[PRCo] Re: The origin of the term Light Rail in the US

[Dwight Long]

Jeff

You are undoubtedly right that these trams have been made to be ADA compliant by use of externalities.  I perhaps should have said that they are not natively compliant, as a "low floor" tram is.

Dwight
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jeff 
  To: bvolkmer at bellsouth.net ; David Neubauer ; Fred Schneider ; Skip Gatermann ; Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org ; peter folger ; Alan Schneider ; Dwight Long 
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  Sent: Thursday, 10 March, 2011 15:34
  Subject: Re: The origin of the term Light Rail in the US



              Dwight,

              Philly's PCC cars are ADA compliant. MUNI's PCC cars are also ADA compliant, but use a different method of accessibility,with the use of bridge plates and high platforms.

              Jeff Marinoff

              --- On Thu, 3/10/11, Dwight Long <dwightlong at verizon.net> wrote:


                From:
                Date: Thursday, March 10, 2011, 1:12 PM



                Bill

                The PCC may have been "30 years out of date" in the 70s, but have we ever come up with anything better?  One might posit the Toronto cars and the Philly Kawasakis as contenders for that mantle--I'm not so sure I would agree.  Personally, I think--but for the lack of compliance with ADA--the PCC is the premier tram car yet produced.  But then, neither the Toronto nor Philly cars are ADA compliant, are they?

                The cars that have (attempted to) replace PCCs are over-weight, over-complicated, and above all, over-priced.  We need a PCC with low floor section and air conditioning--and just maybe some state of the art but not too state of the art electrical components!

                Dwight----- Original Message --Sent: Thursday, 10 March, 2011 12:50Subject: The origin of the term Light Rail in the US


                        Jeff:

                        I don't think the term "light rail" as it was used in the 1970s by UMTA was strictly to announce that the term "trolley car" was old fashioned.  The type of car they were promoting was far from the trolley car of old (even the PCC was 30 years out of date in the early 1970s).

                        They were not trying to differentiate between PCCs and LRV 1970s state of the art so much as they were trying to differentiate surface rail transportation from sub surface or aerial elevated modes.  The chief difference was COST.    In the 1970s, the big five or six cities with existing subway systems were sucking up 95% of all the available government grant money just to keep their existing systems afloat and the new cities coming on line such as San Francisco, Atlanta etc were bound to completely drain the coffers and they needed a way to "spread the wealth around" to the smaller cities that wanted rapid transit.  Buffalo is an excellent example.  Buffalo wanted a subway, pure and simple and UMTA had to get Buffalo to settle for "light rail," but Buffalo stayed firm and got a subway with light rail cars in it.

                        You have to remember that there was an entire generation of politicians and movers and shapers running around in the early 1970s who had never seen a trolley car or ridden one or knew anything about them.  Unless they had traveled to Europe they wouldn't have seen any and even if they had, they were tasked with educating the masses here in the US as to what surface rail transit was all about.   That is why they had to come up with a term that described the vehicles we have come to know as Light Rail Vehicles.

                        Even the term "vehicle" as applied to rail cars came from the aero space crowd which is where most of the people with jobs worked.  

                        You might conclude that the term Light Rail was concocted by aerospace weinies entering the railroad field by default.  There were a lot of people who were in that category in the early 1970s after man landed on the moon in 1969.  They sure didn't know anything about PCC cars.

                        WDV

                        --- On Thu, 3/10/11, Jeff <jeffmarinoff at yahoo.com> wrote:


                          From: Jeff <jeffmarinoff at yahoo.com>
                          Subject: Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain
                          To: 
                          Date: Thursday, March 10, 2011, 12:25 PM


                                Dwight,

                                I didn't say that today's use of the term "light rail" was one that I approve of, only that it is what it is. Were you around in the 1970's when the term "light rail", with its present meaning, became fashionable? People were horrified to use the term "street car" or "trolley car", so they (re) invented the term light rail. Heaven forbid that we call a rose a rose !! Somehow the transit "experts" and consultants felt that the public wouldn't swallow the term street car, but light rail was something new and modern. These are the same people that shoved pantographs and ugly compound catenary down the throats of transit systems when trolley wires and trolley poles worked perfectly well {and less expensively} for decades, including at high speeds.

                                Some notable trolley pole operations were the Indiana Railroad, North Shore, Pacific Electric, Philadelphia Suburban, Dayton & Xenia, Dayton & Troy,  Lake Shore Electric, Lehigh Valley Transit,  Cincinnati & Lake Erie and many other high speed interurban lines. But modern day transit "experts" forgot about those systems or never knew about them in the first place.

                                Jeff Marinoff


                                --- On Thu, 3/10/11, 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: 
                                Date: Thursday, March 10, 2011,  
                                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: Sent: Thursday, 10 March, 2011 00:00Subject: Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain