# Dallas Light Rail special event testing



## RobertB (Apr 27, 2011)

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Light Rail system is completely separated from all freight systems, except for one non-revenue segment -- the spur to the downtown-area maintenance yard. It's an active freight spur, but not heavily used -- the primary customer is the scrap metal yard which, along with the chicken plant next door, makes the area south of downtown a magnet for development (as in, it repels it completely).

In 2009, DART opened the first segment of the Green Line, and touted the new stop at Fair Park as the best way to get to and from the State Fair of Texas. It was indeed -- until the big Texas-OU Game, when thousands of fans converged on the system all at once. The entire DART system crumbled under the weight, and the agency was excoriated in the media (which, oddly enough, never runs stories on the hours spent in parking lots after big games, but I digress).

For 2010, DART came up with a plan to use that maintenance spur. The Green Line included another spur to the other end of the train yard, so you could easily run trains to Fair Park via the yard... except for those pesky freight crossings. DART worked out a time-separation agreement of some sort, and after several rounds of testing, they implemented a successful plan of redirected trains and more-realistic expectations to successfully get those fans to and from the big State Fair events.

The testing was public -- I took advantage of it twice, to get a closer look at the train yard. Here's a video of me, my son, and his friend jumping between trains during an unexpected train change in the yard:



Last year, they ran the tests at least three times, making adjustments each time. Their final routing was very different from the original plans. At first they'd planned to run northbound trains on *both* tracks, but they concluded that such an arrangement would be inefficient for operations and confusing to riders (who have spent a decade learning which direction the train comes from). This year, I suspect they won't have to do as much tweaking, so this may or may not be the only chance for a sneak peek until October, when it goes live.

Just thought y'all might be interested!


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## Bob Dylan (Apr 27, 2011)

IINM during the UT-OU Weekend Amtrak Runs the Heartland Flyer from FTW to the FairGrounds Loaded with Fanatics for Both Schools! :lol: Last year I was on the Texas Eagle from STL after the Gathering Enroute to AUS and the UT fans Poured onto the train in FTW and the Club Car and Diner were Out of Alcohol by Temple!  Probably the same for the OU Partisians! :giggle: TRE and DART are doing a Fantastic Job in the Metroplex, wish Austin would send the CapMetro Dont-Have-A-Clues and So Called City Transportation Planners up for some Schooling! :excl: :excl: :excl:


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## RobertB (Apr 27, 2011)

I didn't hear about the Heartland Flyer going directly to the fairgrounds -- that would be a great idea. I heard that DART and the FWTA (Fort Worth Transit Authority aka The T) wanted to send the Trinity Railway Express on past Union Station to Fair Park, but I thought the idea was rebuffed by UP.

The first year (aka the fiasco), the TRE dropped off massive loads of passengers at Victory Station, where they combined with hordes dropped off by hotel shuttle buses and crowded onto the new Green Line trains -- preventing pax from boarding at the other downtown stations. Last year, DART ran buses between Victory Station and Fair Park to supplement the Special trains. Most of the complaints last year were because of a lack of station agents to direct new riders in the right direction. The technical parts worked, but there were still failures in communication. (That situation repeated itself this winter, when Dallas got hit with a foot of snow and people stood for hours on station platforms for trains that never came.)


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## stntylr (Apr 27, 2011)

I believe the Heartland Flyer only goes to Union Station for the TEX-OU game. It does use the TRE route on that day.


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## Bob Dylan (Apr 28, 2011)

stntylr said:


> I believe the Heartland Flyer only goes to Union Station for the TEX-OU game. It does use the TRE route on that day.


Thanks for the Update guys! I look forward to riding the Green Line next time Im in DFW!!


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## RobertB (Apr 28, 2011)

jimhudson said:


> stntylr said:
> 
> 
> > I believe the Heartland Flyer only goes to Union Station for the TEX-OU game. It does use the TRE route on that day.
> ...


The Green Line should be a fun ride for trail buffs. It parallels freight rails for much of its length, and Downtown Carrollton is an elevated station above a switching yard and active rail junction. Once I have enough posts (or time, or whatever's blocking me), I'll post a "what to do in Dallas" that focuses on what train buffs might want to check out while riding the light rail and TRE.

I'm sure it's been discussed before here (I haven't searched on it yet), but I've heard that Amtrak is negotiating with the local transit agencies to use the TRE rails for DAL-FTW segment of the Texas Eagle, instead of sharing the always-busy UP rails. I can't figure out why that hasn't happened already, because it would be a huge efficiency boost at FTW. Currently, northbound Amtrak has to go through the infamous Tower 51 junction three times: pull through it and into the station, then back out through it, then turn east onto the tracks toward Dallas. (I think the southbound only went through the junction twice, but now I can't remember how it ended up with the engines in front on the way to Austin!)


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## stntylr (Apr 28, 2011)

RobertB said:


> jimhudson said:
> 
> 
> > stntylr said:
> ...


The southbound TE turns south at Tower 51, goes forward a bit then backs into the Fort Worth station.

The reason the the TE isn't using the TRE tracks is because the TRE runs a pretty tight operation with the schedule and Amtak doesn't. With only half of the TRE route double tracked it doesn't want a big Amtrak train blocking the path of it's commuter trains. Once the whole route is double tracked and the PTC is estasblished they will have to let Amtrak use it.


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## battalion51 (Apr 28, 2011)

There are a couple of other places where instances there are oddball situations like this. For example, the TECO Trolley in Tampa crosses the CSX mainline multiple times daily which carries the Star and a few local freight trains.


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## GlobalistPotato (Apr 29, 2011)

RobertB said:


> I didn't hear about the Heartland Flyer going directly to the fairgrounds -- that would be a great idea. I heard that DART and the FWTA (Fort Worth Transit Authority aka The T) wanted to send the Trinity Railway Express on past Union Station to Fair Park, but I thought the idea was rebuffed by UP.


Wait, are you saying that the Heartland Flyer would use the Green Line's tracks from Union Station to the Fairgrounds?


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## RobertB (Apr 29, 2011)

GlobalistPotato said:


> RobertB said:
> 
> 
> > I didn't hear about the Heartland Flyer going directly to the fairgrounds -- that would be a great idea. I heard that DART and the FWTA (Fort Worth Transit Authority aka The T) wanted to send the Trinity Railway Express on past Union Station to Fair Park, but I thought the idea was rebuffed by UP.
> ...


No -- the chief rail guru on DallasMetropolis.com (a fellow with the handle Haretip) says that running freight-compatible trainsets on DART's LRT rails is an absolute no-go, because the LRT trains aren't FRA-certified (or something, please feel free to correct my lack of rail knowledge).

What I was talking about was a plan to run special revenue TRE (commuter rail) service from Union Station, along the UPRR tracks to this junction, then back west along the spur to Fair Park. In fact, DART does run a train along that spur on State Fair weekends, as a shuttle to a remote parking lot. But apparently UP wouldn't make the schedule adjustments needed to allow passenger service between Union Station and the spur.

If there were some sort of agreement to run the Heartland Flyer directly to Fair Park, I assume it would get to Union Station and then follow the same path that the TRE trainsets do (without pax).

As a side note... that route from Union Station to the wye looks like a real mess, especially for a line that I keep hearing is one of UP's most heavily-trafficked routes. You'd think at some point, someone would put down the money for a rail bypass of the whole Metroplex. (Gov. Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor claimed to do that, but the train part was never more than political cover for his toll-road plans.)


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## saxman (May 11, 2011)

stntylr said:


> RobertB said:
> 
> 
> > I'm sure it's been discussed before here (I haven't searched on it yet), but I've heard that Amtrak is negotiating with the local transit agencies to use the TRE rails for DAL-FTW segment of the Texas Eagle, instead of sharing the always-busy UP rails. I can't figure out why that hasn't happened already, because it would be a huge efficiency boost at FTW. Currently, northbound Amtrak has to go through the infamous Tower 51 junction three times: pull through it and into the station, then back out through it, then turn east onto the tracks toward Dallas. (I think the southbound only went through the junction twice, but now I can't remember how it ended up with the engines in front on the way to Austin!)
> ...


Isn't it Tower 55?

They did work out a schedule for the Eagle to pass the TRE, but there have been some delays, even though they could run Amtrak on it now. One problem is the 8000 foot flyover that the TRE built in Irving. There were some problems with the bridge, and they had to go back over it and fill lots cracks. Once that is done they have to move to tracks over to the other side and do that one. This has probably added a year or more to that project. 21 was suppose to start taking the TRE back in 2009, but well that didn't happen.

I haven't heard any updates in a quite awhile as I've been out of the loop. Hopefully, I'll be able to get an update with whats going on with this project.


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## RobertB (May 12, 2011)

saxman said:


> Isn't it Tower 55?


*facepalm* I think my head must have been abducted by aliens, sorry!



saxman said:


> They did work out a schedule for the Eagle to pass the TRE, but there have been some delays, even though they could run Amtrak on it now. One problem is the 8000 foot flyover that the TRE built in Irving. There were some problems with the bridge, and they had to go back over it and fill lots cracks. Once that is done they have to move to tracks over to the other side and do that one. This has probably added a year or more to that project. 21 was suppose to start taking the TRE back in 2009, but well that didn't happen.


That explains why there's only one set of tracks on the bridge. It seemed kinda silly to build a mile-and-a-half heavy freight railroad bridge, and then never get around to adding the second track. Thanks for the info!


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## RobertB (Jun 24, 2011)

DART will be testing again this Sunday, June 26 -- sorry for the short notice. This time, the only trains affected will be southbound Green Line trains, which will be routed through the maintenance yard (and across the freight rails) to bypass Downtown.

Details here:

http://www.dart.org/rideralerts/fullRA.asp?id=881

DART recently experienced a qualified success with a large volume of riders for the Dallas Mavericks NBA Championship parade -- the number of passengers actually exceeded the number hauled for the Texas/OU games that crippled the system the first time around. The only glitch was an equipment failure in the subway tunnel. Apparently, the driver failed to communicate to the passengers what was going on, and after an hour the 200+ riders abandoned the rail car. After initial murmurings of the passengers' "illegal" actions, DART later apologized for the failure in communications.

DART: Parade Service Not Bad with 3 Days Notice

http://www.nbcdfw.com/traffic/transit/DART-Parade-Service-Not-Bad-with-3-Days-Notice-124046144.html

DART apologizes to passengers trapped in tunnel

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/DART-apologizes-for-train-trapped-in-tunnel-124327699.html


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