In early March 2009 the NICTD recieved a 2 car set of bilevel cars in Michigan City. As of this writing, they are used together to test track, cars and cantenary. They have run exclusively as a 2 car set running back and forth between Gary and Michigan City during the mid-morning to early afternoon. They have been having particular difficulty in the Beverly Shores area with the cantenary and have made a number of repairs to accommodate the new equipment.
allenpien In early March 2009 the NICTD recieved a 2 car set of bilevel cars in Michigan City. As of this writing, they are used together to test track, cars and cantenary. They have run exclusively as a 2 car set running back and forth between Gary and Michigan City during the mid-morning to early afternoon. They have been having particular difficulty in the Beverly Shores area with the cantenary and have made a number of repairs to accommodate the new equipment.
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While that is a great way to increase capacity without worrying about platform lengths and headway, local transit stops too often and for too short a time to make moving to and from the upper level convenient.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet While that is a great way to increase capacity without worrying about platform lengths and headway, local transit stops too often and for too short a time to make moving to and from the upper level convenient.
South Shore stations aren't any closer together than the non-express part of the Rock Island route on Chicago's South Side, and they were the first railroad to move to bilevels in the Fifties. CNW stations are as little as a mile apart in the suburbs yet the top tier is happily occupied -- usually with commuters going all the way to downtown Chicago. - a.s.
If it works out then it's a great idea. No increased platform lengths or headway problems.
But how about dwell times?
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That was my concern above, but Al says they are in use in Chicago, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. I know that Lynx here in Charlotte schedules 25 seconds stopped for each platform.
The Chicago-style "gallery" bilevel car was designed to facilitate a large number of people getting on or off the coach. Unlike the (often greater-capacity) "double-decker", the main coach passengers sit at the level of the mid-train staging area near the doors -- they don't have to walk up or down any stairs except to get on and get off the train unless they climb to the gallery.
Metra patrons, at least, know they'd better be ready and waiting in the staging area before their stop, because these commuter trains do have small dwell times. When the double-doors start to close, that's IT -- as one young woman found about ten years ago, when she held onto her musical instrument (which, unlike her body, was inside the Metra train) after the doors closed and the train started moving. Those are not spring-back doors like elevator doors -- she was dragged down the platform and almost mutiliated by train wheels. As it was, she was badly, badly injured.
The "diaphragm" or "double-deck" type of bilev cars (like on NM's RailRunner) are generally of more recent design -- do they have safer doors? - a.s.
Scheduled dwell time might vary with real loading/inloading time. That might be the test here. I get the feeling that dwells of the Bi's at NJT are causing them a few problems....inimated in some conversaitons but not really talked about because of the "egg on the face syndrome". Merging people from two levels and one person wide aisles at each end of a car with only two doors open takes more time than more doors on more but smaller cars. This, to me, is the most critical aspect of bi level cars and not that you can double the number of passengers per car. Next critical aspect is ability to accelerate and decelerate to a safe stop.
Actually, the new NICTD/South Shore equipment, while very similar to their cousins on Metra (Cars 1201-1226 on the Metra Electric) have one more door (with traps) on each car to allow low-platform boarding. I've attached a link to NICTD's website where you can just (barely on page 2) see the extra doors here. Certainly I suspect at least while the cars are in high-platform territory, that boarding/unboarding will be a bit more efficient.
As an aside, the new cars just successfully completed their first revenue run a little while ago as Train 116 and are currently present at Randolph Street Station on Track 12. The second revenue run will occur at 2:35 PM today as Train 109. So if you happen to work near Randolph Street station, take a walk over and get a look at the new cars (and take a ride if you can! ).
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