mainly on single track, with passing loops at strategic places, the following U-Tube video is instructive on the relative ease of single track operation. Of course single track operation is a lot cheaper than dual track (which can be added when demand warrants), construction and with an initial one […]

Hong Kong TramwayA?ai??i??ai???s, the wee trams (streetcars) that can!

The following is an updated version of the original January posting. The Hong Kong Tramway’s have reported an increase in ridership to about 280,000 passengers a day for 2008, showing that even little narrow gauge trams can carry large volumes of passengers for a fraction of the cost of a subway like RAV. So when […]

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 […]