Chicago's Massive Bet on Regional Rail

https://urbanists.video/w/gF6gnNRwcW6QMVxJvas98Y

TFW you have the day off and find yourself searching for the longest possible day trip you could take on #MBTA #CommuterRail because you'd really just like to curl up somewhere warm and white noise-y and stare out the window and disassociate.

#Aging #GenX #Anxiety #CanIGetAPrescriptionForThis

I think it's a telling sign about the passenger volume for my local train station that, when I parked there this morning, I doubled the number of cars in the parking lot.

#trains #commuterrail #MARCtrain #transit

It isn’t just the Front Range that needs rail service. Colorado and indeed the entire US should be actively and aggressively building railways instead of endlessly expanding highways. #commuterrail #passengerrail #regionalrail #interstaterail #internationalrail #railway

RTD board votes to join other transit officials in exploring feasibility of Front Range Passenger Rail

https://www.denver7.com/traffic/rtd-board-votes-to-join-other-transit-officials-in-exploring-feasibility-of-front-range-passenger-rail

America’s most-improved regional rail line

Twenty-five years or so of traveling to the Bay Area for work and for family have not left me in the habit of handing out compliments to rail transit there. Between the limited route maps of Bay Area Rapid Transit and Muni Metro and the horribly expensive construction costs of projects like San Francisco’s 1.7-mile, $1.6 billion Central Subway, public transport around the Bay has too often served first as a lesson to others.

More recently–especially since Google moved its I/O developer conference to Mountain View in 2016–I’ve gotten acquainted with and also unimpressed by Caltrain’s commuter-rail service on the peninsula, run with trains hauled by aging, loud and polluting diesel locomotives. But this week’s I/O trip introduced me to a reinvented rail line that the rest of the U.S. should envy.

Between last May and this May, Caltrain completed a lengthy modernization project to string electric wires over 51 miles of track from San Francisco to San Jose and buy electric-multiple-unit, double-decker trainsets from the Swiss manufacturer Stadler.

So instead of waiting for my ride south from Milbrae to groan its way up to speed on Monday night, this train (packed with Giants fans on their way home from that night’s game) quietly whooshed out of the station. That faster acceleration from every stop helped my entire trip from SFO to Mountain View, starting with BART from the airport, take less time than just last year’s Caltrain ride from Milbrae to Mountain View.

Bunking down in an Airbnb four blocks from that station for the next three nights provided another reminder of how much better electrified trains are: I didn’t hear the roar of diesel engines, leaving just train horns at the nearby grade crossings.

Less obvious but also appreciated: the immense drop in air pollution at and near stations as well as onboard train cars.

My return trip up the peninsula Thursday morning, one of four northbound departures from Mountain View between 8 and 9 a.m., was as great as the ride down. Other passengers seemed to agree about the usefulness of the service, with the train looking as crowded as Monday night’s. Caltrain’s fare date for April showed a more than 50 percent jump in ridership compared to a year ago, outpacing growth at every other transit agency in the region.

(Bonus: the fastest train WiFi I’ve enjoyed to date.)

Outside the U.S., this is not that special–fast, frequent, electric-hauled trains are the default for regional rail service across Europe. But in most of the States, the best you can get outside a subway’s service area is a diesel engine, hopefully built in the last 15 years, hauling passenger cars. This trip to the Bay Area reminded me that we don’t have to accept that level of sluggish, noisy and dirty service as good enough.

We can, however, do better than Caltrain in electrifying regional rail lines, since that organization wound up spending $2.44 billion on this upgrade. Delusional NIMBY lawsuits, Trump adminstration unhelpfulness, and the pandemic aren’t its fault, but Caltrain can’t blame anybody else for an unnecessarily conservative infrastructure design and a botched proprietary train-control effort. And it still needs to raise station platforms to train-door levels to speed boarding and alighting.

A recent report called Momentum, written by veteran NYC transit reporter Nolan Hicks for New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management, provides a must-read playbook for other transit organizations about how to avoid design mistakes like Caltrain’s and electrify and accelerate their routes at lower costs.

Commuter-rail managers should read it. And if they find themselves needing to head south of San Francisco on their next trip to the Bay Area, they should take a ride on a line that may make them feel bad about their own service.

#BART #BayArea #Caltrain #catenary #commuterRail #diesel #electricMultipleUnit #electricTrain #electrification #EMU #GoogleIO #Muni #overheadWire #pollution #regionalRail

Dear Friends,
This is an assistant conductor or conductor (I have a query out on this) looking out their window to help align this #train to the bridge plates that are put in place over closed tracks that are adjacent to the train platform. It's a delicate maneuver.
ESM

#FensterFreitag #photography
#trains #PublicTransport #GreenTransport #ElectricTransport #PublicTransportation #CommuterRail #CommuterTrain #TransitTuesday
#NewYork #Bronx

#brightline #commuterrail

https://archive.ph/2025.03.24-231814/https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2025/03/24/brightlines-commuter-rail-plans-gain-momentum.html#selection-1211.101-1211.452

In one of the happiest accidents that ever resulted from utter failure in planning, I got “stranded” in the parking lot of Palo Alto Medical's main campus... and discovered I was 6 stories above a #Caltrain line on a beautiful day. 🥰

#Trains #CommuterRail #PassengerTrain