I dont know of any tramways running on 1600mm, but there are various other gauges around the world. Japan has at least five different gauges in various isolated systems, for example.

the specific gauge of the track is almost irrelevant. there is no such thing as an off-the-shelf rail vehicle, though there are many components in common from one project to the next, all manner of specifics must be put into a design, and the gauge of the bogies is merely one such detail.

HUEHUEfag here, we used to have a broad gauge tram In the city of Campinas but due to It's lack of Integration with buses nobody used It so less than 5 years after Its Inauguration, services were stopped and the line abandoned.

And yes, any company would design a tram for whatever gauge the client specifies, as long as they pay for It.

Pic Is of the Campinas tram.

Toronto's tram is 1495 mm and they at some point wanted to buy modern vehicles.

Depending on what type of train it is connected with, tram-trains usually require specialized vehicles anyway.

>>294448

Thanks for the input. I also believe that the gauge is just one small factor in the design and manufacturing of a rail vehicle, but politicians and planners around here argue that this would significantly increase the cost of the units, so as to make the whole system inviable. I think that's bull.

I guess I'm gonna shoot an email to Alstom, Siemens and the like and ask them if this would actually happen.

>>294419

Hello fellow HUEHUEfag (BHZ reporting in), I am aware of that VLT project and its demise. I believe it was 1,435mm broad gauge, right? Light rail vehicles based on 1,435mm are actually not that uncommon, but there is almost nowhere else in the fucking world where they use 1,600mm Irish broad gauge. Even the Irish have dropped it!

What about double-gauge vehicles? Would it be possible to have bogies on the light rail vehicles that would allow them to run on 1600mm and meter gauge? Just imagine a tram running on 1600mm accross the city... madness.

Bumping with Karlsruhe Stadbahn, great tram-train system!

>>294518
>Karlsruhe tram-train system

In theory, it sounds like a pretty neat idea.
In reality, it's also good, but as someone who uses it everyday, I should tell you, that the biggest problem is its capacity.
A tram-train is essentially still a tram, with the small capacity of a tram. Even if we run 75-meter trains (that's the maximum Germany's laws allow for street-running trams), they're still more than crowded.

And if you combine your existing metro system (which probably has bigger carriages) with trams, you'll lower its capacity.

>>294525

What you might consider (which I think nobody has done before in regular service) is the following:

Long trains on segregated metro sections and splitting them up into shorter ones, which at the end of the segregated section can continue to run on tram lines, obviously on several lines to spread and cover larger areas.

In Karlsruhe, we have one train per day that does a similar thing: It comes from the interurban section (which is an actual train line, so no lenght restrictions), enters the tram network and splits into two parts (which are short enough to run as a tram), which then run through the city one after the other.

pic related: This train one stop before being split

In Victoria our trains are broad gauge but our trams are standard
so we can never have tram-trains
;_;

>Even the Irish have dropped it!

Our main rail line hasn't dropped it. The only one that doesn't have the Irish gauge is the light tram LUAS.

If its of any interest to you op, Hyundai Rotem paired with the Tokyo Car corporation built most of our current class 22000 DMU's and CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles) supplied our Mark 4 DVT's. Both for the broad gauge lines.

Our rail system is pretty shit and very poorly managed but I do love the 1600mm gauge.

>>294518


SP here, the problem Isn't only the trains themselves but also with the line. The wider the gauge the bigger the curves have to be which makes building broad gauge much more expensive than standard gauge railroads.

I'm not sure If that cost would have as much of an Impact In tramways because of their low speed which permits tighter curves but that's still a factor to take Into consideration on the planning phase.

And no, the VLT de Campinas was 1.6m gauge just like Rio's prémetrô that used similar trains. Back then the only standard gauge railroad In Brazil was the Estrada de Ferro Amapá(EFA).

Picture Is of Rio's pré metrô trains which are now stored.

>>294527
>>294525

Hallo KA brother, thanks for the input. I went to Karlsruhe last year, and I liked the tram-train system, but then again, I'm not a daily user like yourself. I'll keep the capacity issue in mind.

Thanks a lot for the tip on the splitting trains! Gonna do some research about that. Would definitely want to see this in action!

>>294535

Hello Irishman, good to know we're not the only ones stuck with the 1600mm thing, and great to know you have good stuff on the works. I have learned about the LUAS system in a course last semester. How's that working in daily use?

>>294542

Hi there Paulistaman! Thanks for all the great input! Yes, you just described a very important factor that make 1600mm a challenge for running a light rail system along the main traffic corridors in a big city. The streets and avenues are already there, so there's not a lot of room for arbitrary line-drawing to "make the rail line work". I've seen very narrow curves in tramways all over Europe, but they almost always use meter gauge. It would be somewhat more difficult with 1600mm.

Oh, and thanks for the info, never realized that the Campinas VLT was 1600mm. Where are the vehicles right now? Is there talk of bringing the system to use again?

Pic related, it's /n/'s dream.

>>294553

I know there Is at least one abandoned In the old Companhia Paulista/FEPASA car shops In Rio Claro but I'm not sure If the others are also there.

Every now and then we see news about rebuilding or using the abandoned line for a bus corridor(like the ones In Curitiba) but after the fiasco the old VLT was, no one In Campinas would vote on a politician that defends something similar.

NJ Transit River LINE

Any Mulhousefag here to report on the status of their tram-trains?

You may always ask those guys if they would modify one of their products according to your needs:

http://tzv-gredelj.biz.hr/eng/

VTA Santa Clara County.

Calgary's light rail is kind of shit. I dislike it terribly.

Baltimore Light Rail

I rode it to and from work every day for two years.
I bought a car when I got sick of it always breaking down.
And the black people, I got sick of them too.

Nj Transit's good side..

When the Washington DC Metro was designed and built in the 1970s, the Yellow Line was originally going to run west of the city under Columbia Pike in Arlington Virginia, but for some reasons I don't know, the Yellow Line was directed south instead. Today there's talk of giving Columbia Pike a streetcar line that would connect to the Metro at the Pentagon and/or the Pentagon City shopping mall station. This image is a concept, facing west, where Columbia Pike crosses South Walter Reed Drive at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse.

Sometimes I drive through this intersection on my way home from work, and I have trouble visualizing how this congested street could work with streetcars. The image shows street parking eliminated on both sides of the street, so yeah, that would make room. And I see that would make room for that bicyclist to ride near the curb without getting creamed by that streetcar. But socially, in terms of what people really do, I expect the residential neighborhoods all along the length Columbia Pike would end up accommodating the cars that were parked on the street for the local businesses.

I assume the gauge would be the US standard (4' 8-1/2"), since all US transit systems are (as far as I know), with the exception of BART. You could research BART's wider gauge to see if it causes trouble relevant to trams.

>>294773
Thanks for that link. I realize that in some point of my research (which is still in the very beginning) I will have to contact the manufacturers to have factual data on that "unusual gauge x costs" issue.

>>294870
Thanks for that info. The BART actually uses a gauge broader than 1600mm! gonna research that.

>>294553

Its good, and used by many. However there isn't many lines so it only covers a small area of Dublin. It also suffers from a lot of crime and anti-social incidents, or at least I hear and have seen pretty much every time I go to Dublin. (I dont live there). I rarely hear of any technical problems with it but I dont really know much about it to be honest.

I use it like once a year to get from Heuston train station to the O2 concert arena. As I said earlier, there is only 2 lines. But there is talk of extending it and integrating it with a subway but with the state the country is in financially I cant see that happening for at least 10 years.

>>294865 You is racist, but since it's in Baltimore, I supposze it reverse racism is da'k then

A street running tramway will probably benefit more from standard (freight) railway compatibility than it does with low headway metro. IIRC 1600mm is wide enough to accommodate a 1435mm dual gauge arrangement. Wikipedia seems to support this. This would allow joining the metro where it's economical to do so.

Complete metro compatibility is difficult to do with a tramway because you really don't want two separate platforms: high one for metro, low one for tramway. Freight railroads don't have platforms to begin with.

But if politics are the thing and total metro compatibility is required, it's going to be nasty. There are no standard vehicles for that, at all. It's custom or nothing.

Tri-Met's MAX apparently uses 1435.

>>295180

High-floor tram stops may not be that nice, but it's not impossible. Beats having two incompatible systems.

But as >>294542 this guy said, Rio's metro already used to have low-floor cars (or cars fitted for low-floor platforms).

OP Again, sorry for reviving old thread, but it's always better than creating a new one.

I wanted to hear if anyone has an experience with some alternative to a turnstile-based boarding platform for light rail vehicles. I ask this because it's not practical to work on the Honor System everywhere, and definitely not in Brazil. Are these the only options?

Pic related, it's Curitiba's acclaimed boarding platform for their BRT system.

>>296994
Closed fare system involves at least closing down central stations, if not all of them. The stations need to be either planned to be easily closed from the start or undergo expensive renovation from an open fare system, reducing corridors and adding choke points to install fare gates to. Maintaining closure involves active manpower and maintenance work. The design of the fare gates matters very little and turnstiles are the standard.

Since most of your passengers will use a season or monthly pass anyway, open fare system ("honor system") can afford a lot of ticket police to randomly check cars or stations. The system will be a lot more convenient with fast boarding, inexpensive stops and more station exits, saving a lot of commute time day-to-day for each passenger. The ticket police can also act as security, which is very important in a high capacity, possibly tunneled system. You don't want anything to happen in a tunnel, and even if something does happen, you want as many potential exits available as possible.

Open fares are worth it, even if they seem implausible.

>>296994

Istanbul has a low-floor line with platform gates (pic stolen somewhere from the web). Though this requires the same amout of honesty as a open system, since you can simply walk to the platform from the rails. High-floor platforms would make this a little more difficult, but people still climb the gates themselves. I'm with >>297209.

Also, how do gate-systems work with group-tickets?

>>297209

Gonna do more reseach on the open fare system and its applicability in adverse socio-economic conditions. Anyone here knows of a place where the honor system is used in spite of bad social indicators such as low HDI or low income?


>>297227
I reckon multiple-person fares can be used with gate systems via magnetic cards. My city currently uses a card system throughout the rail and bus system, and it's possible to take two buses with a reduced fare on the second, so it would be possible for more than one person to use the same card.

>>298852
I haven't researched actually low income/HDI transit, but the rule of thumb is that in such areas workers are proportionally inexpensive: you want more manual labor and less infrastructure. Closed fare system is infrastructure, thus very expensive. Open fare system is manual labor, thus inexpensive.

Open fares will then scale into less laborous honor system as HDI and income goes up.

>>297227

Is it just me or does that look exactly like the last scene from Welcome to the N.H.K.

>>297209
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA has a great open fare system on both their TRAX electric light rail in the city and their Frontrunner train which is diesel eletric. can't comment on gauge cause i don't trainhag much but i can attest that the OPEN fare system works, also the transit police are nice to have around checkin tickets and carrying steel to thwart uprising and general tomfoolery They built 2 lines on Trax for the 2002 winter olympics and have a 3rd just completed and a 4 connecting the airport to downtown which should be finished Q1 2012

Melbourne
its mostly street running trams
portions of two routes are in freeway median strip, another two are on converted railways
but these are not seperate, just another part

>>299342
thats a Z class, this an A class
these are older model trams locally built that are quite high floored, new models are imported lowfloor lightrail vehicles
a problem though is that the high floored trams have pivoting bogies allowing them to handle the tight curves on street operations, while the lowfloor have rigid bogies and their only ability to turn come from their segmented accordion bodies, fine on a (light)railway but quite noisy and slow on streets and there have been derailments
Stops are typically curb side much like a bus, but in the CBD and terminus there are now 'super stops' of raised platforms, with the new lowfloor it means seamless roll on/off, automatic displays of tram arrivals, maps, etc

>>299344
another problem on older routes is the narrow streets
road lane, tram track, tram track, road lane
and guess what: the road lanes have cars parked on the curb - forcing all the traffic onto the tracks
slowing everyone down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jG95XQfetM

>>299344
idk get some low floor trams that work ?
ours dont have such problems other than using the rails themselves harder than "traditional" trams due to the fact that they have less wheels and no bogies to spread the weight and sidewas forces more arround

this thing drives me to work erryday
it's funny, they are so quiet that a lot more people get driven over.

>>299345
narrow streets also not a problem, not even for the older models
sometimes you do get to folow trams on a longer stretch of narrow street where they could not plan stops where cars have the oportunity to overtake

but if you are folowing trams down narrow streets chances are that you dont know where you are driving or you wanted to take a shortcut

>>299352
cobra tram ?

>>299354

you're very right with that guess

>>299355
i did enjoy riding them
low floor, fast and goog at hillclimbing

>>299356
I realy should double check what i write early in the morning....

anyways have some more tram

>>299351
>>299353
>>299357
AUSTRIA!

>>299353
the problem is there is nowhere to drive BUT the tracks
they need to remove the on-street parking so the cars can stick to the road
but local traders association kick up a huge fuss, cause apparently a car out the front represents more business than a tram full of people :\

>>299344
Skoda 15T fixes this: first lowfloor articulated body lightrail vehicle with pivoting bogies

>>299364
Other low-floor, pivoting bogie trams do turn up. You can also design and build a good one from scratch! See the Helsinki NRV 2010.

>>299344
>noisy and slow on streets and there have been derailments

Combinos, right? It's funny because multi-articulated trams were actually designed for traditional tram systems with tight curves.

>>299374
Citadis and Combino