# NM Railrunner Fare to Santa Fe



## abqdave (Aug 16, 2008)

The Rail Runner extension to Santa Fe is still on track for completion by the end of the year. Proposed rates and schedules are posted http://nmrailrunner.com/santafe_schedule.asp

$6 each way/$8 round trip ABQ to Santa Fe, travel time about 1 hr and 20 mins. Whole system...$7 each way/$9 round trip Belen to Santa Fe, travel time just over 2 hours. ABQ to Santa Fe is about 60 miles, Belen to Santa Fe is about 100 miles.

I am surprised and pleased the fares are this cheap. Lots of people travel from ABQ to Santa Fe for work (for those who don't know, Santa Fe is our state capital, many government jobs are there, but Santa Fe real estate prices are very high, so lots of people live here and drive back-and-forth every day). I can't wait to see what ridership numbers are going to be when this opens.

Rail Runner tickets/passes give riders free access to ABQRide (Albuquerque's transit system), I hope the same happens with Santa Fe Trails (Santa Fe's system).


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## MrFSS (Aug 16, 2008)

abqdave said:


> The Rail Runner extension to Santa Fe is still on track for completion by the end of the year. Proposed rates and schedules are posted http://nmrailrunner.com/santafe_schedule.asp
> $6 each way/$8 round trip ABQ to Santa Fe, travel time about 1 hr and 20 mins. Whole system...$7 each way/$9 round trip Belen to Santa Fe, travel time just over 2 hours. ABQ to Santa Fe is about 60 miles, Belen to Santa Fe is about 100 miles.
> 
> I am surprised and pleased the fares are this cheap. Lots of people travel from ABQ to Santa Fe for work (for those who don't know, Santa Fe is our state capital, many government jobs are there, but Santa Fe real estate prices are very high, so lots of people live here and drive back-and-forth every day). I can't wait to see what ridership numbers are going to be when this opens.
> ...


Where will the Santa Fe end point station be? Right down town? Will it connect to any bus transportation? Will all those government workers be able to get to the office buildings easily?


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## gswager (Aug 17, 2008)

There will be 3 stations which are currently under construction. Those details can be found on its website. They will be having informative meetings this week to get more details, including bus routes.


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## amamba (Aug 25, 2008)

gswager said:


> There will be 3 stations which are currently under construction. Those details can be found on its website. They will be having informative meetings this week to get more details, including bus routes.


I just returned from a week long trip to New Mexico, where I visited Santa Fe and Taos, and a few other places. My husband and I were both pleasantly surprised to see the construction of this light rail project in the median of I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. What a great idea! I will look over the website, and I hope that the next time I travel to Santa Fe, I will be able to take this light rail instead of renting a car. Will there be a connection to the airport?


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## sechs (Aug 25, 2008)

RailRunner is heavy rail, yes?


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## gswager (Aug 26, 2008)

sechs said:


> RailRunner is heavy rail, yes?


Yes, it is.


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## jackal (Aug 26, 2008)

amamba said:


> Will there be a connection to the airport?


From what I've read (and abqdave or others can probably correct this), there is a station in the vicinity of the Sunport (as the airport is called), which is connected by bus to the airport terminal. Not the most convenient, but the connection exists.

Being mainline "heavy" rail (not light rail), it's much harder (and more expensive) to build a connection directly into the terminal area. Still, direct one-seat connections definitely attract much more ridership--just look at the failure of the Los Angeles Metro's Green Line. (Nobody except for airport workers knows that you can get to the airport without a car...even Los Angeles World Airports effectively admitted the failure of the Green Line airport connection by creating the Union Station Flyaway, a bus service which covers the same distance in half the time.)

I'm very impressed by the posted travel times. Two hours to cover 100 miles (and 1:20 to cover 60)? That's very nearly competitive with automobile travel times...although IIRC, the speed limit on I-25 in that area is a generous 75mph, so that 60 miles can be done a bit faster than most other medium-distance commutes in other areas of the country. Anyone know what the speed limit for the majority of the track is going to be? Are they aiming for 79mph most of the way? Any plans for 90mph ATS service? (IIRC, the former-BNSF line heading north into Colorado is equipped with ATS...not sure how much of this is going to be replaced with the new alignment and if the new alignment is going to maintain ATS...)


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## VentureForth (Aug 26, 2008)

I would NOT transfer at Rio Bravo/Airport to go to the airport. The way the schedule is operated makes no sense for airport passengers. Instead, I would get off at the Alvarado Transit Center (downtown ABQ) and take bus 50 (available Mon-Sat). It's even a cheaper cab fare from ABQ instead of Rio Bravo.

Click Here For Bus Schedules


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## AlanB (Aug 26, 2008)

jackal said:


> Being mainline "heavy" rail (not light rail), it's much harder (and more expensive) to build a connection directly into the terminal area. Still, direct one-seat connections definitely attract much more ridership--


Philly managed to connect their heavy rail directly to the airport. In fact the R1 service is quite convienent. They might get even more ridership if they were to drop, or at least lessen, the surcharge. But nonetheless one can take commuter rail right to the airport.


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## abqdave (Aug 26, 2008)

VentureForth said:


> I would NOT transfer at Rio Bravo/Airport to go to the airport. The way the schedule is operated makes no sense for airport passengers. Instead, I would get off at the Alvarado Transit Center (downtown ABQ) and take bus 50 (available Mon-Sat). It's even a cheaper cab fare from ABQ instead of Rio Bravo.
> Click Here For Bus Schedules


I agree, the Rio Bravo stop is really meant as a commuter station for Kirtland Air Force Base/Sandia Labs employees and has limited service (and, by the way, is in the middle of 'noplace' in the South Valley) .

And thank you, VentureForth, for using 'airport' to describe our...airport, as I think 'sunport' is a ridiculous name. Our transit system (ABQRide) was called SunTran until a few years ago, another ridiculous name (sorry Tucson). But then again, we are the 'Land of Enchantment' so I guess we are just determined to use silly names.

In the future service to this stop may increase or another station may be built nearby. UNM announced they want to build a limited service Rail Runner station just north of here to handle the crowds for sports activities (their basketball arena and football stadium and the Isotopes minor league baseball park), and that longer term they want to expand its use to encourage use of Rail Runner by its students and employees (although I am not sure why as the downtown station is closer). http://www.cabq.gov/transit/fares/student-bus-pass


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## gswager (Aug 26, 2008)

VentureForth said:


> I would NOT transfer at Rio Bravo/Airport to go to the airport. The way the schedule is operated makes no sense for airport passengers. Instead, I would get off at the Alvarado Transit Center (downtown ABQ) and take bus 50 (available Mon-Sat). It's even a cheaper cab fare from ABQ instead of Rio Bravo.
> Click Here For Bus Schedules


I second that. I've used it several times. I haven't try Rio Bravo yet, but it seemed to be in an isolated area.


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## gswager (Aug 26, 2008)

jackal said:


> I'm very impressed by the posted travel times. Two hours to cover 100 miles (and 1:20 to cover 60)? That's very nearly competitive with automobile travel times...although IIRC, the speed limit on I-25 in that area is a generous 75mph, so that 60 miles can be done a bit faster than most other medium-distance commutes in other areas of the country. Anyone know what the speed limit for the majority of the track is going to be? Are they aiming for 79mph most of the way? Any plans for 90mph ATS service? (IIRC, the former-BNSF line heading north into Colorado is equipped with ATS...not sure how much of this is going to be replaced with the new alignment and if the new alignment is going to maintain ATS...)


South of ABQ railyard is 79mph zone. When heading toward ABQ railyard from the south, it hit brakes hard to slow down from 79 to 25 mph, I believe. There is a huge gap between stations (Sandoval County/US 550 to I-25/US 599), so it'll be a long and fast ride. It'll be a test to see how fast the train can go on a really long uphill (5,500 to 7,000 ft. elevation). I'm curious if it will use one locomotive or two? My guess that it'll run on 79 mph because it's a dedicated passenger line. 90mph ATS would be too expensive.

Once you leave I-25 corridor into Santa Fe, the speed will be greatly drop due to curves, steep grade, and street crossings, esp. in a most awkward way- diagonally crossing on the intersection.


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## Guest_George Harris_* (Aug 27, 2008)

gswager said:


> sechs said:
> 
> 
> > RailRunner is heavy rail, yes?
> ...


No it isn't. It is classified as commuter rail. That is trains running on tracks that are part of the interconnected sytem of railroads in this country. As far as the FRA is concerned, it is a railroad and both light rail and heavy rail transit systems are not.


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## VentureForth (Aug 27, 2008)

So would that make the Utah Front Runner, which runs on dedicated track on the UP ROW more of a true "heavy rail"? Or does it only take one turnout to make it part of the interconnected system?


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## jackal (Aug 27, 2008)

As with many things, there can be crossover in these terms. It also doesn't help that rail terminology is vastly different between the U.S. and the U.K. as well as English translations from foreign languages.

However, in the U.S., most transportation systems fall under three categories.

The term "heavy rail," as used by the American Public Transit Association, refers to the heavy passenger loadings of typical rapid transit (generally subway) systems. The term "heavy" signifies that it carries a very large amount of passengers due to its long trains (six to ten cars, usually) and very frequent headways (just a few minutes apart). Heavy rail systems generally have high speeds (70mph is common) and a dedicated (and usually fenced-off) right-of-way.

Light rail is defined by the same organization to refer to the relatively light (compared to heavy rail) passenger loads. Headways are less frequent (15 to 30 minutes at peak service), and trains are shorter (two to four cars). They often also travel slower and can travel at-grade and even in the street itself. The terms "heavy" and "light" have little, if anything, to do with the weight of the vehicles themselves--light rail cars can be heavier than heavy rail cars.

Commuter rail is considered separate from the above-mentioned modes of transit. Commuter rail (also referred to as regional or suburban rail) typically uses equipment compatible with and following the safety standards of the Federal Railroad Administration and American Association of Railroads. It would normally be possible (though there are exceptions) for commuter rail equipment to run in line with something like a standard Amtrak train or be hooked up to a freight train. Also, outside of the Northeast Corridor, most commuter rail is not electrified, whereas heavy and light rail systems usually use either third-rail or overhead catenary electric power.

The Utah Front Runner uses equipment compatible with and following the standards of the FRA and AAR (in their case, MPI engines and Bombardier Bi-Level coaches). Their employment standards and hours of service rules are governed by the FRA and the applicable Code of Federal Regulations sections. The train can (even if it doesn't normally) run in-line with any freight trains without any special time or distance separation (unlike the San Diego Trolley, where freight trains can use the Trolley's trackage at night after the Trolley has ceased operations). Therefore, it would be considered "commuter rail," even if any crossovers connecting the Front Runner's tracks with the parallel UP tracks were cut.

As an example of how things can appear to cross over terminology, the Siemens Diesel Multiple Units used in the Oceanside-Escondido Sprinter service are one of the rare special cases where it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. It's diesel, suburban/intercity, and operates on standard-gauge at-grade trackage with grade crossings, so it would almost seem to be commuter rail. However, the Desiro-class units are not compatible with FRA safety specs and possibly (though I do not know this for sure) lack standard AAR couplers and air brake glad hands to connect to mainline railroad equipment. Therefore, I would classify it as a light-rail system (light rail systems can have grade crossings with normal-looking crossing gates--the nearby San Diego Trolley system as well as the Los Angeles MTA's Blue and Gold lines have grade crossings).

The San Francisco BART is another one that could almost be called commuter rail, since it travels through extensive suburbs. However, the dedicated right-of-way (either underground, elevated, or fenced off), electric propulsion, and nonstandard equipment (wide-gauge and definitely not compatible with AAR standards!) mark it as rapid transit heavy rail. The proposed eBART extension past Pittsburg-Bay Point would likely be something similar to the Sprinter service mentioned above.

A third confusing case would be the Los Angeles MTA Green Line. It has a dedicated ROW primarily in the median of Interstate 105, so it would seem to be heavy rail. However, its top speed is a pokey 55mph, it has less-frequent headways (15 minutes at peak service hours), and runs with shorter trains (two cars). The equipment is more similar to that used on the Gold Line and Blue Line, and so I would classify that as light rail.

But for the most part, all of the transportation systems I can think of in the U.S. (and Canada, for that matter) fall pretty neatly into one of the three above categories. Here are some samplings (though by no means an exhaustive list):

Heavy rail:

Los Angeles MTA Red Line

Boston T Red, Orange, and Blue lines

New York Subway (virtually the entire system)

Washington DC Metro

Atlanta MARTA

San Francisco BART

Chicago RTA El

Light rail:

Los Angeles MTA Green, Blue, and Gold lines

San Diego Trolley

San Jose VTA

San Francisco MUNI

Portland MAX

Seattle South Lake Union Trolley (er, Streetcar--ride it!  )

Seattle Link Light Rail (it's even in the name!)

Boston T Green Line

St. Louis MetroLink

Commuter rail:

SCRRA Metrolink

San Francisco Caltrain

Chicago METRA

Boston MTBA Commuter Rail

New York MTA Metro North

New York MTA Long Island Rail Road

New Jersey Transit (most lines--they operate a light rail/streetcar line somewhere, IIRC)

Maryland MARC

Virginia VRE

New Mexico Rail Runner

Utah Front Runner


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## Joel N. Weber II (Aug 27, 2008)

jackal said:


> Also, outside of the Northeast Corridor, most commuter rail is not electrified, whereas heavy and light rail systems usually use either third-rail or overhead catenary electric power.


Even if you look at the commuter rail trains that run on the NEC, catenary for commuter rail is not at all universal. MBTA Commuter Rail is certainly all diesel, and I think Shore Line East and MARC are also diesel. SEPTA's whole commuter rail system uses catenary. I think Metro-North and NJT use catenary for the trains that go from New Haven to Grand Central Terminal and from NYP to Trenton. WAS also has VRE service which is diesel.


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## AlanB (Aug 27, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> jackal said:
> 
> 
> > Also, outside of the Northeast Corridor, most commuter rail is not electrified, whereas heavy and light rail systems usually use either third-rail or overhead catenary electric power.
> ...


NJT also uses CAT for half the NJ Coast line, all of the Morris & Essex line, and the Montclair section of the Boonton line.

As for MARC, they run diesel only on the Brunswick and Camden lines which have no catenary. On the Penn line, which runs on the NEC, they use a mix of electric and diesel motors, although I think that they lean towards mainly electrics.


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## sechs (Aug 28, 2008)

jackal said:


> However, in the U.S., most transportation systems fall under three categories.
> The term "heavy rail," as used by the American Public Transit Association


APTA has some fairly ridiculous divisions, and I can't fathom why they make them.

Nearly all "commuter rail" is "heavy rail" by any meaningful definition.

They seem to lump "rapid transit" with heavy rail, but it seems more like light rail in some respects. Most people call this a separate category, that pulls characteristics from both light and heavy rail.

So is Amtrak commuter rail?


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## jackal (Aug 28, 2008)

sechs said:


> jackal said:
> 
> 
> > However, in the U.S., most transportation systems fall under three categories.
> ...


Not by any definition I've ever heard, unless you're using "heavy rail" in the European sense. Commuter rail has always (not just by the APTA) been considered separate from heavy rail. Commuter rail generally uses mainline trackage, travels at-grade, and has low frequency (on the order of hourly) and moderate passenger capacity (a few hundred). Heavy rail has high acceleration and high speeds, high frequency (on the order of minutes), high passenger capacity (probably closer to a thousand on a packed train), grade separation, and electric propulsion.

The LACMTA Red Line is heavy rail. Metrolink is commuter rail. They're two different beasts.



sechs said:


> They seem to lump "rapid transit" with heavy rail, but it seems more like light rail in some respects. Most people call this a separate category, that pulls characteristics from both light and heavy rail.


Every definition of rapid transit I've ever seen pretty neatly matches with every [American] definition of heavy rail. The LACMTA Red Line is rapid transit. So is the Washington, DC Metro, the NYC subway, the London Underground, and the Paris Metro. All of those also match the [American] definition of "heavy rail."



sechs said:


> So is Amtrak commuter rail?


Amtrak is intercity rail, except that some of the corridor services could be considered commuter rail. Commuter rail is basically the same as intercity rail--they use similar equipment, operating practices, and often use the same trackage. APTA specifically notes the potential overlap between commuter rail and intercity rail with the following sentence:



> Intercity rail service is excluded, except for that portion of such service that is operated by or under contract with a public transit agency for predominantly commuter services, which means that for any given trip segment (i.e., distance between any two stations), more than 50% of the average daily ridership travels on the train at least three times a week.


I'd say the APTA definitions are pretty standard. I see the same usage in industry publications (i.e. Mass Transit magazine).


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## Green Maned Lion (Aug 30, 2008)

sechs said:


> jackal said:
> 
> 
> > However, in the U.S., most transportation systems fall under three categories.
> ...


Heavy rail definitionally has separate, and grade seperated, rights of way. Commuter rail can operate on any FRA trackage that its cars can fit on. Amtrak is inter-city. Generally, commuter rail is characterized by operating trains city-to-suburb (Example: NJTs NJ Coast Line which operates New York City to Bayhead), while Amtrak operates its trains primarily between large cities (example, New York to Chicago). The few trains that don't fit that category are oddballs, such as the Ethen Allen Express, the Pere Marquette, and the Vermonter. All of which, not entirely coincidentally, are state funded. And the Hilltopper doesn't count.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Aug 31, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Generally, commuter rail is characterized by operating trains city-to-suburb (Example: NJTs NJ Coast Line which operates New York City to Bayhead), while Amtrak operates its trains primarily between large cities (example, New York to Chicago). The few trains that don't fit that category are oddballs, such as the Ethen Allen Express, the Pere Marquette, and the Vermonter. All of which, not entirely coincidentally, are state funded. And the Hilltopper doesn't count.


That's an excellent observation about city to city vs city to suburb.

If we're looking for corner cases, SEPTA Commuter Rail tends to be suburb to city to suburb (and maybe Boston and maybe even other cities will get around to copying that example someday).


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## jackal (Aug 31, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > Generally, commuter rail is characterized by operating trains city-to-suburb (Example: NJTs NJ Coast Line which operates New York City to Bayhead), while Amtrak operates its trains primarily between large cities (example, New York to Chicago). The few trains that don't fit that category are oddballs, such as the Ethen Allen Express, the Pere Marquette, and the Vermonter. All of which, not entirely coincidentally, are state funded. And the Hilltopper doesn't count.
> ...


Southern California has a very rare style of commuter train line: the IEOC (Inland Empire-Orange County) Line, which operates suburb-to-suburb, never passing through Downtown.

Los Angeles is so spread out and lacking a true "CBD", so I would believe that it's used by workers who live in the Inland Empire but work in Orange County (or vice versa). However, there's a pretty big segment of Inland Empire residents who use it on the weekends to go to the beaches of OC...


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## Joel N. Weber II (Aug 31, 2008)

jackal said:


> Southern California has a very rare style of commuter train line: the IEOC (Inland Empire-Orange County) Line, which operates suburb-to-suburb, never passing through Downtown.
> Los Angeles is so spread out and lacking a true "CBD", so I would believe that it's used by workers who live in the Inland Empire but work in Orange County (or vice versa). However, there's a pretty big segment of Inland Empire residents who use it on the weekends to go to the beaches of OC...


Commuting patterns that don't involve going to downtown aren't all that rare. I can think of at least two people who drive from near the outbound end of the D branch of the MBTA Green Line to near Alewife because they save about a half hour each way with the single occupancy vehicle. If the MBTA didn't force them to go downtown on trains that make probably two dozen stops total, they'd probably be more interested in riding the T.

Observe also that somehow Interstate Highway funding seems to have materialized for highways that go around cities in many places (like I-495 and 128 around Boston), and that many commuters seem to make use of those highways.


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