# Service type terminology and speed definitions discussion



## jis (Nov 3, 2022)

cirdan said:


> People connecting to light rail will be much more significant and meaningful, and so I assume that it is this that the authors were implying.


There is no Light Rail anywhere near Miami Central, or in Miami for that matter, if one is using the standard definitions used by the FTA and FRA. There is a People Mover known as Metromover, and there is Heavy Rail known as Metrorail. Both connect to Bridghtline at their respective stations with their own names with Brightline at Miami Central Brightline Station.


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## cirdan (Nov 3, 2022)

jis said:


> There is no Light Rail anywhere near Miami Central, or in Miami for that matter, if one is using the standard definitions used by the FTA and FRA. There is a People Mover known as Metromover, and there is Heavy Rail known as Metrorail. Both connect to Bridghtline at their respective stations with their own names with Brightline at Miami Central Brightline Station.


I was biting my tongue when typing that as I knew it was incorrect but couldn't immediately come up with a non convoluted term to collectively describe the connecting rail systems. Maybe urban rail or rapid transit might have been a more appropriate choice of words. I expect the journalists authoring the above piece similarly struggled to find a term everybody would understand and hence incorrectly and misleadingly came up with commuter rail, which obviously railfans incorrectly assumed to imply the future Tri Rail service(?)


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## VentureForth (Nov 4, 2022)

jis said:


> There is no Light Rail anywhere near Miami Central, or in Miami for that matter, if one is using the standard definitions used by the FTA and FRA. There is a People Mover known as Metromover, and there is Heavy Rail known as Metrorail. Both connect to Bridghtline at their respective stations with their own names with Brightline at Miami Central Brightline Station.


Metro Rail is considered heavy? Maybe by physical definition, but in operation they are more like a subway and certainly not a commuter like TriRail as the article implied.

Too many categories and usages.


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## jis (Nov 4, 2022)

VentureForth said:


> Metro Rail is considered heavy? Maybe by physical definition, but in operation they are more like a subway and certainly not a commuter like TriRail as the article implied.
> 
> Too many categories and usages.


It is how FRA defines them and it is standard terminology in the US rail industry. Subway is Heavy Rail according to FRA/FTA. I have no specific opinon about their terminology. I just use it. Commuter Rail is a different category from Heavy Rail. Generally Heavy Rail is governed by the FTA and Commuter Rail by FRA.


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## Anderson (Nov 6, 2022)

VentureForth said:


> Metro Rail is considered heavy? Maybe by physical definition, but in operation they are more like a subway and certainly not a commuter like TriRail as the article implied.
> 
> Too many categories and usages.


Subways are generally considered to be "heavy rail" (vs "light rail" aka streetcar/interurban-ish operations, and "commuter rail").


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## crescent-zephyr (Nov 6, 2022)

VentureForth said:


> Metro Rail is considered heavy? Maybe by physical definition, but in operation they are more like a subway and certainly not a commuter like TriRail as the article implied.
> 
> Too many categories and usages.


Agreed. Kinda like the argument “the sky is not blue” - technically correct but the general public says it’s a blue sky. 

To the general public, Brightline is high speed rail and they have advertised themselves as such a few places. 

Likewise, metro rail and the peoplemover in Miami are going to be considered as light rail to the general public.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 6, 2022)

crescent-zephyr said:


> Agreed. Kinda like the argument “the sky is not blue” - technically correct but the general public says it’s a blue sky.
> 
> To the general public, Brightline is high speed rail and they have advertised themselves as such a few places.
> 
> Likewise, metro rail and the peoplemover in Miami are going to be considered as light rail to the general public.


Agreed. The general public receives advertisement material and information about rail that is quasi-correct; at the end of the day, this is bad.

It leads to blanket mistrust of rail, Amtrak, brightline, etc. as people feel they’ve been lied to when they gain more knowledge about these matters and figure out that thing such as Brightline really not being anything close to HSR let alone NEC level service (despite being a generally wonderful service for FL and the area).

There are many people who compare the Acela and Brightline as if one can compare apples and oranges.


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## crescent-zephyr (Nov 6, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> Brightline really not being anything close to HSR


It’s high speed for the USA though. I consider anything over 90 to be high speed for the USA - it’s pretty rare here. 

I don’t think anyone in the general public will consider 110 to be false advertising as HSR.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 6, 2022)

crescent-zephyr said:


> It’s high speed for the USA though. I consider anything over 90 to be high speed for the USA - it’s pretty rare here.
> 
> I don’t think anyone in the general public will consider 110 to be false advertising as HSR.


I did say quasi-correct.

Just because its high for the USA doesn't change the fact that Brightline really isn't HSR under most definitions.
Given the FRA can't even make up its mind about what constitutes HSR, however, its tough.

There are many regular old LD trains that get quite close to 110 to begin with. On my last Lake Shore Limited run, my speedometer topped us out at 104mph in the area north of Albany, which is very close to what Brightline is currently testing near Cocoa.
Given that BL won't even hold those "high" speeds for very long (the very complaint people slate against the Acela), I'm unconvinced about so-called superior speeds of BL that I hear about so often.

Again, this doesn't take away from Brightline's other qualities of superior service.


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## GDRRiley (Nov 6, 2022)

crescent-zephyr said:


> It’s high speed for the USA though. I consider anything over 90 to be high speed for the USA - it’s pretty rare here.


There are like 6 different federal definitions and that doesn't get into the 50 state ones in the US but nearly all agree 90-125mph is not high speed, 90-125mph is nearly always higher speed

And internationally 100mph is the standard speed you'll see (160kmh) even on legacy lines


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## Anderson (Nov 6, 2022)

I'd also point out that if one looks at an Acela/Brightline comparison, NYP-WAS in 2:47 (the fastest current timetable) translates to about 80 MPH. The 3:00 timetables (there are a few of them) correspond to 75 MPH. If Brightline can beat a 75 MPH average speed (3:12 Orlando-Miami), I think contesting the HSR label would be a _very _heavy lift.


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## GDRRiley (Nov 6, 2022)

Anderson said:


> I'd also point out that if one looks at an Acela/Brightline comparison, NYP-WAS in 2:47 (the fastest current timetable) translates to about 80 MPH. The 3:00 timetables (there are a few of them) correspond to 75 MPH. If Brightline can beat a 75 MPH average speed (3:12 Orlando-Miami), I think contesting the HSR label would be a _very _heavy lift.


ACELA is weird, its legacy HSR and has a lot of legacy infrastructure that slows it down, there are multiple mile or longer sections where the speed limit is 25 or 30mph which won't be fixed for another 8-10 years


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## Anderson (Nov 7, 2022)

GDRRiley said:


> ACELA is weird, its legacy HSR and has a lot of legacy infrastructure that slows it down, there are multiple mile or longer sections where the speed limit is 25 or 30mph which won't be fixed for another 8-10 years


Are these mostly on NEC-North or NEC-South? On NEC-South, the main case of this seems to be the Baltimore tunnels. NEC-North has a spate of issues in CT if I'm not mistaken.


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## GDRRiley (Nov 7, 2022)

Anderson said:


> Are these mostly on NEC-North or NEC-South? On NEC-South, the main case of this seems to be the Baltimore tunnels. NEC-North has a spate of issues in CT if I'm not mistaken.


Baltimore is a major issue but that is finally getting fixed
Wilmington is another very slow section
Elizabeth is not quite as bad but still slows down trains 
there is also the gateway bridges but those are being replaced as well

Really any section that drops the speed below the line speed around it really hurts the average. going from 135mph to 110 for a curve isn't great

or for brightline a 60mph bridge vs 110mph running around it


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## cirdan (Nov 7, 2022)

GDRRiley said:


> And internationally 100mph is the standard speed you'll see (160kmh) even on legacy lines


In Britain, Germany and France maybe. In Switzerland the legacy speed is 140kmh (about 85mph) and only a handful of lines (mostly new build and the base tunnels) allow higher speeds. In the Netherlands the speed (outside of the high speed corridor) is even lower at 125kmh, which is about equivalent to what you can drive on the freeway there. Despite these lower speeds, the rail system of these two latter countries are considered among the best and most succesful on the continent, showing success is not dependent on speed alone. 

In many of the former communist countries of eastern Europe, speed are lower still. In Romania for example even many main arteries of the system are limited to 60 or 80kmh, due to track condition. In many other countries there is often a mix with select high-value routes allowing speeds of 160kmh or even 200kmh on classic legacy lines (typically electrified) with much of the secondary network running at significantly lower speeds.


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## jis (Nov 7, 2022)

cirdan said:


> In Britain, Germany and France maybe. In Switzerland the legacy speed is 140kmh (about 85mph) and only a handful of lines (mostly new build and the base tunnels) allow higher speeds. In the Netherlands the speed (outside of the high speed corridor) is even lower at 125kmh, which is about equivalent to what you can drive on the freeway there. Despite these lower speeds, the rail system of these two latter countries are considered among the best and most succesful on the continent, showing success is not dependent on speed alone.
> 
> In many of the former communist countries of eastern Europe, speed are lower still. In Romania for example even many main arteries of the system are limited to 60 or 80kmh, due to track condition. In many other countries there is often a mix with select high-value routes allowing speeds of 160kmh or even 200kmh on classic legacy lines (typically electrified) with much of the secondary network running at significantly lower speeds.


I agree with you. I don't think "internationally" 100mph is the standard anything. There is a very broad spread found across the globe with some countries standardized at 100mph for trunk lines. But other than China most of those countries are relatively small to medium size countries size-wise.

In spite of the the large bulk of passenger traffic is found in countries with general speeds below 100mph. And even in China, bulk of the traffic is on non-high speed main lines.


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## lordsigma (Nov 7, 2022)

Commuter rail is always the most confusing one for me to follow regulatory wise given it straddles both agencies the FRA and FTA. It's governed by the FRA as far as train operations and safety but the FTA is also involved in commuter rail in that it is responsible for federal funding for rail projects that fall under the umbrella of "transit" and as a result regulates some of the service standards that commuter rail operators must follow.


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## jis (Nov 7, 2022)

lordsigma said:


> Commuter rail is always the most confusing one for me to follow regulatory wise given it straddles both agencies the FRA and FTA. It's governed by the FRA as far as train operations and safety but the FTA is also involved in commuter rail in that it is responsible for federal funding for rail projects that fall under the umbrella of "transit" and as a result regulates some of the service standards that commuter rail operators must follow.


Fact of the matter is that the second pair of tunnels across the Hudson are primarily needed to fulfill the needs of Commuter Rail (NJTransit). As far as Amtrak by itself goes they do not really need any more tunnels under the Hudson. So in that sense the new tunnels are really a Commuter Rail project. I know this blows the mind of many in the rail advocacy community who are very Amtrak-centric on many occasions.

Another oddity people seem to unaware of is that the traffic management in Penn Station as handled by the Penn Station Control Center, is carried out jointly by Amtrak and LIRR, so even though Amtrak owns the station, its operation is not exclusively Amtrak's! LIRR (NYState) actually purchased the right with real money before Amtrak was formed!

So yes, Commuter Rail and Main Line Rail intermingle in many odd ways as is to be expected. Afterall it is to some extent a separation of convenience in accounts management and such, but they share a lot of facilities.

OTOH, generally Commuter Rail and Heavy Rail do not share facilities specially after PATH was disconnected from main line operationally. Oddly, Light Rail and main line (freight) do share facilities usually using temporal separation, but it is uncommon for Light Rail and Heavy Rail to share facilities.

In Europe, there are the so called Tram-Trains that run both as Light Rail and Commuter Rail. I rode one in Mulhous, the line that runs on streets in the city center and then hops onto the SNCF main suburban line to proceed to Kruth and Thann. On the streets it runs on DC power, and on the suburban line it runs using 25kV AC. Quite an interesting operation.


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## cirdan (Nov 7, 2022)

jis said:


> Fact of the matter is that the second pair of tunnels across the Hudson are primarily needed to fulfill the needs of Commuter Rail (NJTransit). As far as Amtrak by itself goes they do not really need any more tunnels under the Hudson. So in that sense the new tunnels are really a Commuter Rail project. I know this blows the mind of many in the rail advocacy community who are very Amtrak-centric on many occasions.


Add to this that commuter rail and intercity rail do functionally overlap, for example a good many of the passengers using NEC are actually commuters, and many a commuter line extends further than many shorter Amtrak trips. The terminology tends to get attached to the operating entity rather than the actual functionality or purpose of the service.

Translating this into a European context, Amtrak and most commuter rail agencies would actually be the same organization.


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## joelkfla (Nov 7, 2022)

jis said:


> In Europe, there are the so called Tram-Trains that run both as Light Rail and Commuter Rail. I rode one in Mulhous, the line that runs on streets in the city center and then hops onto the SNCF main suburban line to proceed to Kruth and Thann. On the streets it runs on DC power, and on the suburban line it runs using 25kV AC. Quite an interesting operation.


There's a person in The Hague who posts many driver's view YouTubes of trams there. Some of the trams travel on the commuter line for a short distance. I don't know about power, but the stations on that stretch have high level and low level platforms stacked end-to-end.

It's an interesting tram system. The trams travel on an elevated section with elaborately decorative shrouding, into the central railway station on upper level platforms, through the library, and down into a tunnel.


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## jis (Nov 7, 2022)

The closest thing to a Tram-Train that we have in the US are the likes of the NJT RiverLINE which runs on street in Camden and on freight railroad north of Camden


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## GDRRiley (Nov 7, 2022)

jis said:


> The closest thing to a Tram-Train that we have in the UUS are the likes of the NJT RiverLINE which runs on street in Camden and on freight railroad north of Camden


there is talk of 2 tram train lines in California both in Monterrey county as connectors
Santa Cruz to Watsonville
Monterrey to Casterville

but I'm sure the FRA would have fun with them as even if they meet Eruo crash standards for mainline like a Stadler citylink.


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## west point (Nov 7, 2022)

National definitions would help. IMO the previous definitions of speed were best. Over 90 MPH is HrSR. That puts MARC Penn line service into Commuter HrSR, but not NJT or MNRR hudson line? Amtrak Illinois and Michigan may count if the PTC ever works to get HrSR. 

True HSR over 150 MPH also sounds reasonable. 
What all the RRs IMO need to do is announce that they are constructing sections of a line for either of these 2 speeds and when a section is truly in these 2 classes and operating at these speeds.

Public rcognition of acquiring these speeds wpuld be something they might understand. Announcing of getting HSR Newark - Trenton - maybe even North PHL. As well NC DOT announcing HrSR on parts of CLT - RGH as well. Even to reducing schedule by a few minutes at a time.


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## Anderson (Nov 7, 2022)

jis said:


> Fact of the matter is that the second pair of tunnels across the Hudson are primarily needed to fulfill the needs of Commuter Rail (NJTransit). As far as Amtrak by itself goes they do not really need any more tunnels under the Hudson. So in that sense the new tunnels are really a Commuter Rail project. I know this blows the mind of many in the rail advocacy community who are very Amtrak-centric on many occasions.
> 
> Another oddity people seem to unaware of is that the traffic management in Penn Station as handled by the Penn Station Control Center, is carried out jointly by Amtrak and LIRR, so even though Amtrak owns the station, its operation is not exclusively Amtrak's! LIRR (NYState) actually purchased the right with real money before Amtrak was formed!


So, I've understood that the tunnels are needed for two reasons:
(1) There's a net need to add some commuter trains, and added capacity will give Amtrak a bit more flexibility in peak hours.
(2) More crucially, you effectively need a tunnel out of service for rebuilding work for quite some time because the 110-ish year old tunnels effectively need to be redone.


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## jis (Nov 7, 2022)

Anderson said:


> So, I've understood that the tunnels are needed for two reasons:
> (1) There's a net need to add some commuter trains, and added capacity will give Amtrak a bit more flexibility in peak hours.
> (2) More crucially, you effectively need a tunnel out of service for rebuilding work for quite some time because the 110-ish year old tunnels effectively need to be redone.


Purely from a capacity perspective Amtrak does not need any added flexibility provided by the new tunnels for a long time to come. The entire capacity of the new tunnels is for NJT service growth use. The way the trackage is designed is to make NJT flow smoothly through the new tunnels to a terminal station. There is only a single ladder track that connects the new tunnel to the Amtrak side of the station in A interlocking, not something that will carry scads of traffic, and it entails creating lots of conflicts on each move on it. The two new "slow" lines - tracks 1 and 4 will connect straight into the new tunnels while the fast tracks 2 and 3 will continue through the old tunnels.

Even as far a as taking tunnels out of service for rehab is concerned, if it was only Amtrak traffic that was to be maintained, they could have been rehabbed without building any new tunnels by just taking one tunnel out of service at a time. It is to accommodate NJT traffic during rehab that you need the new tunnels too.

Hence it is fair to say that the new tunnels are needed for commuter traffic, not for trunk traffic of the NEC.

But this probably belongs in the discussion about the new tunnels and not here.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 7, 2022)

GDRRiley said:


> Baltimore is a major issue but that is finally getting fixed
> Wilmington is another very slow section
> Elizabeth is not quite as bad but still slows down trains
> there is also the gateway bridges but those are being replaced as well
> ...


Let's not forget the curve near Frankford Jct. in Philadelphia where 188 derailed and where speeds are now slowed down to 50 mph.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 7, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> There are many regular old LD trains that get quite close to 110 to begin with. On my last Lake Shore Limited run, my speedometer topped us out at 104mph in the area north of Albany, which is very close to what Brightline is currently testing near Cocoa.
> Given that BL won't even hold those "high" speeds for very long (the very complaint people slate against the Acela), I'm unconvinced about so-called superior speeds of BL that I hear about so often.
> 
> Again, this doesn't take away from Brightline's other qualities of superior service.


Absolutely right about high-speed LD trains. In addition to the Lakeshore Limited, both the Silvers, the Palmetto, the Crescent, and the Cardinal all operate at speeds of up to 110 mph (180 km/her) on large swaths of the Northeast Corridor. In fact, the NEC trains, both the Regionals and the Acelas run at speeds of 200 km/hr (120 mph) or more for large parts of their runs, perhaps a far greater percentage of the total run than the Brightline trains are going to be running at 180 km/her, and the NEC trains have been doing this for decades.

As far as Brightline's "superior service," I'm sure it's nice, but let's see how it plays out after they actually open the Orlando segment and have a really useful transportation service, and after they've been running the service day in and day out for many years. Of special interest will be to see how well they can keep the service running in the face of pandemics and other natural disasters. They were certainly fast to shut down completely in the face of COVID, something that Amtrak, despite their draconian cutbacks, didn't do. I still think that the minute ridership sags or there's some spike in costs, their "superior service" will start to resemble that of the Penn Central, and either the Feds or the State of Florida is going to have to come to the rescue.


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## GDRRiley (Nov 7, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Absolutely right about high-speed LD trains. In addition to the Lakeshore Limited, both the Silvers, the Palmetto, the Crescent, and the Cardinal all operate at speeds of up to 110 mph (180 km/her) on large swaths of the Northeast Corridor. In fact, the NEC trains, both the Regionals and the Acelas run at speeds of 200 km/hr (120 mph) or more for large parts of their runs, perhaps a far greater percentage of the total run than the Brightline trains are going to be running at 180 km/her, and the NEC trains have been doing this for decades.


they could be running at 125mph if they had all viewliner II equipment or they rebuild the vielinwer I to 125mph



MARC Rider said:


> Let's not forget the curve near Frankford Jct. in Philadelphia where 188 derailed and where speeds are now slowed down to 50 mph.


yep I forgot that one


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## west point (Nov 7, 2022)

Fact of the matter is that the second pair of tunnels across the Hudson are primarily needed to fulfill the needs of Commuter Rail (NJTransit). As far as Amtrak by itself goes they do not really need any more tunnels under the Hudson. So in that sense the new tunnels are really a Commuter Rail project. I know this blows the mind of many in the rail advocacy community who are very Amtrak-centric on many occasions.


There is no way one tunnel bore beinging taken out for a major overhaul would the other tunnel bore could remain in service for thaaaaaat long shutdown.


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## west point (Nov 7, 2022)

jis said:


> Even as far a as taking tunnels out of service for rehab is concerned, if it was only Amtrak traffic that was to be maintained, they could have been rehabbed without building any new tunnels by just taking one tunnel out of service at a time. It is to accommodate NJT traffic during rehab that you need the new tunnels too.
> 
> Hence it is fair to say that the new tunnels are needed for commuter traffic, not for trunk traffic of the NEC.



There is no way one tunnel bore being taken out for a major overhaul would work. Amtrak now needs to shut down either bore for servicing on weekends. Those shutdowns occurr as not planned but what tunnel bore needs immediate work the most. No way the other tunnel bore could remain in service for work for thaaaaaat long shutdown time of maybe 1 - 1/2 year?.


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## cirdan (Nov 8, 2022)

jis said:


> The closest thing to a Tram-Train that we have in the UUS are the likes of the NJT RiverLINE which runs on street in Camden and on freight railroad north of Camden


Or the Denton A-train


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## jis (Nov 8, 2022)

west point said:


> There is no way one tunnel bore being taken out for a major overhaul would work. Amtrak now needs to shut down either bore for servicing on weekends. Those shutdowns occurr as not planned but what tunnel bore needs immediate work the most. No way the other tunnel bore could remain in service for work for thaaaaaat long shutdown time of maybe 1 - 1/2 year?.


If there was no NJT traffic then a single tunnel would be just fine to carry Amtrak’s at most 4-5tph in each direction indefinitely. That is what I. Said. Apparently you responded without reading what I said.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Nov 8, 2022)

cirdan said:


> Add to this that commuter rail and intercity rail do functionally overlap, for example a good many of the passengers using NEC are actually commuters, and many a commuter line extends further than many shorter Amtrak trips. The terminology tends to get attached to the operating entity rather than the actual functionality or purpose of the service.
> 
> Translating this into a European context, Amtrak and most commuter rail agencies would actually be the same organization.


In the UK you have some lines that further defy classification. For example the London Overground which is made up of mostly former commuter rail lines rebranded into a more rapid transit like system and run by the same agency (TfL) that runs the rapid transit Underground. Also there is the new Elizabeth Line which runs over tracks used by commuter as well as intercity rail but with a subway like operation through central London. 

Not to mention London's Underground Metropolitan Line which shares some tracks and stations with commuter rail trains operated by Chiltern Railways into Marylebone Station. There used to be a lot more of this sharing between the sub-surface Underground and main line railways, e.g. the LT&S Line to Southend and the Underground District Line, but much of this has been segregated in more recent times.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 8, 2022)

Hey, don't forget the Norristown High Speed Line (aka "P&W") outside of Philly. Single cars and pay the driver on boarding, like a light rail, high platforms, turnstiles at 69th St. and grade separation like heavy rail transit. And they can go 70 mph. (or at least they used to before they started the recent track work.) What do you call that?


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Nov 8, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Hey, don't forget the Norristown High Speed Line (aka "P&W") outside of Philly. Single cars and pay the driver on boarding, like a light rail, high platforms, turnstiles at 69th St. and grade separation like heavy rail transit. And they can go 70 mph. (or at least they used to before they started the recent track work.) What do you call that?


Until 1951 it also had Interurban cars of the LVT from Allentown running over it to 69th Street Terminal.


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## jis (Nov 8, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> In the UK you have some lines that further defy classification. For example the London Overground which is made up of mostly former commuter rail lines rebranded into a more rapid transit like system and run by the same agency (TfL) that runs the rapid transit Underground. Also there is the new Elizabeth Line which runs over tracks used by commuter as well as intercity rail but with a subway like operation through central London.
> 
> Not to mention London's Underground Metropolitan Line which shares some tracks and stations with commuter rail trains operated by Chiltern Railways into Marylebone Station. There used to be a lot more of this sharing between the sub-surface Underground and main line railways, e.g. the LT&S Line to Southend and the Underground District Line, but much of this has been segregated in more recent times.


Tokyo has several lines like that, where a suburban line enters into the subway system.

Elizabeth Line is in some ways similar to Paris' RER lines. The overly and pointlessly restrictive regulations and over bureaucratization of the regulatory framework into silos makes such things difficult to do in the US.



MARC Rider said:


> Hey, don't forget the Norristown High Speed Line (aka "P&W") outside of Philly. Single cars and pay the driver on boarding, like a light rail, high platforms, turnstiles at 69th St. and grade separation like heavy rail transit. And they can go 70 mph. (or at least they used to before they started the recent track work.) What do you call that?


It walks like a light rail and quacks like a light rail  if one must categorize it using the Feds scheme I would think. But one could push it into heavy rail too.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 8, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Until 1951 it also had Interurban cars of the LVT from Allentown running over it to 69th Street Terminal.


And don't forget in the mid 1960s, they ran an articulated former interurban trainset (surplus from the Chicago North Shore" called the "Liberty Liner."


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## joelkfla (Nov 8, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Hey, don't forget the Norristown High Speed Line (aka "P&W") outside of Philly. Single cars and pay the driver on boarding, like a light rail, high platforms, turnstiles at 69th St. and grade separation like heavy rail transit. And they can go 70 mph. (or at least they used to before they started the recent track work.) What do you call that?


You neglected to mention 3rd-rail power.

When I rode it last month, it was a 2-car train, but it appeared that the 2nd car was closed. Do they put a conductor in it for fare collection when they open it?


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## MARC Rider (Nov 8, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> You neglected to mention 3rd-rail power.
> 
> When I rode it last month, it was a 2-car train, but it appeared that the 2nd car was closed. Do they put a conductor in it for fare collection when they open it?


I don't ride it often enough to have any experience. When I was a kid, and they were still running the Brill Bullets, they would sometimes have 2 car trains, but I don't remember how they did the fare collection.


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## cirdan (Nov 9, 2022)

jis said:


> Tokyo has several lines like that, where a suburban line enters into the subway system.


The initial section of London's Metropoiltan Railway was intended to permit main line trains from Paddington to get closer to central London and also provide exchange with some of the other terminii being served. Later the Metropolitan and Great Western fell out and the Metropolitan responded by running its line as a standalone system, which over time developed into what is today the London Underground system.

The Elizabeth line is thus in a way a recreation of what already once was but is too crowded today to be able to accommodate its original purpose.

As mentioned by others on this thread, the Paris RER system is another good example of extending suburban rail lines into (and across) the city center. Although the RER was officially launched as such in the 1970s, the germinal section was the line from Gare d'Austerlitz to Gare d'Orsay which effectively already satisfied this function and was built to serve the Paris world exhibition of 1900.

In Barcelona the central interchange of Placa Catalunya began to take shape in the 1920s, when the interurban lines from Sarria that had previously accessed central Barcelona by sharing streetcar tracks, were placed into a tunnel, and an underground terminus built at Placa Catalunya. This line is today the backbone of the standard gauge part of the FGC system. At about the same time a broad gauge line was built to this location from the Arc de Triompf, initially intended for suburban trains but soon after integrated into the Barcelona metro (to this day line 1 is the only line of the Barcelona metro to be broad gauge, the other lines are all standard gauge). In the 1970s a new cross-city link serving this interchange was built for broad gauge suburban trains. Often overlooked is that this is not actually the first cross-city broad-gauge line as a couple of blocks away there is another line, serving Paseig de Gracia. This was initially surface running and opened in about 1901, but was moved into a tunnel in the 1950s to alleviate the nuisance to street traffic. This tunnel was for many years shared between suburban and long distance trains. With the recent opening of the high speed line (using a new tunnel a few blocks away) it now only sees suburban trains. For those interested in historical trivia, there was once a further cross-city line, running on the surface close to the sea front, serving mostly industries and the docks. The last remnants of this were dismantled to make way for facilities of the 1992 Olympics, but it had ceased to be relevant long before that.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 9, 2022)

One could make a case that the Washington Metro combines some of the function of commuter rail, as some of its lines run pretty far into the Maryland and Virginia suburban sprawl. I'm thinking especially of the Red Line to Shady Grove and the Silver Line, which now runs out past Dulles Airport into Loudon County. Of course, no Metro line interchanges with the commuter rail system.


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## Arctifox (Nov 10, 2022)

When I think of the term "commuter rail" here in the US I mainly connect it with those train systems that are pretty much exclusively made for commuters as this is pretty much their main purpose. They do not work for most other travel patterns due to the extremely restricted timetable (only on weekdays, have a few trains go towards the city center in the mornings and then leave again in the afternoon), like VRE or some of the MARC lines in the DC area. If you want to travel for other purposes (meaning: at different times) or even the opposite direction you pretty much can forget it.

Similar systems like this in Europe, or those that have a more regular service pattern (like NJ Transit), I would think of as regional trains or suburban trains. But that's just my understanding of the terms.


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## jis (Nov 10, 2022)

Arctifox said:


> Similar systems like this in Europe, or those that have a more regular service pattern (like NJ Transit), I would think of as regional trains or suburban trains. But that's just my understanding of the terms.


I think that is logical. Somehow the word "Suburban" seems to be completely absent from the vocabulary of American transport planners! Maybe that is why they keep designing "commuter" services which are unusable for anything other than traveling to and from 9 to 5 jobs, and then wonder why they fail.

It is like pulling teeth to get the likes of SunRail to transition from a "commuter" service to a true daily and hourly for most of the day "suburban" service.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 10, 2022)

jis said:


> I think that is logical. Somehow the word "Suburban" seems to be completely absent from the vocabulary of American transport planners! Maybe that is why they keep designing "commuter" services which are unusable for anything other than traveling to and from 9 to 5 jobs, and then wonder why they fail.
> 
> It is like pulling teeth to get the likes of SunRail to transition from a "commuter" service to a true daily and hourly for most of the day "suburban" service.


The funniest part of this is that for commuter systems like Boston, many of the “commuters” fall into a tax bracket that allows them to drive their BMW’s to work, rendering those trains useless.

Certainly not universal, but much of the time, the people who can afford far flung suburbs usually don’t take the train.

Boston is an interesting system when it comes to commuter vs. regional vs. intercity. In some sense, it could be all three! Many of the ends of each line qualify as intercity travel, given that it can be close to 50+ miles away and over an hour of travel.

The Fitchburg, Providence and Worcester Lines are all basically intercity trains if measuring from end to end. If the lines could be electrified, and the tracks upgraded, it could make it a really useful system! To the MBTA’s credit, they’ve finally switched lines over to an ever hour system instead of a commuter system.


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## joelkfla (Nov 10, 2022)

jis said:


> Somehow the word "Suburban" seems to be completely absent from the vocabulary of American transport planners!


Unless you include PRR, which built Suburban Station in Phila. back in1930.


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## jis (Nov 10, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> Unless you include PRR, which built Suburban Station in Phila. back in1930.


Well I was thinking of something that is of relevance in the last 50 or so years in transportation planning 

One of the problems in the US is the tendency to hark back to golden times that have absolutely no relevance to today.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Nov 10, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> The funniest part of this is that for commuter systems like Boston, many of the “commuters” fall into a tax bracket that allows them to drive their BMW’s to work, rendering those trains useless.


That may be true for the inner suburbs like Newton and Wellesley on the Worcester Line but as you move out from Boston you get to much less affluent areas - Worcester, Framingham, Fitchburg, Leominster etc. The same is probably true for other Boston commuter lines.


joelkfla said:


> Unless you include PRR, which built Suburban Station in Phila. back in1930.


Originally there was Broad St Station for intercity trains and Broad St. Suburban Station for commuters. Then when Broad St. station was torn down the Penn Center development replaced it. For a while SEPTA tried to call the station Penn Center Station but the name never took, everyone insisted on calling it Suburban Station so they eventually gave up and went back to that name.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 10, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> That may be true for the inner suburbs like Newton and Wellesley on the Worcester Line but as you move out from Boston you get to much less affluent areas - Worcester, Framingham, Fitchburg, Leominster etc. The same is probably true for other Boston commuter lines.
> 
> Originally there was Broad St Station for intercity trains and Broad St. Suburban Station for commuters. Then when Broad St. station was torn down the Penn Center development replaced it. For a while SEPTA tried to call the station Penn Center Station but the name never took, everyone insisted on calling it Suburban Station so they eventually gave up and went back to that name.


Agreed in part. Much of the workforce of those town however, stay local, as jobs in downtown Boston, with a few exceptions, tend to be increasingly white collar.

Taking a 1 1/2 hour train to Boston from Worcester really takes a toll on what’s available to any working person.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 10, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> The funniest part of this is that for commuter systems like Boston, many of the “commuters” fall into a tax bracket that allows them to drive their BMW’s to work, rendering those trains useless.
> 
> Certainly not universal, but much of the time, the people who can afford far flung suburbs usually don’t take the train.


Nearly everyone in our society, whether they can afford new BMWs or not, can afford to drive. Apparently 90% of households in the US have a motor vehicle available. While this might be lower in large cities with good transit, like Boston, I would suspect that in the suburbs, car ownership among all class is the same as it is in the rest of the country. Nearly all the commuters from the suburbs can afford to drive. Many of them prefer to take the train, enough to keep the trains full, because they prefer not to drive. I think this is mainly because of the hassle of big city traffic and costs of parking. I know something of this, because I speak from personal experience, though it involves Washington, D.C., not Boston.


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## JontyMort (Nov 10, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Not to mention London's Underground Metropolitan Line which shares some tracks and stations with commuter rail trains operated by Chiltern Railways into Marylebone Station.


The Metropolitan’s main line northwards out of Baker Street would definitely be classified as commuter rather than rapid transit. It got rich on stimulating housing development near its line in what was then - early last century - green fields. Even cut back to Amersham it’s a fair way - but a fun route with some long stretches of four-track main.
Chiltern’s predecessor the Great Central depended on running powers over the Metropolitan for its original access to London from the north via Aylesbury.


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## cirdan (Nov 11, 2022)

JontyMort said:


> Chiltern’s predecessor the Great Central depended on running powers over the Metropolitan for its original access to London from the north via Aylesbury.


Yes, it was a long and sticky story of old feuds and rivalries.


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## cirdan (Nov 11, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> Taking a 1 1/2 hour train to Boston from Worcester really takes a toll on what’s available to any working person.



Which begs the question of why people chose to live so far away from where they work.

Affordability of housing may be an issue for some, but if these are the BMW-owning class, I don't think that is the main problem.

To me it seems that urban planning, or the lack of it, is to blame. Put in good housing, decent schools etc into more accessible locations and people will move there in droves. Yes, I know gentrification is a bad word for some. But we need to be realistic.


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## JontyMort (Nov 11, 2022)

cirdan said:


> Yes, it was a long and sticky story of old feuds and rivalries.


Not to mention insider dealing. Sir Edward Watkin was Chairman of both the Met and the GC - and the South-Eastern and the Channel Tunnel company, so it’s easy to see the optimistic lines on which his mind was running.


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## Bonser (Nov 11, 2022)

cirdan said:


> I was biting my tongue when typing that as I knew it was incorrect but couldn't immediately come up with a non convoluted term to collectively describe the connecting rail systems. Maybe urban rail or rapid transit might have been a more appropriate choice of words. I expect the journalists authoring the above piece similarly struggled to find a term everybody would understand and hence incorrectly and misleadingly came up with commuter rail, which obviously railfans incorrectly assumed to imply the future Tri Rail service(?)


It's funny how the term "light rail" replace trolley. Trolley is more accurate, shorter and has historical antecedents. Why has it disappeared?


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## MARC Rider (Nov 11, 2022)

Bonser said:


> It's funny how the term "light rail" replace trolley. Trolley is more accurate, shorter and has historical antecedents. Why has it disappeared?


It hasn't disappeared in Philadelphia. Even the suburban lines (69th St. to Media and Sharon Hill) are still called "trolleys" even though the current cars actually use pantographs to pick up the electricity from the wire.


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## jis (Nov 11, 2022)

I came across the term Trolley in the context of street running rail transport only after visiting the US. Before that I thought such things were called Trams, as they still are elsewhere. Trolley was used in the context of Trolley Buses even outside the US back then.

Even today the term Tram is more prevalent than Trolley outside the US, even as the Trams evolve into so called Tram-Trains. And of course, progressively fewer and fewer systems use Trolleys as time goes on anyway too.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Nov 11, 2022)

JontyMort said:


> The Metropolitan’s main line northwards out of Baker Street would definitely be classified as commuter rather than rapid transit. It got rich on stimulating housing development near its line in what was then - early last century - green fields. Even cut back to Amersham it’s a fair way - but a fun route with some long stretches of four-track main.
> Chiltern’s predecessor the Great Central depended on running powers over the Metropolitan for its original access to London from the north via Aylesbury.


I guess it is something of a hybrid, rapid transit up to Harrow on the Hill, where it is basically the express version of the Jubilee Line service, and Commuter North of there. 



Bonser said:


> It's funny how the term "light rail" replace trolley. Trolley is more accurate, shorter and has historical antecedents. Why has it disappeared?


I think the idea was to present "Light Rail" as a more modern version of the streetcar, at a time when streetcars/trolleys/trams were considered old fashioned and obsolete. Basically a marketing strategy. Really modern light rail is no different from systems such as the former Red Arrow lines west of Philadelphia or the Shaker Heights lines in Cleveland which have been around for a long time.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 11, 2022)

cirdan said:


> Which begs the question of why people chose to live so far away from where they work.
> 
> Affordability of housing may be an issue for some, but if these are the BMW-owning class, I don't think that is the main problem.
> 
> To me it seems that urban planning, or the lack of it, is to blame. Put in good housing, decent schools etc into more accessible locations and people will move there in droves. Yes, I know gentrification is a bad word for some. But we need to be realistic.





MARC Rider said:


> Nearly everyone in our society, whether they can afford new BMWs or not, can afford to drive. Apparently 90% of households in the US have a motor vehicle available. While this might be lower in large cities with good transit, like Boston, I would suspect that in the suburbs, car ownership among all class is the same as it is in the rest of the country. Nearly all the commuters from the suburbs can afford to drive. Many of them prefer to take the train, enough to keep the trains full, because they prefer not to drive. I think this is mainly because of the hassle of big city traffic and costs of parking. I know something of this, because I speak from personal experience, though it involves Washington, D.C., not Boston.


My initial statement separated the BMW owning class from the “commuting from Worcester because they need to live there” class.

I guess my point is that if you have a super nice car (or even just an average car), and guaranteed parking (either payed or free) you tend towards drive even with traffic and gas. The commuter rail just won’t appeal to you for any number of reasons, but mostly cause it’s so slow, and surprisingly expensive. 

Now, if you have access to the red, blue, orange or green lines, that’s a whole different story, because those lines function almost as S bahn type systems, and are exceedingly fast and useful.

The commuter rail has the gargantuan, yet slow feel of an intercity train trip, yet you’re only traveling short distances.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Nov 12, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> My initial statement separated the BMW owning class from the “commuting from Worcester because they need to live there” class.
> 
> I guess my point is that if you have a super nice car (or even just an average car), and guaranteed parking (either payed or free) you tend towards drive even with traffic and gas. The commuter rail just won’t appeal to you for any number of reasons, but mostly cause it’s so slow, and surprisingly expensive.
> 
> ...


There is also the factor that a lot of commuting is now suburb to suburb. When I lived in Central MA (West of Boston) with a job in Bedford, a Northern suburb I looked into using transit. It would have required commuter rail to the city, then Red Line to Alewife then a bus that only ran 2 times a day. Needless to say this would be unworkable. Fortunately I was able to work from home most days which reduced the need to sit on the US Route 3 parking lot 2 times a day


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## Anderson (Nov 12, 2022)

Tlcooper93 said:


> My initial statement separated the BMW owning class from the “commuting from Worcester because they need to live there” class.
> 
> I guess my point is that if you have a super nice car (or even just an average car), and guaranteed parking (either payed or free) you tend towards drive even with traffic and gas. The commuter rail just won’t appeal to you for any number of reasons, but mostly cause it’s so slow, and surprisingly expensive.
> 
> ...


This point is true, though I'll add in the question of frequency and "how close does the train get me when I'm downtown". There's an obvious difference between "I take the train to somewhere two blocks from my office" and "I take the train downtown, still need two transfers to get there, and the train only runs a few times a day so if I have to work late I'm screwed".


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## west point (Nov 12, 2022)

Boy definitions get murkey. You have trackless trollys that persist especially in Atlanta area although long gone. Then you have the Cincinnatti street cars that were 2 trollys powered with the rails not used for return. And of course the Cascade tunnel that used 2 phase AC overhead wire. In San Francisco you had 4 streetcar line and electric bus operations. sometimes the electric buses shared the positive wire on that street.

Now no electric bus operations are called as far as I know trackless trollys.


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## joelkfla (Nov 13, 2022)

west point said:


> Boy definitions get murkey. You have trackless trollys that persist especially in Atlanta area although long gone. Then you have the Cincinnatti street cars that were 2 trollys powered with the rails not used for return. And of course the Cascade tunnel that used 2 phase AC overhead wire. In San Francisco you had 4 streetcar line and electric bus operations. sometimes the electric buses shared the positive wire on that street.
> 
> Now no electric bus operations are called as far as I know trackless trollys.


SEPTA calls them trackless trolleys.



SF MUNI calls them trolley coaches.


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## danasgoodstuff (Nov 13, 2022)

After reading this thread I think I'm more confused than ever.


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## JontyMort (Nov 13, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> I guess it is something of a hybrid, rapid transit up to Harrow on the Hill, where it is basically the express version of the Jubilee Line service, and Commuter North of there.


I was actually thinking of the Met’s original offering 100 or more years ago. These days you’re right of course. That said, the morning peak sees trains that run non-stop from Moor Park to Harrow, and from Harrow to Finchley Road (i.e. not stopping even at Wembley Park). In the evening they all seem to stop at Wembley. Those runs used to be the best chance of clocking the old A60 stock at close to their maximum permitted 70 mph.

When I worked in London in the very early 80s we had a colleague who alway had to dash for the “last fast Amersham” when it was his turn to buy the drinks.


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