A massive project is underway in Seattle. As a tourist I have seen the gridlock on the freeways there with nearly all cars only had just a driver. This is an article in the Seattle Times with a pic of the boring machine breaking out of the first tunnel under Beacon Hill.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003699290_tunnel09m.html
Perhaps a local can add to this thread.
Best Regards, Big John
Kiva Valley Railway- Freelanced road in central Arizona. Visit the link to see my MR forum thread on The Building of the Whitton Branch on the Kiva Valley Railway
I used to live in Eastern Washington for 25 years. Each time we went to Seattle for business or a ball game, it was a nightmare getting around. In the 1960's, Seattle had a 3 lane freeway. In the next 30 years, the population tripled, yet they still had the same freeway. The local government, all Democrat, kept saying they were going to do something about it, but as usual, nothing happened. South, in Portland, they did do something about it. The Rose City has one of the finest rail systems around. MAX has grown from 1 line to several, and more are planned. Ridership has far outpaced any expectations. Revenues are up, expenses are down, and efficiency rocks.
I lived in Germany for 3 years, and just returned from a month of rail and tram-fanning. Compared to most of Europe, the USA is 3rd-World when it comes to Rail in the cities and connecting the dots. They are punctual, precise, and fast. This includes Spain, Great Britain, France, Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.
I would love to see Seattle, and the Puget Sound catch on to rail. There is not much room to expand eastward, so the only thing they have is to become more compacted, thus increasing the amount of people on the roads.
Seattle has been making a lot of progress towards its goal/plan to open services in early 2009.
Here's a link to a "milestones" page for project being completed during 2008:
http://www.soundtransit.org/x1929.xml
Here's a link to computer animations of what some portions of the system will look like with the new LRV's running: http://www.soundtransit.org/x3466.xml
Jock Ellis Cumming, GA US of A Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers
Ours has been wildly popular.
The second line is in engineering studies.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
The article about the tunnel boring machine is very interesting. It's too bad that we did not have sophisticated tunneling technology many decades ago. Had it been available, we might have been able to opt for tunnels instead of many of the ugly bridges that dot the landscape. But that is a different story.
How much will the Seattle light rail system cost?
How many miles of trakc will be built?
Who will supply the train sets?
What is the projected number of riders?
Since I live about 30min from Seattle, I can say that the traffic sucks. Thanks alot Ron Sims. Ron Sims is a current legislator or something, who can up with the brillent rails to trails program here in Washington. Since the program start, miles upon miles of track have been ripped up for his hiking/biking trails that nobody uses. I cannot wait for Light Rail to open next year.
Here is another sad thing. I heard that back in the glory days of railroads, you use to be able to ride trolleys from Chicago to Seattle. Of couse you had to hop from trolley to trolley.
Sorry. There was not a continues connection between streetcars and interurband trolleys between Chicago and Seattle. Nor between Chicago and New York. There was between Newark, Delaware, and Waterville, Maine, through Philly, New York, and Boston, interrupted only by the need to use ferry boats at certain rivers (or subways or elevateds through tunnels and bridges, like the Hudson River). The parlor car 500 at the Shore Line Trolley Museum is reported to have taken a special party NY-Boston at one time: www.bera.org Harrisburg, PA, was connected to this network. But not Pittsburgh. Also, from Shebogen, Wisconsin (spelling correction please) one could go by interconnecting trolley and interurban lines to points just south of Louisville, Ky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, through Milwaukee, Chicago, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis. Ditto from Durand, Michigan, to Cinci and Louisville, and lines were connected east to Erie, PA. Separately, Niagra Falls, south through Buffalo and Pittsburgh to Latrobe, Brownsville and Charleroi-Rosco PA. From Chico, California south to San Jose was possible, even in the late 1930's..
Interstingly, one could go by trolley from Hudson, NY, to New York City, but one first had to east to Springfield, MA!
daveklepper There was not a continuous connection between streetcars and interurban and trolleys between Chicago and Seattle.
There was not a continuous connection between streetcars and interurban and trolleys between Chicago and Seattle.
Well, I know not continues. But I heard that you were able to do this, but you had to continuously hop from trolley to trolley to interurban to bus occasionally and such. I could have misheard him too.... I will ask him tomorrow.
Thanks for your interest in Sound Transit Link Light Rail. Many of us in the Big Green are getting excited now that 2009 is here. The initial Central Link line to Tukwila will take to the rails in July, with the extension to Sea-Tac airport to open this December. I did a little research in answer to your questions:
Cost: Central Link to Sea-Tac, about 2.5 billion. University Link, about 1.9 billion. Sound Transit 2 (Proposition 1 which passed in November) 18 billion.
Trackage: Central Link to Sea-Tac, 16 miles University Link, 3 miles Extensions as per prop 1, 36 miles. There will be three extensions: North Link from the University of Washington to Lynnwood, South Link from Sea-Tac to Federal Way and a new East Link from Downtown Seattle across Lake Washington to Mercer Island, Bellevue and Redmond (Microsoft).
Cars are being built (mostly if not all delivered already) by Kinkisharyo/Mitsui of Osaka Japan. Frames have been shipped to the Puget Sound area for local assembly.
Projected ridership between downtown and Sea-Tac: 45,000 daily. Between downtown and the University of Washington (UW): 70,000.
The University extension will not come online until 2016--the entire three miles will need to be tunnelled under Capitol Hill and under the ship canal. The new lines as per prop 1 are due by 2023.
In addition to the light rail, prop 1 also calls for a streetcar line to serve First Hill, which was originally planned to have a station on the UW Link, but this idea was abandoned when it was realized that building under this area would add many millions onto the project due to difficult tunnelling conditions. Instead, a streetcar line will be built, connecting First Hill with the Capitol Hill UW Link station and with International District station on the Central Link. A new South Lake Union streetcar line recently opened (not a Sound Transit project) and a city-wide streetcar network has been receiving some support.
In answer to an earlier entry, the residents of the Puget Sound have indeed seemed to (finally) embrace rail. We have had a very successful eight years now of commuter rail--still adding service, some streetcar lines (South Lake Union and Sound Transit's Tacoma Link) and soon light rail with lengthy extensions planned. Add to this is Amtrak's coverage and I'd say we are serious about rail in the area.
Welcome to these boards! - a.s.
Updated information on the Sound Transit University Link, due to start construction this year between the University of Washington (UW) and downtown Seattle. From this morning's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
A month or so ago, I read in the Chicago Tribune that creating (or replacing) an interchange between two Interstate highways can run close to $1 billion.
Again, there was not a continuous route of trolleys, local streetcars and interurbans, between Chicago and NY. What the reporter problably did is go as far as possible on each network and then use local stream railroad trains to cover the gaps. A possible route: South Shore to South Bend, Northern Indiana through Elkhart to Goshen, Winona to Fort Wayne, Lima Route ro Lima, Cincinanit and Lake Erie to Toledo, Lake Shore Elecric through Cleveland to Erie, PA. New Yori Central steam train to Buffalo, Harmony Lines south to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Railways to Trafford, West Penn to Latrobe, PRR steam train to Juniata, Altoona and Holidaysburg to somewhere seat of Altoona, PRR steam again to Harrisburgh, Harrisburg Rarilways to Beaverton or someplace with interchange with Canastoga Tranist's Lancaster operation (saw one picture of the two systems' cars adjacent to each other in some Penssylvanian town, but not shure where), the Lancaster system had connections with Philadelphia and Westchester, later Phily Suburban - Red Arrow, into 69th Street, then if you are a purist PTC streetcars downtown, or if you are not quite so pure, Market Street Elevated. Ferry boat from Philly to Camden, Public Service of New Jersey interconnecting streetcar lines all the way to the Exchange Place ferry terminal in Jersey City (wide gauge local lines in Camden with standard gauge connection to Trenton, then "Trenton Fast LIne, the only true PSNJ interurban, to Elixabeth, local streetcars to Newark and on to Jersey City), and then either ferry boat of Hudson and Manhattan subway tubes to Manhattan. This was a route with three gap, and I think had the minimum gap mileage. Another possibility was across upper New York State. I anm uncertain of all the gaps there, but possibly there was a continueous electric network from Utrca east to Rensselaer, across from Albany, then a gap down to Hudson. From Hudson to New York one would streetcar east to Springfield, and then south through New Haven, Stamford, and New Rochelle.
I used to live in Central Washington and a few years back they were talking a building a Bullet train from Seattle to Moses Lake so that people wouldn't have to fly to Seattle. For some reason it never came to pass. There were those afraid of accidents and such and costs so it fell by the wayside.
paulsafety Seattle has been making a lot of progress towards its goal/plan to open services in early 2009. Here's a link to a "milestones" page for project being completed during 2008: http://www.soundtransit.org/x1929.xml Here's a link to computer animations of what some portions of the system will look like with the new LRV's running: http://www.soundtransit.org/x3466.xml
Ron Tober, the recently retired head of Charlotte Area transit System (CATS) and the one who drove our light rail line through to completion has just accepted the #2 job is Seattle. Tober worked for Seattle in the past, prior to his stint in Cleveland. He was in Charlotte from 2001 to 2008. He told me last month that getting the tunnel out their finished is one of his top projects.
jockellisDave, A book in the Atlanta Public Library System on trolleys stated that you could ride from NYC to Chicago and that newspapers would send reporters out to take the trip (this was a kinder, gentler era) to document the journey. Was that wrong?
That's about right. The interurban system was "high speed trolley" (70-100 mph) that ran from medium cities to medium or large ones. There would never have been a Detroit-Chicago interurban, that's too far - but there would have been a half dozen connecting intermediate cities. I don't know east of Cleveland much, there may have been some gaps, but pretty darn close. They were never intended to be ridden "back to back" so it would be a tedious trip. But it COULD be done.
The interurban system was sprawling, and it was especially dense in the midwest. However the system started around 1900 and was largely in decline by the 1930s. By World War II, interurban passenger service was all but gone. It was very much a "flash in the pan", much like the dot-com boom, and similarly infested with mergers and acquisitions.
Interurbans were built as standard railroads, but built very cheaply. (up and down mild hills rather than expensive grading) and electrified, typically with overhead wire or third rail out in the countryside. Because it was high speed, the trolley wire work was higher quality than found in urban streetcar systems, usually with catenary. They hauled freight, and tried to give the "steam roads" (regular railroads, non-interurban) a "run for their money", though they typically had small freight trains.
In towns with streetcar systems, they typically reached center city on the streetcar company's track. That limited interurban lines to DC power, because they had to be compatible with the city streetcars (typically 600VDC). At best the interurban could run 1200-1500VDC in their own territory, and simply have a changeover switch on the car. Some systems used third rail out in the country.
The only thing that survives that bears any resemblance at all to an interurban is the Chicago South Shore (NICTD electric service) - but that isn't really typical, because the CSS's last miles into downtown Chicago were on a heavy commuter railroad rather than a streetcar line. Nowadays the South Shore is a commuter railroad, but... Think back to the days before Interstate freeways and common automobiles. South Bend to Chicago would have been a serious undertaking in a jitney or automobile. Sure there were steam railroads that could provide the trip, but the interurbans ran smaller trains (often 1 car) more often, so service was better and cheaper (if not quite as fast).
And if you were in a small town on the interurban line between medium cities, good chance the steam road didn't stop there at all.
Chicago to Seattle? Not possible. The vast and sprawling frontier west just didn't have enough built-up towns and cities close enough together to justify interurbans. There were some mainline railroad electrifications, but those were not interurbans, they were steam roads that electrified.
I reported earlier that there was never a continuous interurban and local trolley interconnenction all the way from Chicago to NY. But the gaps were pretty short and in some cases could be bridged by walking or by ferry boat as well as steam train. Basically, South Shore to South Bend, NOrthern Indiana to Elkhart, Winona south to Peru. Indiana Railroad or its predicessor, Indiana Servce Corp to Fort Wayne, Lima route to Lima, Cincinnati and Lake to Toledo, Lake Shore Electric to Cleveland, then some line whose name I have forgotton to a place about half way from Cleveland to Erie, PA, or maybe all the way. Then steam train to Buffalo, Harmony south through Butler to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Ry to Trafford, West Penn to Latrob, then steam train to Harrisburgh, possibly interrupted by local streetcars paralleling the railroad in Johnstown and Al;toona, as between Holydaysburgh, Altoona, and Juniata. Harrisburgh Railways met Lancaster's Conastoga Transit, which Eastern Penn into West Chester, then Philadelphia and West Chester, later Philadelphia Suburban/Red Arrow to 69th St., Philadelphia Transportation Co. to a ferry crossing to Camden then a variety of connecting Public Service of New Jersey lines to Jersey City, Hoboken, or Weehawken, ferry boat to NYC. From there two alternative many-change streetcar routes were available to Boston and on to Waterville, Maine. Going south, there was a gap between Newark, DE, and Towson, MD, like the present commuter train gap.
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