Light Rail, Commuter Rail, and Interurbans

[Anderson]

In chewing over a bunch of transit stuff related to Hampton Roads, it's hit me (ow!) that the area might be a hair large for what is generally thought of as light rail. Being a standee from the Oceanfront through to the Newport News airport or out to Bowers Hill (as some of the plans imply the system should ultimately reach) is just a bit much, especially since I'm guessing that the implied travel time there would run close to two hours and I'm not seeing any chatter whatsoever, even in the long run, for any real transfer stations.

At the same time, forcing mode shifts from light rail to commuter rail (such as is proposed for runs up to Williamsburg and beyond) adds yet another vehicle shift to the mix (and I don't think a lot of folks are up for taking three trains and two buses to get from A to B even if traffic is awful...there's a limit on switches folks are willing to put up with, especially if the bus system continues to stink).

So, I was wondering...since commuter rail tends to be all-seated while light rail tends to be more "subway-ish" in that there are standees (often lots of them), where did the old interurbans fall on this spectrum? I've never found too much out about them, and I'm wondering if there's some sort of hybrid model that could be sought out to run compatible vehicles on a light rail line as well as a longer-distance operation (again, 60 miles from end to end is a bit much). From their name, it sounds like they were at least "long run streetcars", but I can't tell much more.

One other question: Are there any light rail systems out there that run any sort of "skip stop" services? I know this would likely require a third track in places and some station reworking, but at the same time stops-every-mile local operations might not be ideally suited for some runs (such as, for a ready example, rush hour trains that fill up well outside of downtown and don't have much discharge before downtown, resulting in lots of "academic" stopping...some stuff going to/from Norfolk Naval Base and/or Newport News Shipyard would probably be able to skip a hatful of stops on the way in and out and still be quite full). Even on the existing line (presuming an extension to the waterfront), skipping a few of the immediate stops outside of downtown for a share of the morning/evening trains would likely be doable.

 

[jphjaxfl]

In chewing over a bunch of transit stuff related to Hampton Roads, it's hit me (ow!) that the area might be a hair large for what is generally thought of as light rail. Being a standee from the Oceanfront through to the Newport News airport or out to Bowers Hill (as some of the plans imply the system should ultimately reach) is just a bit much, especially since I'm guessing that the implied travel time there would run close to two hours and I'm not seeing any chatter whatsoever, even in the long run, for any real transfer stations.

At the same time, forcing mode shifts from light rail to commuter rail (such as is proposed for runs up to Williamsburg and beyond) adds yet another vehicle shift to the mix (and I don't think a lot of folks are up for taking three trains and two buses to get from A to B even if traffic is awful...there's a limit on switches folks are willing to put up with, especially if the bus system continues to stink).

So, I was wondering...since commuter rail tends to be all-seated while light rail tends to be more "subway-ish" in that there are standees (often lots of them), where did the old interurbans fall on this spectrum? I've never found too much out about them, and I'm wondering if there's some sort of hybrid model that could be sought out to run compatible vehicles on a light rail line as well as a longer-distance operation (again, 60 miles from end to end is a bit much). From their name, it sounds like they were at least "long run streetcars", but I can't tell much more.

One other question: Are there any light rail systems out there that run any sort of "skip stop" services? I know this would likely require a third track in places and some station reworking, but at the same time stops-every-mile local operations might not be ideally suited for some runs (such as, for a ready example, rush hour trains that fill up well outside of downtown and don't have much discharge before downtown, resulting in lots of "academic" stopping...some stuff going to/from Norfolk Naval Base and/or Newport News Shipyard would probably be able to skip a hatful of stops on the way in and out and still be quite full). Even on the existing line (presuming an extension to the waterfront), skipping a few of the immediate stops outside of downtown for a share of the morning/evening trains would likely be doable.

I rode the Illinois Terminal between Peoria and St. Louis as a boy in the early 1950s.. They had Express Trains and locals....even though patronage was starting to go down, they still had their peak times around holidays. They would just add extra cars to the trains which was the great thing. The Interurbans demise was directly related to improved highways and better cars. I went to college in Southern Indiana near Louisville, Ky. I talked to old timers who remember the Interstate Railroad which was the Interurban between Indianapolis and Louisville. Some of infrastruture of the Interstate could still be seen including the old trolly terminal in Louisville which housed the offices of the Louisville Transit Co. They talked about the Dixie Flyer express trains which made only the major stops between Indianapolis and Louisville and had parlor cars on the trains and the locals that made even rural stops so that almost the entire state of Indiana was connected by public transportation. In the peak holiday times, the Interstate would pull out their older Interurban cars and hook them onto trains. The private railroads did the same thing right up until Amtrak.

 

[NW cannonball]

In chewing over a bunch of transit stuff related to Hampton Roads, it's hit me (ow!) that the area might be a hair large for what is generally thought of as light rail. Being a standee from the Oceanfront through to the Newport News airport or out to Bowers Hill (as some of the plans imply the system should ultimately reach) is just a bit much, especially since I'm guessing that the implied travel time there would run close to two hours and I'm not seeing any chatter whatsoever, even in the long run, for any real transfer stations.

At the same time, forcing mode shifts from light rail to commuter rail (such as is proposed for runs up to Williamsburg and beyond) adds yet another vehicle shift to the mix (and I don't think a lot of folks are up for taking three trains and two buses to get from A to B even if traffic is awful...there's a limit on switches folks are willing to put up with, especially if the bus system continues to stink).

So, I was wondering...since commuter rail tends to be all-seated while light rail tends to be more "subway-ish" in that there are standees (often lots of them), where did the old interurbans fall on this spectrum? I've never found too much out about them, and I'm wondering if there's some sort of hybrid model that could be sought out to run compatible vehicles on a light rail line as well as a longer-distance operation (again, 60 miles from end to end is a bit much). From their name, it sounds like they were at least "long run streetcars", but I can't tell much more.

One other question: Are there any light rail systems out there that run any sort of "skip stop" services? I know this would likely require a third track in places and some station reworking, but at the same time stops-every-mile local operations might not be ideally suited for some runs (such as, for a ready example, rush hour trains that fill up well outside of downtown and don't have much discharge before downtown, resulting in lots of "academic" stopping...some stuff going to/from Norfolk Naval Base and/or Newport News Shipyard would probably be able to skip a hatful of stops on the way in and out and still be quite full). Even on the existing line (presuming an extension to the waterfront), skipping a few of the immediate stops outside of downtown for a share of the morning/evening trains would likely be doable.

Technically - seems one would need at least 3 tracks to make skip-stop work on any sort of short-headway system.

About transferring from light-rail or subway to longer-distance commuter trains - it works for many in say - NYC - where the subway does lots of skip-stop services in rush hour - but where they do that there are four tracks. Shanghai and London I've looked at but never been there.

But for Hampton Roads -- it will be a while - I took four buses to get from Downtown Norfolk to the NPN airport - PHF - just last month - about 3+ hours to do 20 miles. No public transit at all to ORF.

Good to be looking ahead - but how the systems will work together to make commuting tolerable - ?

 

[AlanB]

Technically - seems one would need at least 3 tracks to make skip-stop work on any sort of short-headway system.

About transferring from light-rail or subway to longer-distance commuter trains - it works for many in say - NYC - where the subway does lots of skip-stop services in rush hour - but where they do that there are four tracks.

No! Where NYC has 4 tracks they do express service, not skip-stop. The express trains skip local stops, but make all express stops. The locals make all stops.

Skip-stop means that you skip this stop & make the next, while the train behind does stop at the stop where the first train skipped and then skips where the first train did stop. NYC uses this technique on the J line in Queens & Brooklyn. On weekdays they run some trains as J and some as Z. If the J skips a stop, the Z will make that stop and then skip the next. Both trains stop at the busiest of stops, while alternating at the smaller stops. And all of this is done on a 2 track line.

They used to do the same thing on the #1 line, running a #9 as the alternate, but they stopped that a few years ago.

 

[AlanB]

I was typing the above from my iPad, which makes typing more difficult and slower.

But just to clarify things a bit better, NYC's Express trains cannot stop at the local stops. There is no platform next to the express track, meaning that stopping is not even an option. With skip-stop service the train still goes right by the platform like normal, but it doesn't stop because it is skipping that stop.

Here is the map for the J line in NYC. If you look at the map, you'll see that starting from the top, the J always makes the first 2 stops as indicated by the black dot for those stations. But at 121st Street, the dot is white, indicating that the train doesn't always make that stop. During rush hours, the J skips that stop and only the Z makes that stop. This continues through the Myrtle Avenue stop, where the J in the rush hour direction runs on the middle express track. From Broadway Junction to Manhattan, the line does have 3 tracks. But east of B'way Junction there are only two tracks.

So the idea behind the skip-stop is that J blows right by the 121st Street stop making the run a bit faster, and while the J is stopped at the next stop 111, the Z is pulling into 121st. The J then moves out of 111 and the Z moments later flies right through the 111 stop, without stopping.

 

[trainman74]

Some of the Chicago 'L' lines had skip-stop service until around 1995 -- instead of something like "J" versus "Z" as in New York, it was "Howard A" versus "Howard B," "Ravenswood A" versus "Ravenswood B," etc. They dropped the service because train headways had increased to the point that times to go from an "A" stop to a "B" stop had gotten unacceptably long, particularly outside rush hours. (Headways have since decreased, but I'm not aware of any serious proposals to resume skip-stop operation.)

 

[fairviewroad]

The Market-Frankford El (Blue Line) in Philadelphia operates Skip-stop service during rush hour, but hardly any stops are actually skipped.

Here's a map.

But the OP's question is more about light rail, I think.

The suburban trolley lines in Philly operate an extremely limited set of express runs. These aren't really skip-stops, more of a traditional

"express" that passes a few of the closer-in stations. They are only offered on outbound runs, for some reason.

Route 101 and Route 102.

Meanwhile, the Norristown High Speed Line, which resembles the old "inter-urbans" perhaps more than anything else still operating, offers

a fairly high number of express runs in both directions during weekday rush hours.

But in terms of the new generation of light rail systems, I'm not aware of any that offer express or skip-stop service. I think this is an oversight,

as the ride for some folks can be rather long (I'm thinking from the northern edge of Baltimore into downtown, or from the far-flung sections of

the Portland, OR MAX system.) But absent expensive retrofits, I don't think that will change anytime soon for existing systems. But something

for planners of new systems to consider, IYAM.

 

[Anderson]

I think you could make something work with only two tracks on some segments, so long as you had a reasonably long third track section at the appropriate stations (i.e. long enough to reasonably operate the signal blocks); you wouldn't need the extra track for either all-stop stations or lengthy segments between stations. With that said, there's also the option of "skip-stopping" a segment of the line (i.e. "All trains stop at stations 1, 2, 7, 14, and 15; 3-6 and 8-13 are skip-stop services, with 7 having "full" service to enable transfers between skip-stoppers").

I agree that this should be considered...mind you, the cost of doing the retrofit will vary from system to system, but like you said...with larger systems, enabling 10-20 miles of uninterrupted/minimally interrupted running (i.e. only "really" stopping at line interchanges and/or to allow some traffic to consolidate from "locals" or at major stops) in areas as a line runs into downtown and then resuming a local pattern (or, again, allowing a transfer to a local) would likely knock significant time off of a commute. And yes, saving 5-10 minutes on a 40-60 minute trip is significant.

 

[MattW]

I'm not sure, doesn't the Norristown High Speed Line near Philadelphia operate Express, Limited AND Local service on a two-track line? I Thought I had read that expresses were timed to leave just before a local, and so that they would "catch up" to the last local once the express reaches its terminal.

 

[AlanB]

I'm not sure, doesn't the Norristown High Speed Line near Philadelphia operate Express, Limited AND Local service on a two-track line? I Thought I had read that expresses were timed to leave just before a local, and so that they would "catch up" to the last local once the express reaches its terminal.

Never really sat and studied the schedule to be sure that the express leaves just before a local and such; but it is true that they offer three different types of service. One can view the schedule here.

 

[Anderson]

I'm not sure, doesn't the Norristown High Speed Line near Philadelphia operate Express, Limited AND Local service on a two-track line? I Thought I had read that expresses were timed to leave just before a local, and so that they would "catch up" to the last local once the express reaches its terminal.

Never really sat and studied the schedule to be sure that the express leaves just before a local and such; but it is true that they offer three different types of service. One can view the schedule here.

Two other options come to mind for setting something like this up. I'll use The Tide as a hypothetical example, but that's more to allow a quick illustration than anything.

1) Run two sets of trains. One runs express A-B and then local B-C. The other either does the opposite (local A-B and express B-C) or simply terminates at B and reverses. This is useful when you've got enough traffic that one end of the line is getting swamped and you're having "academic" stops on the A-B section (i.e. trains are full of people going downtown, they're at capacity, so you're stopping places that there is zero on/off traffic).

2) As before, but one runs "express" and the other runs "local". Designate a major stop for the express to pass the local preceding it, put in a mile or two of extra track(s), and have all trains stop there to allow transfers. The biggest jam here is that the express might run late for some reason and not be "in slot" at the station because of problems before the express segment. The "easy" fix here would be to simply have the express start at A, but...again, at some point you're adding excess transfers. Realistically, if it's only a minute or two behind, you simply hold the local; if it's far, far behind, you release the local and just let the express "catch" it and lock it into the pattern.

So, moving to the Tide, let's say that A is Harbor Park, B is Newtown Road, and C is the Oceanfront.

#1 has the added edge that it wouldn't be too hard to envision splitting the "Norfolk Local" and the "Beach Local" at A and running them to different parts of downtown, using A as a transfer. For Norfolk, you could run the Norfolk Local up Hampton Avenue and the Beach Local up Granby Street (both ultimately terminating at Norfolk Naval Station), and do so with at most one transfer for folks (at Harbor Park). #2 runs the risk of triggering a second transfer on such a setup, particularly if the express/local section is long enough to need multiple "passing" stops (say, you needed another passing/double stop at Virginia Beach Town Center). Similarly, #1 can save everyone a moderate amount of time getting from Harbor Park to the Oceanfront...though #2 can save folks on the Express a lot of time getting to the far end(s) of the line. And of course, none of this precludes there being areas on both ends with "locals all the way" (say, a 2-5 stop area approaching/along the Oceanfront in addition to downtown Norfolk) or splitting at the end, though again...if one train is noticeably faster, the headache could emerge of folks who're effectively encouraged to transfer twice.

 

[WuTang]

What about something like an S-Bahn that operates sort of as a fusion between commuter rail and intra-city rail transit; or just good old fashioned heavy rail rapid transit?

 

[Anderson]

What about something like an S-Bahn that operates sort of as a fusion between commuter rail and intra-city rail transit; or just good old fashioned heavy rail rapid transit?

I suspect that the S-Bahn isn't too far off of an interurban line, at least from what I've read about it. Of course, I could also say the same thing about the LIRR (or the old Clockers, for that matter).

Frankly, I prefer heavy rail options (if nothing else, you gain the potential for freight access as well; even if limited to nighttime operation or a handful of daytime slots), but they run into all sorts of problems with street running and the like. They may need wider RoWs, too, though I'm not willing to commit to that statement. At the very least, I'm certain there are all sorts of wacky nuances with the FRA rules.

Part of the problem is that the carriages (i.e. passenger cars) have to be set up differently for a "short" trip (i.e. something rarely running more than 40 minutes) and a "long" one (i.e. something potentially taking 2+ hours). The former can take a lot of standees (especially folks only riding for a few stops); the latter requires pretty close to 100% seating and you get pissed-off riders when they have to stand. I think that in DC, I rode the metro the "wrong way" at least once to get a seat going into downtown.

LRT vehicles are also usually a bit thinner than an Amfleet (again, I think), again allowing for a thinner RoW. They certainly feel a bit smaller, but I've never been able to line them up for a comparison. The other jam is that LRT turns can be a lot tighter than your average commuter line, which can allow you to wedge lines into urban areas more efficiently.

At the very least, I do wish that LRT lines were also "heavy rail compatible" so that if nothing else, you could drop some Silverliners on a line, rearrange some station track layouts, and avoid having to use two RoWs to run a "comprehensive" commuter operation in certain circumstances. No, it wouldn't be necessary on a lot of lines, but the flexibility would probably be useful in the long run, and there are lines where it would likely end up helping quite a bit.

The other angle would be getting LRT-compatible longer-distance vehicles. These might well be LRT vehicles themselves, just with more seating/less standee room.

 

[AlanB]

Frankly, I prefer heavy rail options (if nothing else, you gain the potential for freight access as well; even if limited to nighttime operation or a handful of daytime slots), but they run into all sorts of problems with street running and the like. They may need wider RoWs, too, though I'm not willing to commit to that statement. At the very least, I'm certain there are all sorts of wacky nuances with the FRA rules.

Actually the only heavy rail line that I'm aware of that ever interacted with freight at one time, is the Staten Island RR division of NYC's MTA. The MTA had to specially modify R44 cars with extra bracing in order to meet FRA collision standards.

Light rail mixing with freight, using temporal separation is far more common. NJT does it on several lines, Sprinter mixes, San Diego mixes, the O Train in Ottawa, and that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure that there are few more.

LRT vehicles are also usually a bit thinner than an Amfleet (again, I think), again allowing for a thinner RoW. They certainly feel a bit smaller, but I've never been able to line them up for a comparison. The other jam is that LRT turns can be a lot tighter than your average commuter line, which can allow you to wedge lines into urban areas more efficiently.

It seems on average that most LRT vehicles are 8'9" or 8'10" wide. An Amfleet is 10'6".

 

[Eric S]

Another example of heavy rail/rapid transit "interacting" with freight, until sometime in the 1970s I believe, was the CTA, present-day Red/Purple Line L on the North Side.

 

[Anderson]

At least looking at pictures seen of The Tide, for example, it looks like the 1'8" or so definitely comes off the track spacing. I'd be shocked if you could pass a pair of Amfleets on the Tide's line. And what you mentioned (about focusing on temporal separation) is why that was a major suggestion of mine; even if they could only run it as a single-track operation, it's not like they're going to be crashing over interlockings at 90 MPH with these vehicles. Considering that most LRT lines are shut down for 4-6 hours at night (depending on the day), you could easily achieve that separation; if the system was large enough to make it an issue, I'd think you could also stagger the temporal separation in different areas as well. If there was online freight delivery, assuming you could make the clearances under the wires, you'd just need to schedule the deliveries/pickups for the middle of the night.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

What about something like an S-Bahn that operates sort of as a fusion between commuter rail and intra-city rail transit; or just good old fashioned heavy rail rapid transit?

That would be very similar to an old interurban. I actually like such an idea in the US but you would have to build new lines for them because most American lines are single-track, non-electric, and owned by freight railroads. It would only work on new right-of-way, but it may not be that bad as long as connections are good.

BTW, my two favourite interurbans are North Shore Line and Lehigh Valley Transit. Here's a great site about interurbans: http://www.chicagorailfan.com/ijmain.html

 

[Anderson]

I'd rate the North Shore as my favorite. As I understand it, they served a great breakfast on their way into town.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I'd rate the North Shore as my favorite. As I understand it, they served a great breakfast on their way into town.

The North Shore was great but Lehigh Valley Transit was one of the best "classic" interurbans, in that they basically ran a long streetcar route but still had advanced equipment (Red Devils). North Shore was more intercity.