[PRCo] Re: Sound Transit - SEATAC line etc

[Fred Schneider]

I lost track of how many circle trips ... one by car in the 1970s with wifey-poo, one in 2009, one in 2007 ... I might have drive across the country five or six times.   Then there were the trips where I flew to the left coast and rented a car and drove part way back, the drove back to LA and dropped the car.   And there were some when I drove as far west as the Rockies.    I think there was one with John to Iowa and one with Don Duke to Kansas from the east coast.   There was as also about 5000 miles on the right thumb out of Fort Hood Texas in 1959 when I was in the army... the farthest west I got then was El Paso.   I figure I've logged about 1.25 million highway miles in my life.   

I never added up the rail miles ...  Santa Fe from Houston to Killeen, Wabash from St. Louis to Chicago, Southern from Atlanta to Washington three times, Pennsy from Chicago to New York including multiple times from Pittsburgh to New York, New Haven from New York to Boston and Hartford to New Haven.   South Shore and North Shore from end to end.  B&O from Parkersburg to Wheeling to Pittsburgh.   Georgia Railroad from Atlanta to Augusta.   Probably not much over 5000 miles?

Outside USA?  That's where the real railroad miles add up.   Probably several thousand miles in Great Britain including my first time lifting a coal scoop on the "foot plate" of the steam locomotive.   Germany from Bremerhaven to Pirmasens to Basel, Kaiserslautern west to Paris, east to Munich.  From the Hague across the north of Germany to Berlin and Warsaw to Krakow and Poznan and back to Berlin.   South into Italy as far as Naples and back.  Lisboa to Porto in Portugal.   And thousands of miles in Switzerland on many trips ... even road the Furka Oberalp before the base tunnel under Oberalp Pass was done.   Also St. Petersburg, Russia to Helsinki to Lulea and then south to Stockholm to Goteborg, Sweden.   This is in addition to about 50,000 miles of driving in Europe that I counted above.   And there is also about a hundred rail miles in India.   

Today I rode the Gold line in Los Angeles with my old pal Don Duke.   He and I have been running around together for 46 years.  You may have seen the story about him several months ago in Classic Trains.

By the way, the next Classic Trains (or maybe the one after) will feature another photographer who is an old friend of mine.   Saw him on this trip too.   Had him and his wheel chair in my car a week ago to look at the Seatac line in Seattle .... William D. MIddleton.  I did all of Bill's photo processing from the late 1960s until  1997.  



On Jun 10, 2010, at 7:49 PM, richard allman wrote:

> no street running in Edmonton, John-all prw except few grade crossings. RICH
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John Swindler" <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Cc: "Philip Craig" <philgcraig204 at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 8:43 AM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Sound Transit - SEATAC line etc
> 
> 
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>> Well, of course I care, Fred.  (:>)
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>> This is what??  your 3rd or 4th Circle trip??
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>> Concerning Edmonton no longer having those 17 Duwag cars from late '70s, 
>> does Edmonton use salt on their streets in the winter??  Perhaps the 
>> underframes were starting to rust.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> There is another fleet from that era that will be around for awhile - make 
>> that two fleets.  The Kawasaki cars on the Broad St. subway are going thru 
>> a retrofit to replace the GE cam controllers with Kiepe chopper controls 
>> similar to the PCC2 cars.  And I've heard comments that PATCO is planning 
>> another general overhaul of their cars.
>> 
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>> 
>> The National Geographic cable channel will feature SEPTA tonight.
>> 
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>> Likewise no plans to replace the Kawasaki LRVs, although there may be some 
>> fleet shrinkage.  Several days ago 9017 plowed into a stopped LRV at 
>> elmwood and 72nd at about 20 mph.  Both will be candidates for major 
>> structural work.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> John
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>>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>>> Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 00:10:41 -0400
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Sound Transit - SEATAC line etc
>>> 
>>> For those who care....
>>> 
>>> I looked at both Seattle lines yesterday ... SLUT (now called the Seattle 
>>> trolley) and Sound Transit's line from Seattle down to the SEATAC (or 
>>> Seattle-Tacoma) Airport.
>>> 
>>> I don't want a bunch of reply all messages going to the wrong people so 
>>> everything is sent out blind this time.
>>> 
>>> The SLUT line (it was originally called the South Lake Union Trolley 
>>> until someone realized how the acronym could be pronounced) has three 
>>> unnumbered Skoda cars, the red one, the purple one and the orange one and 
>>> the run two of them. It results in about a ten minute headway. Was it 
>>> worth building? Probably not but it makes the city a little cleaner. I 
>>> was amazed by the number of tourists just riding it because it was there. 
>>> And you can get pictures of the monorail left over from the 1968 World's 
>>> Fair in the same picture if you get lucky.
>>> 
>>> The Sea Tac line ... well, it is slower than the express buses were 
>>> because it goes all around Robin Hood's barn for political reasons. 
>>> Instead of going due south from downtown to the airport along Airport Way 
>>> (essentially the way the interurban did that was torn up in 1928), it 
>>> turns east and tunnels under Beacon Hill so that it can serve the 
>>> neighborhood on the east side of Beacon Hill. That takes it a mile out of 
>>> the way. Why? Hint. The street it follows is called Martin Luther King, 
>>> Jr. Blvd. Oh, the neighborhood must be full of blacks? No. It was been 
>>> gentrified. It is full of Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans but not blacks. 
>>> Then when it gets down to the area near the airport it turns toward the 
>>> airport and totally misses a huge shopping center that makes South Hills 
>>> Village look like nothing. Instead there is a bus route that serves the 
>>> mall and everything around it ... the mall and the peripheral businesses 
>>> cover an area about 3/4s of a mile east-wes!
>>> t by several miles north-south and you can't get there by light rail ... 
>>> a huge interchange where I-5 and I-405 come together separate the mall 
>>> from the car line. In spite of that, the load factors on Saturday were 
>>> around 80% with two trains with about 50% turnover in route. I was told 
>>> by the local who was with me .... Josh Coran who works for Talgo ... that 
>>> that was pretty typical. That would point to somewhere between 40,000 and 
>>> 50,000 riders on a weekday ... they have 7 1/2 minute headways in the 
>>> peak and 10 minute bases. Sunday is 15 minutes. Imagine what it would be 
>>> if it had a shopping center branch?
>>> 
>>> I also saw the new Canada line in Vancouver this trip ... that's the 
>>> subway from downtown to LuLu Island ... splits as soon as you cross onto 
>>> the Island into two branches, one to serve Richmond proper as an elevated 
>>> on concrete piers and the other to reach the Vancouver airport. This gets 
>>> into the territory that was served by British Columbia Electric Railway's 
>>> last interurban line about 50+ years ago. Today its jammed with people. 
>>> Base headways on weekdays? About five minutes on each branch, half that 
>>> on the main trunk. They could reduce the headways if they lengthened the 
>>> trains ... they are only running two car trains.
>>> 
>>> I also saw Edmonton's new University line for a few minutes last Sunday 
>>> ... was amazed that all the cars they bought in 1980 are now gone or at 
>>> least they don't run on Sunday if any are still around. The U-2 design 
>>> was still used in San Diego last year. I see this week if San Diego is 
>>> still using them. I've heard nothing to the contrary.
>>> 
>>> Portland, Oregon ... well, that's where I am tonight. I can see the 
>>> southern terminal of the new Clackimus line from the hotel room. If the 
>>> Oregon Mist clears tomorrow, I'll take a few pictures before heading for 
>>> the Golden State.
>>> 
>>> One last thought. I did see an old friend in Seattle on Friday. I picked 
>>> up William D. Middleton at his nursing home ... loaded his wheel chair 
>>> into my Volkswagen ... took him to breakfast ... drove him down to the 
>>> airport and back so that he could see the Seatac line ... had lunch with 
>>> him. By then Bill was pretty tuckered out and needed a nap. But he thinks 
>>> he can recover from his falls and regain the use of his legs. He has the 
>>> computer in his room and ready to start on the next book at age 82.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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