Light Rail versus "Streetcars"

Hi Walt,

If you ever make it to the west coast, you have to visit San Diego and ride the "Tijuana Trolley". It doesn't go into Mexico, but it dead ends in the border town in the US. This LRV is strictly street running, and has steps to climb up at the streetcorners. At each stop, alongside the wall of the building is a "computer" which will sell you a ticket. Depending on the zone you want to travel to, the fare varies. But you climb aboard the TJ trolley as you would a PCC. Smooth ride, great company, and great sights. And don't forget to buy that ticket, without it you are subject to severe fines. The security guards ride the trolleys and check your tickets. Some trolleys have no security guards, some do, and some get off and go on another trolley and catch the people on that trolley. Random checking of tickets. Best not to gamble.

pennsy wrote:Hi Walt,

If you ever make it to the west coast, you have to visit San Diego and ride the "Tijuana Trolley". It doesn't go into Mexico, but it dead ends in the border town in the US. This LRV is strictly street running, and has steps to climb up at the streetcorners. At each stop, alongside the wall of the building is a "computer" which will sell you a ticket. Depending on the zone you want to travel to, the fare varies. But you climb aboard the TJ trolley as you would a PCC. Smooth ride, great company, and great sights. And don't forget to buy that ticket, without it you are subject to severe fines. The security guards ride the trolleys and check your tickets. Some trolleys have no security guards, some do, and some get off and go on another trolley and catch the people on that trolley. Random checking of tickets. Best not to gamble.

Whatever happened to the old fare boxes?

Toronto has both articulated and non-articulated streetcars.

Though there is no generally accepted definition of "streetcar" or "LRV", perusing the specifications reveals that LRVs have a much greater weight per passenger than streetcars. If one accepts PCCs as a current or comparable design, this is even more true. However, the last PCCs worldwide seem to have been produced in about 2000 (they are three-section cars with a low floor middle and eight axles.)

LRVs also have a higher designed running speed and in comparable situations, a lower schedule speed (see Commonwealth Avenue, Boston where it amounts to 8-12 minutes difference). I think that, in spite of the industry's aversion to historical precedent, an eventual revival, in modern terms, of the lightweight movement is in the future. Perhaps the weight per passenger will get down to the level of a typical subway car. Maybe the price too.

LS

Actually I have always seen the two terms as virtually identical. The LRV is what streetcars, or streetcar derived interurban cars would have become if there hadn't been the massive bustitution in the US of the last fifty years which retarded the continued development (particularly in the US) of the lighter types of electric passenger rail equipment. The Philadelphia Kawasakis are a good example, as both types operate on lines which were built as either city streetcar (the city subway-suface lines) or suburban-interurban lines (the former Red Arrow Media and Sharon Hill Lines). These cars simply replaced "streetcar-era" equipment and represent a more modern version of that older equipment. Even the multi-unit LRVs have their predecessors in several types of interurban equipment, some of which were of similar weight and ran at similar speeds. In reality, LRVs are nothing new.

All that Walt says is true. My objection to LRVs as they currently are is in there too. In the days when there were interurbans, the city systems found them a clumsy tenant. They didn't have the acceleration or the stopping power of city cars (streetcars); they held up local service, they beat up the track and used plenty of power. Remember the stories of local cars stopping because an interurban was accelerating.

Every older company worldwide that has gone to classic LRVs has had to redo their power system. Our LRVs are all rated at over 400 KVA and they replaced cars of similar capacity and speed with ratings of 150 to 200. That costs a lot of money. Rail wear is up too with more track jobs necessary, leading to more cost and annoyance for abutters. A 42-ton LRV with a capacity of 160 (525 lbs per passenger) replaces a 21-ton PCC with a capacity of 120 (350 lbs per passenger) and a big classic lightweight (Boston center-entrance) 17-ton, 160-passenger (58 seats too), 212 lbs per passenger. All that costs money and makes cars harder to afford and run.

I do think that eventually there will be a move toward lighter cars, particularly if the public continues to clearly prefer rail. Most transit professionals know these facts, but must buy what is available. Possibly they would welcome an alternative.

SEPTA, and its suburban predecessor, the Red Arrow Lines, had a similar experience in operating the Liberty Liners ( former North Shore Line Electroliners) over the Old Philadelphia & Western Interurban ( now SEPTA Route 100) The Liners used much more power and were much harder on track and an electrical system which was designed for the much lighter Brill Bullet Cars. As a result, the Liners were only run two or three times per day, and, though purchased in 1964, had been withdrawn by the end of the 1970's. And here, we're talking about true interurban equipment ( both the Liners and the Bullets) and not LRV's. So the weight vs cost problem pre-dates the advent of the "LRV".

It's worth noting that Chicago has made a succesful go of longer-distance electric trains entering downtown over intra-city electric lines - CNSM and CA&E both used the L to access downtown, and because the L was built to a higher degree than streetcar trackage, there was little problem with power draw or wear and tear from North Shore trains. Also, the South Shore has used IC's suburban lines to access downtown since 1926, and again because both were built to high standards - IC was built at steam standards (obviously) and CSS was rebuilt as a heavy electric more like PRR's Harrisburg line than a roadside interurban.

Tadman wrote: IC was built at steam standards (obviously) and CSS was rebuilt as a heavy electric more like PRR's Harrisburg line than a roadside interurban.

Just a note-- PRR's "Harrisburg Line" was originally the PRR Main Line--the Route of all of its trains between New York and the west, including the Broadway Limited. Thus, it too, was built to "steam railroad" standards.

Here's a picture of the loaned two-truck Canadian LRV when it was touring Boston in 1980.

Do you want my opinion/ Of course you do.

The last several posts seemed to hit the nail on the head. There are so many variations betwen streetcar and interurban, and LRV that only the faithful can disect them all. Then there are those that would argue anyway.

To the subject: The term LRV is more a marketing term developed in the '70s than a term of distinction. During the '70s, or as I call it "The Burt Convey Era of Bad Taste," or "The Brady Bunch Era," there seemed to be a need both in marketing and politics that called for renaming everything from a simple term,i.e. "streetcar," to a complex title or nomenclature, i.e. "light rail vehicle." It made everyone seem so important. I can recal a time in early Amtrak when they circulated a brochure to us operating guys that had new names for almost everyone. An example would be the term 'conductor" being changed to "On-board Operations Officer," and tickets briefly referred to as, "Lift Documents." My how that made the people feel. The terms were given up very quickly.

But in the transit field as my Pop's generation were taking hold of the lead reigns no one wanted any terms that pre-dated WWII. It was old fashioned. This was the era of the first fuel crisis and mass transit got a new looking over. People were excited. Cities had just spent fortunes ridding themselves of the "old fashioned trolley," so they couldn't turn around and spend a fortune on a "new fashioned trolley." They had to come up with a name. With a modern "Lighter than rail vehicle," one can't stick a mere trolley pole on top. That would be old fashioned. So the lines opted for a more expensive and weighty pantograph. Phily and Toronto being an exception either by common sense or funding. Remember pans can't run under wire designed for just trolley poles so someone has to get the contract for rebuilding. Since a lot of streetcars had rounded fronts with one headlight, we have to be modern and come up with a bread box with 2 headlights. It couldn't look romantic, it had to be scientific. It had to come from the Space Program in order to be acceptable. Funny thing to me is that the Boeing LRVs look like a huge TV set rolling at me, complete with a news anchor at the helm. All they would need is a weather map behind them on the cab bulkhead and we'd have it.

Remember as with BART in SF that was formed just a short while after the closing of The Key System, it had to be a rocket ship and automatic. BART's first chief executive officer was an advertising man I believe so all decisions were based on sizzle and not steak.

Good post Mitch ! Insightful observations. The funny thing is that it would seem that there is another aspect of the industry that craves that which was also. This want for "nostalgia" historically follows the trends that you spoke about, and in this situation, it has taken on dual-levels. San Francisco's "F" Line is the classic example of which I speak. Following the period of abandonment of lines and vehicles, what did Muni do but invent another line. They did it for two basic reasons. Public transportation is back, and will be back big time if gas continues to skyrocket in price. Secondly, it was good for appearance and tourism - people- natives and tourists alike, love trolleys.

I have to disagree with you as regards to pantographs, as I believe them to be a proven superior collector of electricity, but the rest is all very true. Ironically, in this age of desperately attempting to re-claim potential previously discarded rail lines in the name of "improved public transport", what do we want to put on them but "Light Rail Vehicles" - not trolleys, mind you. Give it a few more years for the coin to flip once again and we'll be calling them "horsecars" again (describing their horsepower as a product of hydro or solar created electricity !)

I disagree about the superiority of pans vs. trolleys in the application of street railway service. The North Shore Line was able to operate multi car trains at speeds up to 80 mph with not too much trouble with dewirements. When a pole or "whip" as they were called on the NSL would dewire the retriever yanked the thing down to the roof...end of story. On the South Shore Line when we'd get a pan caught in the wire it yanked everything down for at least 1/4 mile causing disruptions. Once a while back an engineer caught the wire around Kemil Road going east in the evening rush. When she got stopped at Beverly Shores there was a huge ball of ex-catenary rolling behind her train.

Pans are superior in main-line railroading but it's apples and oranges in lighter than rail service. Pans weigh and cost more, and have to go to the shops to be replaced. A pole can be repaired or replaced by the operator in 15 minutes. One morning we caught the wire at Burnham and snapped the pan on one side. It took me, the conductor and a MofW guy over 45 minutes to cut the thing in half so we could continue west.

Pantographs seem to be used consistently for higher-speed operations, but I've never quite figured out why pantographs are necessary at high speed. I'd think the rolling friction of a trolleypole would be better.

Of course, it's clear that pantographs make junctions simpler to build, which is probably the real reason why they're used in all new operations; there's always a shortage of capital funding, and saving that dollar on the frogs will always seem worth it.

The term "light rail" was invented to refer to all kinds of trolley operation, from street running to reserved highway medians to private rights of way to interurban railroads. Later the term "streetcar" was resurrected to refer to in-street running.

It has been said that pantographs allow a higher current draw than trolley poles. This would be true with trolley wheels. But the shoe trolley appears to have the same contact area (about three inches) with the overhead wire as many pantographs. Although most pantographs have two shoes contacting the wire, on some the shoes appear to give only an inch of contact area apiece.

Some reduction in contact area in trolley shoes may result if the overhead wire is not hung correctly and a wear pattern develops on the (usually carbon) bearing surface inside the shoe.