TEXRail: Modern Commuter Trains Lose Weight

[charlie hebdo]

TEXRail

TexRail will show how modern equipment makes for a more comfortable and efficient commuter service. TexRail is using FLIRT, a lightweight DMU from Stadler that has been popular around Europe for more than a decade. This will mark the design’s first use in the U.S., and they will be the first trains here to take advantage of the FRA’s revised safety standards that allow lighter trains.

[blue streak 1]

Lighter train cars ?  Better check California's experience with Nippon  (NS).

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

blue streak 1

Lighter train cars ?  Better check California's experience with Nippon  (NS).

 

If greater weight is equal to greater safety, then maybe we should all be driving automobiles with the size and weight of a 1961 Lincoln Continental.

[Overmod]

Perhaps a candidate for misguided tech post of the year... yes, this early.

Anyone even peripherally familiar with Lincolns would know the '61s were radically downsized both in dimensions and weight, with styling remarkably similar to the new Thunderbird that year.

Now, had you mentioned the prior model, with the Chinese eyes and what might be the largest air cleaner ever applied to a 2-barrel carb, you might have something; if you were to cite the '74 Town Car, which I think had some kind of record curb weight, you might have something; there are quite a few Cadillacs that would qualify in the wallowing boat category better than any Lincoln.  But calling out '61s? That's just dumb.

[charlie hebdo]

blue streak 1

Lighter train cars ?  Better check California's experience with Nippon  (NS).

 

The Stadler equipment in question has a good record in its ~10 years of service.  I've ridden them and they are more pleasant and comfortable than our gallery designs on Metra. The weight change was approved by the FRA.

[CMStPnP]

I am not sure I am happy with the DMU selection.    Though I noticed that German Railways are using them on the Bremen to Bremerhaven line intermixed with freight trains.   Still just doesn't seem like a passenger train........more like light rail.

[Overmod]

There is no reason that lightweight needs to translate to toylike, and in my opinion at least the FLIRT is more akin to a small high-speed train than a gussied-up LRV.  I have always thought of the Stout Railplane as analogous, as opposed to the British, Australian, etc. underfloor-engine trainsets.