[PRCo] Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
Dwight Long
dwightlong at verizon.net
Thu Mar 10 01:06:40 EST 2011
Jeff
There are two problems with your thesis.
1) Some lines that are called "light rail transit" by Newspeak terminology actually transport many more pax than some of those classified as "heavy rail." As my ole granpappy said, "Son, that dog won't hunt."
2) It is inconsistent with the "official" definitions presented very recently by Herb Brannon on this list.
The Newspeak definition of "light rail" takes a perfectly good, serviceable definition that has been in place for many, many years and twists it into something quite unintended by the original definition. A "Light Railway" or "Light Rail" meant, and still does mean (at least to the faithful), exactly what Dave stated. It is unfortunate that the term has been hijacked and made to mean something else from that which it originally meant--and still does to some folks who have memories--or who read history.
Another tragic hijacking of a perfectly good word in a much broader, non-rail context is "organic," which means "containing carbon." Today to many unknowing folks, "organic" means "food grown without pesticides." Some folks will not eat food that (to their misperceived definition) is not organic. It's really rather comic. Just try to find food--other than table salt--that does not contain carbon!
Just because a word or term is trendy does not mean it is correct or that those who wish to be correct should use it. This sort of conundrum is produced by sloppy thinking, research, lexicography, or worse, by propagandists. It's unfortunate--but those of us who appreciate correct and traditional use of words are, sad to say, fighting an uphill and lonely battle.
Dwight
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff
To: David Neubauer ; Fred Schneider ; Skip Gatermann ; Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org ; peter folger ; Alan Schneider ; Dwight Long
Cc: Holtz ; Michael Greene ; Matt Nawn ; Conrad Misek ; Frank Pfuhler ; E Casey ; Vic Gordon ; David Dillard ; John Sikorskie ; Jim Greller ; Randy Gluckman ; Bob Vogel ; Bradley Clark ; Mary O'Brien ; Jimmy Boylan XX ; Bill Armstrong ; Richard Panse ; Alex Vaughn ; Brad Noyes ; Bill Mangahas ; JJ Earl ; Jack Rush XX ; Mark Goldfeder ; Andrew Chalfen ; Michael Rambo Jr ; Ted Eickmann ; Muench ; Bruce Bente ; Raleigh Dadamo ; David Horwitz ; David Pirmann ; Neil Carlson ; Chris Gatermann ; Robert Arce ; KELVIN WILKE ; Raymond Crapo Jr ; Carlos Mercado ; Merill Resnick ; Jack May ; Lewis Hitch ; Michael Richmond ; Thurston Clark ; Edward Havens ; Harry Pinsker ; Joseph Eid ; Scott Becker ; Trolley One ; C. K. Leverett ; Charles Greene ; Ronald Kupin ; Nate Gerstein ; Melvin Bernero ; Favorite Daugher ; Trolley Two ; Rich Parente ; Evan Jennings ; Harold Golk ; Matthew Mummert ; John Hayward ; Bill Volkmer ; Andrew Sisk ; Charlie Dennis ; Herald Wind ; Edward Davis ; #1 Son ; Russ Jackson ; Bill Myers ; wally young ; Joe Bux ; Dennis Zimmer ; Edson Tennyson ; Tom Hickey ; Jim Graebner
Sent: Thursday, 10 March, 2011 00:00
Subject: Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
Today's term "Light Rail" has nothing to do with the weight of the rails or even the rolling stock. It has to do with the light density of the ridership on those lines as compared with the high volumn of ridership on heavy rail. I would have expected everybody on this thread to have understood that.
Jeff Marinoff
--- On Wed, 3/9/11, Dwight Long <dwightlong at verizon.net> wrote:
From: Dwight Long <dwightlong at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
To: "David Neubauer" <it1569djn at earthlink.net>, "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>, "Skip Gatermann" <biker4 at sbcglobal.net>, Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org, "peter folger" <transitman at maine.rr.com>,
Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 10:31 PM
Dave
Yes, that is what is so ironic about the supposedly "modern" term "light rail transit." It (light rail) is really a very, very old term. But most folks simply do not have any knowledge, let alone appreciation of, history. That, as the wise one said, is why we are so often condemned to relive it.
Dwight
----- Original Message -----
From: David Neubauer
To:
Sent: Wednesday, 09 March, 2011 19:39
Subject: Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
This is that Krauthead Dave Neubauer mumbling again. I can remember so far back in time to when a "light railway" was the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch and the Ravenglass & Eskdale in England or my OWN Wabash Frisco & Pacific right here in the St. Louis area. Using 12 pound rail or even the 20 pound or so used on the RH&D made it so.
Then the Light Rail revolution started and the "little lines" became just that and light rail meant Streetcars running on rights of way instead of heavy rail in the subway etc.
Seeing another "light rail" application here in St. Louis (other than our own Light Rapid MetroLink) is to view the Two former Milan Peter Witt cars on display to promote our soon to be abuilding 2 mile Heritage Loop Trolley line. The application part is that the car's trucks rest on standard gauge track, but the rail used is 12 pound rail.
These two cars will go back to Gomaco when the line is built because they will not be compatible with the Hybrid-Battery nature of the line which will not have overhead wire in some places. djn
----- Original Message -----
From: Dwight Long
To:
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
Fred
Enjoyed your UK piece. Some comments/questions:
Last Brit steam loco built was Evening Star, and it was outshopped in 1960. It's preserved in the York museum. Can't operate on BR because of blind drivers--danger of catching on guard rails which are higher now than in steam days.
What color film were you using besides Ektachrome (which can be restored in Photoshop if one has the time)? Negative color?
I don't think Blackpool tramway was built as a suburban railway conversion, but I'm not totally sure on this. Way before my time!
As you know, our friend Christoph was in charge of bidding the contract that won DB the Tyne & Wear business. I suppose T&W can be called a light railway but it is definitely not a tramway! "Light Metro" or even just "Metro" seems to me to fit better.
Blackpool's tramway has been closed for massive reinvestment and rebuilding. It will be interesting to see whether this has a salutary effect upon ridership. You put your finger on the principal problem--the decline of Blackpool as a vacation destination. Folks that are lucky enough to have decent jobs in the UK now spend their time in the south of France, the Algarve in Portugal, or the south of Spain, rather than spending a fortnight in Blackpool. I doubt there is much the poor city can do to counteract this.
Manchester--not all was third rail. Some was 1500V overhead. Manchester also was the base of a mainline electrification scheme which was lopped off in the 60s or 70s. Much of the wayside catenary towers, etc., can still be seen. There is talk about restoring the truncated route, but so far it is only talk.
Birmingham"s tramway has been given the green light to be extended from its present Snow Hill terminus in Birmingham through city streets to the main station at New Street. This should have a favorable impact on ridership when completed. Extensions on the outer end are in the planning stages, including a better arrangement at Wolverhampton.
Dwight
----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Schneider
Sent: Monday, 07 March, 2011 23:08
Subject: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
Installment 1 of Europe from Fred Schneider
Last month a local doctor and also a friend from my high school class described us both as "citizens of the world." I told John that I accepted that as a compliment.
If I am going to be a citizen of the world, where would I send someone after the USA and Canada? Well, the easiest place to go would be Great Britain because we have a language bearing some similarity to English. There was a great line from the song "Why Can't the English?" in the musical My Fair Lady in which Henry Higgins proclaims, about the English language, "Why in America, they haven't used it for years." However, there are sufficient similarities to allow one to wander around Britain using one's own American tongue without having to struggle with a new language. (Except perhaps in Glasgow. :<) )
Fred Schneider had an older friend (about 15 years older) who asked me, when I was in high school, if I would process his films. The beauty of that kind of part-time job for a teenager is seeing great stuff coming up in the developer tray from places I couldn't afford to visit! In 1957, John Bowman made his first trip to Great Britain. He followed that with another journey across the puddle in 1958. The engines looked a little strange with buffers and links for couplers and no headlights but gee whiz, we were running out of steam to chase and they had just built their last steam engine in 1958. The streetcars were also a tad different ... double deck in order to solve productivity issues instead of longer but still they ran on steel wheels. I was convinced I had to go there.
So I joined the army right out of high school. It was probably a good choice because I needed to grow up before going to college or I would have flunked out. Might as well be honest. The army helped. Today I have a degree and courses from four universities but I never would have made it right out of high school.
Well, the troop ship for Germany landed at Southampton, England to provision in July 1959 and to let off those guys destined for Britain, and we had a chance to take a tour of London. The only way off the ship was to buy the guided tour. I bought the tour and advised the sergeant who was running it not to bother counting heads after we arrived in London. I vanished into the crowds in Waterloo Station. You see, I knew London Underground was still running steam tank engines built in 1896 on the Metropolitan Division between Rickmanworth and Chesham. One of them is preserved today in the London Transport Museum but that day I rode behind one of them in regular service. The video shows that periodically the fans run one but I had the pleasure of revenue steam on the "Underground." This video brings back the memories. The maroon electric locomotive is of the class that was used from Baker St. west to Rickmansworth until 1961 when the MU subway trains were extended all the way out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO5XZkdoiZs
For what it's worth, London Transport started as a steam railroad and was converted to electricity as the density of traffic became so heavy and the smoke in the tunnels so unbearable that it was changed out of necessity. What I saw was the last remnant.
Do I feel guilty for not taking the tour of the tourist sites of London that day? Not at all. They didn't disappear before I could get to them. After all the weeks I've spent in London, I could give that tour today but I couldn't ride behind steam in compartmented rolling stock to Chesham again.
I went back to Britain in 1960 for the second of what have been a total of 18 trips in my lifetime. Some were for as long as a month. One was just for a weekend to see a play in London (they do a far, far better job than the New York theaters). If I ever come off sounding sentimental about British steam, it might be because the first time I every picked up a coal scoop was on an illegal or clandestine footplate ride on a Black 5 in regular passenger service between Glasgow and Mallaig back in August 1960. I figure I've bailed about 500 tons of coal in 6,000 miles that I eventually was paid for doing but that day on British Railways started it. How lucky do you think I would get hunting a video of a Black 5 near Tydrum where I tried my hand? Voila! Sometimes we win, sometimes the bear wins. This time I did. It's a beautiful place to be bitten by the bug. The first locomotive is a Black 5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLbKohySz_A
ON THAT SAME 1960 TRIP I HAD THE DELIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE OF RIDING THE SECOND DECK OF A GLASGOW TRIP DOWN ARGYLE STREET. Different from the USA but very similar to Pittsburgh ... a steel, ship building town ... dirty, blue collar but incredibly friendly. The trams disappeared from the streets of Glasgow a year later. Truthfully I walked almost every inch of the remaining Glasgow tramway network carrying a plank with two cameras attached, one loaded with color film and the other with Ektachrome (that faded).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuIVabDdbWU
SHEFFIELD'S TRAMS WERE ON THEIR LAST LEGS WHEN I VISITED IN AUGUST 1960; THEY WERE GONE JUST A FEW MONTHS LATER.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQSBknjiGk
NEW LIGHT RAIL CARS WERE RUNNING THROUGH DOWNTOWN SHEFFIELD THIRTY-FOUR YEARS LATER. The one-way street program mentioned in the last video never happened. Meadow Mall, a destination when the line opened, has been renamed Meadow Hall. A dozen years ago I took my then ten-year old granddaughter to England for a week to show her a new culture. I saw her photographing all those things that were different from home and it was great for grandpa to see through her eyes all the things that were no longer strange to me. But Meadow Mall was one of those things copied from us. In many British and French cities, the mercantile centers have moved to suburbs. But in Sheffield the trams now haul you from the city to the suburbs to shop. The commuter trains also stop at the mall. You used to have to pay to use the mall parking garage; today their 12,000 parking spaces are, just like in the United States, included in the price of the goods you buy. The Supertram network is the only one in Britain not built as a means of continuing railroad commuter trains. It is instead a urban system with a lot of city street operation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHchTFSchsQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49UviNngcw&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG_HnZV7Hn0&feature=related
The Supertram network has been extended at least four additional times. A map can be pulled up by the link below. The line to Herdings Park is one of the less desireable routes. It ends in an area of council homes ... their term for dwellings provided by the local city council for those having a lower standard of living. We would call it welfare housing. I remember looking for the fare machine at Herdings Leighton Road stop and discovered someone had removed it in order to take it home and empty the money from it. The extension to "Half Way" is very much suburban. Last year the 18-mile-long Supertram network lifted 14.7 million fares. That would be about 45,000 on a weekday.
http://www.supertram.com/journeyplanner.html
THE FIRST NEW DESIGN OF LIGHT RAILWAY TO EMERGE IN BRITAIN OPENED IN NEW CASTLE, ALSO KNOWN AS THE TYNESIDE REGION, IN 1980. This appeared to be a model that would be replicated many times more in an attempt to get British Railways out of the commuter railroad business. As I recall, the Tyne and Wear Metro opened with fare gates while many of the newer systems use proof of payment fare collection. The model, however, eliminated all the guards that had worked on the trains and reduced on board staff to just the driver. As of last year, Tyne and Wear is operated by DB Regio, a subsidiary of German Rail. It is a 48-mile-long two route (Yellow and Green line) operation that sold 40,800,000 fares last year or about 112,000 people a day The entire Tyneside conurbation is home to about 880,000 people. That suggests that perhaps 1 adult in 12 is riding Metro every weekday!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Metro
This shows what the Metro replaced ... a mix of steam commuter trains, diesels and third rail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v69yPRj2yVY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paXQz3iyl1I&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C43W7AZXFpM&feature=related
MANCHESTER IN THE NORTH MIDLANDS IS A CITY THAT LOST TRAMS RIGHT AFTER WORLD WAR II. I know no one who got there to see them. However, in 1992 it became the second city outside of London to have light rail when the first routes were extended over British Railways which there-to-fore used obsolete electrification technology (DC third rail). By the year 2000 there were three routes connected by city street tracks downtown and running over former British Railways lines into the suburbs. That 23 mile network is in the process of being expanded into a seven route 60 mile system to be finished between 2011 and 2014. The city of Manchester houses fewer than 400,000 residents but Greater Manchester is home to about 2.2 million people. The recession hasn't been kind to the area ... riding dropped to 19.6 million last year (about 60,000 on a weekday).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Metrolink
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neJp3Su4sDQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WaD65nE7xE&feature=related
BIRMINGHAM'S MIDLAND METRO RUNS FROM THE MIDDLE OF ENGLAND'S SECOND LARGEST CITY TO WOLVERHAMPTON AND HAULS A PALTRY 14,000 PASSENGERS A DAY ON THE 13-MILE RUN. Only one agency hauls fewer people. Like most of the English operations, this replaced a British Railways commuter service. While London is home to 7 million people, the number two city just barely houses a million. This was England's premier factory city; it peaked at about 1.1 million people 60 years ago. The entire metro area contains over 3 million people. Midland Metro opened in 1999 as a way of providing service at reduced cost, i.e. one man cars with automated fare collection instead of ticket agents at each station, drivers and guards on every train.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midland_Metro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_gntZtYgGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dGPx8M5LJw&feature=related
LONDON'S DOCKLAND'S LIGHT RAIL, NOT A PART OF THE UNDERGROUND, WAS CREATED TO PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION TO THE EAST INDIA DOCKS IN AN ATTEMPT TO HELP REVITALIZE THE AREA AFTER CONTAINERIZATION SPELLED THE END OF THEIR ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF THE DOCKS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE THAMES RIVER. The first two lines from Bank Street and Tower Bridge to Isle of Dogs and from Stratford in East London southward to Isle of Dogs opened in 1987 using totally automated trains. An extension eastward to Canningtown opened in 1994, one under the Thames to Greenwich and Lewisham saw service in 1996, three more extensions have opened by 2009 and another will open next year. Docklands is now transporting over 69 million riders a year which they modestly say exceeds 100,000 a day ... weekdays probably exceed 215,000. You will notice that those short two-section articulated trains of 1987 are past tense! If you go to visit the Tower of London or Tower Bridge ... sneak away and look at this. Or use it to get over to Greenwich to visit the observatory, the Naval museum or the Cutty Sark (The clipper ship should reopen this year).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zsWTJVoT3Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUYoO_0JabY&feature=related
GREATER LONDON HAS ONE OTHER LIGHT RAIL LINE. IT OPENED AS THE CROYDON TRAMLINK AND IS NOW CALLED LONDON TRAMLINK. This line is perhaps an orphan that took over three British Railways orphan branches that no one in his right mind would have wanted if you have to put drivers and firemen and guards on every train and agents and ticket collectors in every station. Instead of being radial to the city of London, it is circumferential about ten miles out. Parts of the New Addington branch run through farm country. It has been held up by some politicians in other cities as an example of why they don't want money losing light rail in their towns ... of course all light rail is bad if one is bad. So how bad is it? This 17 mile operation sold 25,800,000 tickets last year, making it the third busiest of all the British electric light railways. Weekday riders would be somewhere around 80,000. That's about twice what New Jersey Transit's Hudson-Bergen line hauls! (It has increased from 15 million since it opened.) Many of the riders are fed into LT's Wimbledon tube station or British Railways at East Croydon. But anything can be considered unsuccessful if you want to call it that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kW_xGt4g4w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY4wZjYq3sc
THE THIRD WEAKEST PROPERTY IN BRITAIN? WELL THAT'S NOTTINGHAM EXPRESS TRANSIT. IT OPENED LATE IN 2004. Riding peaked at 10.2 million in 2008 and the global recession hit. It then experienced a 10% drop down to 9 million riders in 2010, or about 28,000 on weekdays. However, what would we consider acceptable riding in North America for a 14-mile-long line leading into a city with high crime and a declining industrial base? That's twice as much as the Newark City subway. It's about 7,000 a day less than PATCO going to Philadelphia. It's more than Pittsburgh hauls on two trunks with two outer terminals. I think it's rather impressive. Nottingham is building two extensions to the south and southwest. (The fourth link is totally off the wall ... funny, maybe.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_Express_Transit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3scXjpvO6M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A03c6OMp2Ho&feature=related
WHAT IS BRITAIN'S LEAST PRODUCTIVE STREETCAR OR LIGHT RAIL LINE? WHY THAT HONOR GOES TO THE TRAMS THAT RUN ALONG THE PROMENADE IN BLACKPOOL. It is also the only system that has had riding decline in almost every year since 1982, probably because of declines in industrial employment in the cities in the Midlands from which Blackpool draws its vacationers. Riding has dropped from 6.2 million in 1982 to 2.2 million in 2010. That last figure is a daily average of 6,875 but we have to recognize that it is a seasonal city and a lot of their riding is in the summer. But like Atlantic City went out of the streetcar business in 1955 even though the cars were full in the summer, can we expect Blackpool Corporation to keep running full cars in the summer and empty vehicles in the winter?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW8lK6meVO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a2upi9bxjI&feature=related
AND BRITAIN'S MOST PRODUCTIVE RAILWAY? LONDON UNDERGROUND SELLS ABOUT 3.4 MILLION FARES ON A WEEKDAY IN A CITY OF 12.8 MILLION USING 250 MILES OF ROUTE. By comparison, New York City Transit has about 6.3 million riders in a city of 19.8 million people and about 209 route miles. London Underground reaches farther into the suburbs than the TA and serves only the north side of the city. Historically, British Railways commuter trains service the south side. The results in the national railroad network in Britain actually hauling 17% more passengers than the London Underground in spite of shedding a lot of its rural services. So London moves about 13,600 passenger per route mile while New York moves a whopping 30,100. Why the difference? London has a lot of suburban mileage on the Underground: the Central, Picadilly, Northern, District, and Metropolitan lines stretch for many miles out into the northern and western suburbs.
The first URL shows a Bakerloo train southbound at Waterloo from Harrow & Wealdstone to Elephant & Castle; the later named after a former pub south of the Thames. I selected it because of the recorded message to "Mind the Gap" as you step on or off the train on the curve. This is tube stock, that is a car designed for the very narrow clearances of those lines bored with tunneling machines such as this route, Picadilly, Northern, Jubilee and Central lines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=goE1TEQj0xc
Those lines built for steam traction had much more generous clearances. Examples were the Metropolitan and Circle lines. Notices that these cars do not have the doors wrapping around the roof curvature. This is also nice because it shows the former ventilating openings, now filled with light fixtures, in the ceiling of Baker Street Station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MW4S-s7RzQ&feature=related
By the way, you get off at Baker Street for Mme. Taussaud's Wax Museum. One of the most photographed characters in the museum is Lady Diana Spencer ... everyone has to be photographed standing next to her. :<) Around the corner from the Baker Street station is the imaginary address of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional dectective Sherlock Holmes, who Doyle wrote lived at 69B Baker Street. My wife made me take her there one day. I tried to explain that they neighborhood was somewhat undeveloped when Doyle wrote the book and anyway, the character was imaginary. Regardless, she was still upset to discover that there was an Abbey National Bank there. I understand that bank answers a lot of mail addressed to Mr. Holmes!
http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1063/11830.php
This is interesting - Suicide prevention on the Jubilee line:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3UVQ3Dtcwk&feature=related
Remember I said that the Underground serves the areas north of the Thames and British Railways serves the region south of the river? There is one place where you can get whiplash from watching trains. Most of the trains from Waterloo or Victoria stations will call at Clapham Junction ... get off there and just get dizzy turning around watching the parade. Clapham Junction is where the former Southern Railway lines from Victoria Station and the London and Southwestern Railway tracks from Waterloo Station crossed. It is the busiest station in England with up to 180 an hour using the metals and 117 of those stopping in the rush. (Take the train to Windsor Castle or Hampton Court Palace or Kew Bridge Museum and stop at Clapham on the way back and kill two burns with the same pebble - wives won't mind as much.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Junction_railway_station
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HNCxRB1ID0&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Windsor Castle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Castle
Hampton Court Palace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace
Kew Bridge Steam Museum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Bridge_Steam_Museum
Engines are run on Sundays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hse1aCsjeR0
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_United_Kingdom_settlements_by_population
The file below is the British Department of Transport LRT Statistics.
----------------------------------------------------------------
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Installment 1 of Europe from Fred Schneider
Last month a local doctor and also a friend from my high school class described us both as "citizens of the world." I told John that I accepted that as a compliment.
If I am going to be a citizen of the world, where would I send someone after the USA and Canada? Well, the easiest place to go would be Great Britain because we have a language bearing some similarity to English. There was a great line from the song "Why Can't the English?" in the musical My Fair Lady in which Henry Higgins proclaims, about the English language, "Why in America, they haven't used it for years." However, there are sufficient similarities to allow one to wander around Britain using one's own American tongue without having to struggle with a new language. (Except perhaps in Glasgow. :<) )
Fred Schneider had an older friend (about 15 years older) who asked me, when I was in high school, if I would process his films. The beauty of that kind of part-time job for a teenager is seeing great stuff coming up in the developer tray from places I couldn't afford to visit! In 1957, John Bowman made his first trip to Great Britain. He followed that with another journey across the puddle in 1958. The engines looked a little strange with buffers and links for couplers and no headlights but gee whiz, we were running out of steam to chase and they had just built their last steam engine in 1958. The streetcars were also a tad different ... double deck in order to solve productivity issues instead of longer but still they ran on steel wheels. I was convinced I had to go there.
So I joined the army right out of high school. It was probably a good choice because I needed to grow up before going to college or I would have flunked out. Might as well be honest. The army helped. Today I have a degree and courses from four universities but I never would have made it right out of high school.
Well, the troop ship for Germany landed at Southampton, England to provision in July 1959 and to let off those guys destined for Britain, and we had a chance to take a tour of London. The only way off the ship was to buy the guided tour. I bought the tour and advised the sergeant who was running it not to bother counting heads after we arrived in London. I vanished into the crowds in Waterloo Station. You see, I knew London Underground was still running steam tank engines built in 1896 on the Metropolitan Division between Rickmanworth and Chesham. One of them is preserved today in the London Transport Museum but that day I rode behind one of them in regular service. The video shows that periodically the fans run one but I had the pleasure of revenue steam on the "Underground." This video brings back the memories. The maroon electric locomotive is of the class that was used from Baker St. west to Rickmansworth until 1961 when the MU subway trains were extended all the way out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO5XZkdoiZs
For what it's worth, London Transport started as a steam railroad and was converted to electricity as the density of traffic became so heavy and the smoke in the tunnels so unbearable that it was changed out of necessity. What I saw was the last remnant.
Do I feel guilty for not taking the tour of the tourist sites of London that day? Not at all. They didn't disappear before I could get to them. After all the weeks I've spent in London, I could give that tour today but I couldn't ride behind steam in compartmented rolling stock to Chesham again.
I went back to Britain in 1960 for the second of what have been a total of 18 trips in my lifetime. Some were for as long as a month. One was just for a weekend to see a play in London (they do a far, far better job than the New York theaters). If I ever come off sounding sentimental about British steam, it might be because the first time I every picked up a coal scoop was on an illegal or clandestine footplate ride on a Black 5 in regular passenger service between Glasgow and Mallaig back in August 1960. I figure I've bailed about 500 tons of coal in 6,000 miles that I eventually was paid for doing but that day on British Railways started it. How lucky do you think I would get hunting a video of a Black 5 near Tydrum where I tried my hand? Voila! Sometimes we win, sometimes the bear wins. This time I did. It's a beautiful place to be bitten by the bug. The first locomotive is a Black 5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLbKohySz_A
ON THAT SAME 1960 TRIP I HAD THE DELIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE OF RIDING THE SECOND DECK OF A GLASGOW TRIP DOWN ARGYLE STREET. Different from the USA but very similar to Pittsburgh ... a steel, ship building town ... dirty, blue collar but incredibly friendly. The trams disappeared from the streets of Glasgow a year later. Truthfully I walked almost every inch of the remaining Glasgow tramway network carrying a plank with two cameras attached, one loaded with color film and the other with Ektachrome (that faded).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuIVabDdbWU
SHEFFIELD'S TRAMS WERE ON THEIR LAST LEGS WHEN I VISITED IN AUGUST 1960; THEY WERE GONE JUST A FEW MONTHS LATER.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQSBknjiGk
NEW LIGHT RAIL CARS WERE RUNNING THROUGH DOWNTOWN SHEFFIELD THIRTY-FOUR YEARS LATER. The one-way street program mentioned in the last video never happened. Meadow Mall, a destination when the line opened, has been renamed Meadow Hall. A dozen years ago I took my then ten-year old granddaughter to England for a week to show her a new culture. I saw her photographing all those things that were different from home and it was great for grandpa to see through her eyes all the things that were no longer strange to me. But Meadow Mall was one of those things copied from us. In many British and French cities, the mercantile centers have moved to suburbs. But in Sheffield the trams now haul you from the city to the suburbs to shop. The commuter trains also stop at the mall. You used to have to pay to use the mall parking garage; today their 12,000 parking spaces are, just like in the United States, included in the price of the goods you buy. The Supertram network is the only one in Britain not built as a means of continuing railroad commuter trains. It is instead a urban system with a lot of city street operation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHchTFSchsQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49UviNngcw&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG_HnZV7Hn0&feature=related
The Supertram network has been extended at least four additional times. A map can be pulled up by the link below. The line to Herdings Park is one of the less desireable routes. It ends in an area of council homes ... their term for dwellings provided by the local city council for those having a lower standard of living. We would call it welfare housing. I remember looking for the fare machine at Herdings Leighton Road stop and discovered someone had removed it in order to take it home and empty the money from it. The extension to "Half Way" is very much suburban. Last year the 18-mile-long Supertram network lifted 14.7 million fares. That would be about 45,000 on a weekday.
http://www.supertram.com/journeyplanner.html
THE FIRST NEW DESIGN OF LIGHT RAILWAY TO EMERGE IN BRITAIN OPENED IN NEW CASTLE, ALSO KNOWN AS THE TYNESIDE REGION, IN 1980. This appeared to be a model that would be replicated many times more in an attempt to get British Railways out of the commuter railroad business. As I recall, the Tyne and Wear Metro opened with fare gates while many of the newer systems use proof of payment fare collection. The model, however, eliminated all the guards that had worked on the trains and reduced on board staff to just the driver. As of last year, Tyne and Wear is operated by DB Regio, a subsidiary of German Rail. It is a 48-mile-long two route (Yellow and Green line) operation that sold 40,800,000 fares last year or about 112,000 people a day The entire Tyneside conurbation is home to about 880,000 people. That suggests that perhaps 1 adult in 12 is riding Metro every weekday!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Metro
This shows what the Metro replaced ... a mix of steam commuter trains, diesels and third rail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v69yPRj2yVY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paXQz3iyl1I&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C43W7AZXFpM&feature=related
MANCHESTER IN THE NORTH MIDLANDS IS A CITY THAT LOST TRAMS RIGHT AFTER WORLD WAR II. I know no one who got there to see them. However, in 1992 it became the second city outside of London to have light rail when the first routes were extended over British Railways which there-to-fore used obsolete electrification technology (DC third rail). By the year 2000 there were three routes connected by city street tracks downtown and running over former British Railways lines into the suburbs. That 23 mile network is in the process of being expanded into a seven route 60 mile system to be finished between 2011 and 2014. The city of Manchester houses fewer than 400,000 residents but Greater Manchester is home to about 2.2 million people. The recession hasn't been kind to the area ... riding dropped to 19.6 million last year (about 60,000 on a weekday).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Metrolink
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neJp3Su4sDQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WaD65nE7xE&feature=related
BIRMINGHAM'S MIDLAND METRO RUNS FROM THE MIDDLE OF ENGLAND'S SECOND LARGEST CITY TO WOLVERHAMPTON AND HAULS A PALTRY 14,000 PASSENGERS A DAY ON THE 13-MILE RUN. Only one agency hauls fewer people. Like most of the English operations, this replaced a British Railways commuter service. While London is home to 7 million people, the number two city just barely houses a million. This was England's premier factory city; it peaked at about 1.1 million people 60 years ago. The entire metro area contains over 3 million people. Midland Metro opened in 1999 as a way of providing service at reduced cost, i.e. one man cars with automated fare collection instead of ticket agents at each station, drivers and guards on every train.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midland_Metro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_gntZtYgGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dGPx8M5LJw&feature=related
LONDON'S DOCKLAND'S LIGHT RAIL, NOT A PART OF THE UNDERGROUND, WAS CREATED TO PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION TO THE EAST INDIA DOCKS IN AN ATTEMPT TO HELP REVITALIZE THE AREA AFTER CONTAINERIZATION SPELLED THE END OF THEIR ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF THE DOCKS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE THAMES RIVER. The first two lines from Bank Street and Tower Bridge to Isle of Dogs and from Stratford in East London southward to Isle of Dogs opened in 1987 using totally automated trains. An extension eastward to Canningtown opened in 1994, one under the Thames to Greenwich and Lewisham saw service in 1996, three more extensions have opened by 2009 and another will open next year. Docklands is now transporting over 69 million riders a year which they modestly say exceeds 100,000 a day ... weekdays probably exceed 215,000. You will notice that those short two-section articulated trains of 1987 are past tense! If you go to visit the Tower of London or Tower Bridge ... sneak away and look at this. Or use it to get over to Greenwich to visit the observatory, the Naval museum or the Cutty Sark (The clipper ship should reopen this year).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zsWTJVoT3Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUYoO_0JabY&feature=related
GREATER LONDON HAS ONE OTHER LIGHT RAIL LINE. IT OPENED AS THE CROYDON TRAMLINK AND IS NOW CALLED LONDON TRAMLINK. This line is perhaps an orphan that took over three British Railways orphan branches that no one in his right mind would have wanted if you have to put drivers and firemen and guards on every train and agents and ticket collectors in every station. Instead of being radial to the city of London, it is circumferential about ten miles out. Parts of the New Addington branch run through farm country. It has been held up by some politicians in other cities as an example of why they don't want money losing light rail in their towns ... of course all light rail is bad if one is bad. So how bad is it? This 17 mile operation sold 25,800,000 tickets last year, making it the third busiest of all the British electric light railways. Weekday riders would be somewhere around 80,000. That's about twice what New Jersey Transit's Hudson-Bergen line hauls! (It has increased from 15 million since it opened.) Many of the riders are fed into LT's Wimbledon tube station or British Railways at East Croydon. But anything can be considered unsuccessful if you want to call it that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kW_xGt4g4w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY4wZjYq3sc
THE THIRD WEAKEST PROPERTY IN BRITAIN? WELL THAT'S NOTTINGHAM EXPRESS TRANSIT. IT OPENED LATE IN 2004. Riding peaked at 10.2 million in 2008 and the global recession hit. It then experienced a 10% drop down to 9 million riders in 2010, or about 28,000 on weekdays. However, what would we consider acceptable riding in North America for a 14-mile-long line leading into a city with high crime and a declining industrial base? That's twice as much as the Newark City subway. It's about 7,000 a day less than PATCO going to Philadelphia. It's more than Pittsburgh hauls on two trunks with two outer terminals. I think it's rather impressive. Nottingham is building two extensions to the south and southwest. (The fourth link is totally off the wall ... funny, maybe.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_Express_Transit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3scXjpvO6M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A03c6OMp2Ho&feature=related
WHAT IS BRITAIN'S LEAST PRODUCTIVE STREETCAR OR LIGHT RAIL LINE? WHY THAT HONOR GOES TO THE TRAMS THAT RUN ALONG THE PROMENADE IN BLACKPOOL. It is also the only system that has had riding decline in almost every year since 1982, probably because of declines in industrial employment in the cities in the Midlands from which Blackpool draws its vacationers. Riding has dropped from 6.2 million in 1982 to 2.2 million in 2010. That last figure is a daily average of 6,875 but we have to recognize that it is a seasonal city and a lot of their riding is in the summer. But like Atlantic City went out of the streetcar business in 1955 even though the cars were full in the summer, can we expect Blackpool Corporation to keep running full cars in the summer and empty vehicles in the winter?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW8lK6meVO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a2upi9bxjI&feature=related
AND BRITAIN'S MOST PRODUCTIVE RAILWAY? LONDON UNDERGROUND SELLS ABOUT 3.4 MILLION FARES ON A WEEKDAY IN A CITY OF 12.8 MILLION USING 250 MILES OF ROUTE. By comparison, New York City Transit has about 6.3 million riders in a city of 19.8 million people and about 209 route miles. London Underground reaches farther into the suburbs than the TA and serves only the north side of the city. Historically, British Railways commuter trains service the south side. The results in the national railroad network in Britain actually hauling 17% more passengers than the London Underground in spite of shedding a lot of its rural services. So London moves about 13,600 passenger per route mile while New York moves a whopping 30,100. Why the difference? London has a lot of suburban mileage on the Underground: the Central, Picadilly, Northern, District, and Metropolitan lines stretch for many miles out into the northern and western suburbs.
The first URL shows a Bakerloo train southbound at Waterloo from Harrow & Wealdstone to Elephant & Castle; the later named after a former pub south of the Thames. I selected it because of the recorded message to "Mind the Gap" as you step on or off the train on the curve. This is tube stock, that is a car designed for the very narrow clearances of those lines bored with tunneling machines such as this route, Picadilly, Northern, Jubilee and Central lines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=goE1TEQj0xc
Those lines built for steam traction had much more generous clearances. Examples were the Metropolitan and Circle lines. Notices that these cars do not have the doors wrapping around the roof curvature. This is also nice because it shows the former ventilating openings, now filled with light fixtures, in the ceiling of Baker Street Station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MW4S-s7RzQ&feature=related
By the way, you get off at Baker Street for Mme. Taussaud's Wax Museum. One of the most photographed characters in the museum is Lady Diana Spencer ... everyone has to be photographed standing next to her. :<) Around the corner from the Baker Street station is the imaginary address of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional dectective Sherlock Holmes, who Doyle wrote lived at 69B Baker Street. My wife made me take her there one day. I tried to explain that they neighborhood was somewhat undeveloped when Doyle wrote the book and anyway, the character was imaginary. Regardless, she was still upset to discover that there was an Abbey National Bank there. I understand that bank answers a lot of mail addressed to Mr. Holmes!
http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1063/11830.php
This is interesting - Suicide prevention on the Jubilee line:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3UVQ3Dtcwk&feature=related
Remember I said that the Underground serves the areas north of the Thames and British Railways serves the region south of the river? There is one place where you can get whiplash from watching trains. Most of the trains from Waterloo or Victoria stations will call at Clapham Junction ... get off there and just get dizzy turning around watching the parade. Clapham Junction is where the former Southern Railway lines from Victoria Station and the London and Southwestern Railway tracks from Waterloo Station crossed. It is the busiest station in England with up to 180 an hour using the metals and 117 of those stopping in the rush. (Take the train to Windsor Castle or Hampton Court Palace or Kew Bridge Museum and stop at Clapham on the way back and kill two burns with the same pebble - wives won't mind as much.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Junction_railway_station
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HNCxRB1ID0&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Windsor Castle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Castle
Hampton Court Palace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace
Kew Bridge Steam Museum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Bridge_Steam_Museum
Engines are run on Sundays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hse1aCsjeR0
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_United_Kingdom_settlements_by_population
The file below is the British Department of Transport LRT Statistics.
More information about the Pittsburgh-railways
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