Urban-Rail Failures?

Since the opening of BART in 1972, it might seem that the trajectory of North American urban-rail systems has been up, up, up, with more and more new systems being built and going into action. But have any of these systems closed?

The only one that I know of is OnTrack of Syracuse, NY, which ran from 1994 to 2007.

In that time, some existing systems got shrunk, like SEPTA's Regional Rail system. It shed some diesel-powered routes in the early 1980's, like Lansdale to Bethlehem and Fox Chase to Newtown. It also shed some others, like Elwyn to West Chester, on account of poor track conditions.

And some new systems have not been extended very much since their initial construction, if at all. Buffalo, NY's light-rail system was opened in 1985, and it has not been extended in the time since.

Also, some systems and extensions have had disappointing performance, like BART to San Francisco Airport and Millbrae, which has performed under expectations.

Do you consider service reductions to be failure?
SEPTA changed midnight-1am 15 minute and 1am-6am 30 minute subway service into 15 minute bus service, which is not in itself a service reduction. In the late 1970's they changed 12-15 minute 7pm-midnight service to 10 minutes, but I see by their latest schedule some of that time has creeped back up to the 12-15 headway range.
In the last few months some lines, most notably the route 100 Norristown weekend schedule, have seen trips added back.

PATCO still has owl service, but what used to be 30 minutes midnight to 6am is now 45 minutes.

Pittsburgh no longer runs to Penn Station, and the Allentown route, which I remember in the late 1970's was something around 30 minutes all day is now just 3 or 4 trips rush hours only.
Baltimore Penn Station is now 30 minutes, once upon a time it was 15 minutes.
El Paso, which was a regular streetcar route, and Fort Worth, which was a private company's parking lot shuttle, both stopped running since 1972.

Burlington, Vermont's "Champlain Flyer" (December 2000 - February 2003).

NJTransit's Riverline, has to go to bed early in the evening due to passenger-freight time separation.
Southbound out of Trenton they had added 1 or 2 trips at the end of the day, I think primarily to marshall equipment for the first couple of new trips out of Burlington.

Northbound out of Camden before about May 2007 9pm to 1am was every 30 minutes to 36th St. Subsequent to May 2007 they extended that "late night" service 1 more station, but reduced the headway to about 45 minutes.

There is obviously a difference between rail systems that were constructed with significant infrastructure (i.e., the typical new light rail or rapid transit system) and commuter rail operations that use existing second-hand equipment operating on freight railroad rights-of-way and involving minimal new construction even for stations. On Track and the Champlain Flyer were a lot easier to shut down because there were few long-term investments made.

Two modern U.S. rail transit systems that some consider failures are Buffalo and San Jose. Buffalo's single line has suffered from never being extended beyond the single short line that was originally built - even the often-discussed short extension to the north campus of the University of Buffalo would increase the line's usefulness significantly. San Jose's system has suffered by the poor decision to route the line through downtown - the city is simply not downtown-focused and the VTA light rail takes forever to travel from one end of the system to the other. What's worse, the trains never had the desired effect of revitalizing the city's downtown and must travel at slow speeds through the transit malls built along several streets.

Jim D.

lpetrich wrote:Since the opening of BART in 1972, it might seem that the trajectory of North American urban-rail systems has been up, up, up, with more and more new systems being built and going into action. But have any of these systems closed? The only one that I know of is OnTrack of Syracuse, NY, which ran from 1994 to 2007. In that time, some existing systems got shrunk, like SEPTA's Regional Rail system. It shed some diesel-powered routes in the early 1980's, like Lansdale to Bethlehem and Fox Chase to Newtown. It also shed some others, like Elwyn to West Chester, on account of poor track conditions. And some new systems have not been extended very much since their initial construction, if at all. Buffalo, NY's light-rail system was opened in 1985, and it has not been extended in the time since. Also, some systems and extensions have had disappointing performance, like BART to San Francisco Airport and Millbrae, which has performed under expectations.

I don't think your definition is consistent. American passenger rail is varied in equipment, routes, and type of service.

BART is what we call "heavy rail rapid transit." For all intents and purposes, it's a subway system.

OnTrack was a "heavy rail commuter rail" operation that ran with DMU's on an existing right of way.

SEPTA Regional Rail is also "heavy rail commuter rail" that is separate from their "heavy rail rapid transit" (Subway and Elevated) and "light rail transit" (Trolley and light rail) lines.

Buffalo MetroRail is "light rail transit" that has surface and subway alignments, but it is not considered to be a "subway."

There was only one city in North America to completely build and abandon a rapid transit system: Rochester, New York and the Rochester Subway. To describe the subway in modern terms, it was "light rail, grade-separated rapid transit." Essentially trolleys that ran on a separate right of way, two stations were actually underground, the rest were in an open cut. It ran from 1927 to 1956.

Other commuter rail operations have been abandoned in the last 30 years... SEMTA commuter rail served Detroit, Michigan, their last trains rolled in 1985 (I think). PATrain service in Pittsburgh, Pa. ended in 1989. The state of Vermont experimented with a commuter train operation around Burlington that ran for about a year until it shut down in 2004.

-otto-

I will concede that my discussion mashed together several kinds of systems.

Otto Vondrak, thanx for mentioning the Rochester system -- it would be interesting to learn more about that rather odd reversal.

So over the last 30-40 years, it's largely been commuter/regional rail systems that have been abandoned or cut back. RailBus63 is likely correct about how little investment commuter-rail systems have often involved -- tracks from existing railroads, a small amount of rolling stock, etc. So the sunk-costs effect would likely be relatively weak.

The sunk-costs effect, wanting to get something out of some expensive investment that goes bad, is strictly speaking an economic fallacy, but it shows up a lot in experimental-economics work, where people participate in various mini-economies as part of experiments (Wikipedia article on sunk costs).

I found again this interesting article on Syracuse OnTrack's failure: Syracuse: When Rail Fails (Metro Jacksonville)

It had some major blunders, like operating only on weekends, having only one station in a high-density area, not having stations in residential areas, and not connecting to Syracuse's Amtrak station.

And the article even claims that the company that ran OnTrack was a bit corrupt.

lpetrich wrote:Otto Vondrak, thanx for mentioning the Rochester system -- it would be interesting to learn more about that rather odd reversal.

We have an article right here all about it... http://railroad.net/articles/railfannin ... stersubway

lpetrich wrote:I found again this interesting article on Syracuse OnTrack's failure... It had some major blunders, like operating only on weekends, having only one station in a high-density area, not having stations in residential areas, and not connecting to Syracuse's Amtrak station.

The schedule was reduced to Friday-Saturday-Sundays and special events because ridership did not warrant the original expanded schedule. They were supposed to connect to the Amtrak station, a bridge was being constructed, but was blocked by a competing railroad. The system was supposed to be much larger (stations were built around the city, but never used). Not connecting to the Amtrak station doomed the project.

And the article even claims that the company that ran OnTrack was a bit corrupt.

"Corrupt" was the opinion of the writer and does not reflect facts.

Thanx, Otto.

Looks like the Rochester subway was abandoned as a result of lack of political support. This is especially interesting, since most of the survivors of the numerous abandonments of streetcar systems around the 1950's have trolley tunnels and other isolated rights of way:
Boston
Philadelphia
San Francisco

I've found a light-rail advocacy group in Rochester, but it shows no activity since 2002. Another example of the vagaries of local politics? Rochester has half the population of Portland, OR and Sacramento, so a modern light-rail system might be able to make it there.

As to recent abandonments and sort-of abandonments of rapid-transit lines, I'm mostly familiar with the case of BART's San Francisco Airport (SFO) trackage. San Bruno, SFO, and Millbrae are each connected to a vertex of a triangle of track, and initially, BART ran trains on all three sides of that triangle.

But more recently, BART has more-or-less abandoned one of the triangle sides. For a while, it abandoned the San Bruno - Millbrae side, running trains on a San Bruno - SFO - Millbrae route, and more recently, it restarted that side and abandoned the SFO - Millbrae side, having trains from San Bruno to SFO and Millbrae with no SFO-Millbrae trains.

These have not been true abandonments, however, since the tracks remain in place as part of BART's trackage, ready to be used again.

Sources: Wikipedia's on BART defunct lines from San Francisco Examiner on BART service changes, and San Francisco WIki on BART.

lpetrich wrote:Looks like the Rochester subway was abandoned as a result of lack of political support.

Also the New York Department of Transportation (or whatever it was called back then) wanted the right-of-way for what is now Interstate 490. Remember, back in the 1950s, expressways were the modern solution to transportation problems, as opposed to those rattling old trolleys.

Cleveland's last light rail expansion through the Flats to the waterfront is a flop. Very few people, mostly tourists, ride it and it's rather devoid of commercial development since the Flats neighborhood cleared out.

New Jersey Transit commuter rail cut a number of routes, e.g. the Raritan Valley Line between High Bridge and Phillipsburg (in 1984), and also a number of South Jersey routes prior to that. Joint Metro-North/NJ Transit service via the original Erie Main Line between Harriman and Howells also died in the early 1980s.

lpetrich wrote:
In that time, some existing systems got shrunk, like SEPTA's Regional Rail system. It shed some diesel-powered routes in the early 1980's, like Lansdale to Bethlehem and Fox Chase to Newtown. It also shed some others, like Elwyn to West Chester, on account of poor track conditions.

The SEPTA Regional Rail lines mentioned had their origins as steam powered suburban lines of the then Steam Railroads,the PRR and Reading Railroads. As such, they far pre-dated the advent of "Urban Rail Systems", or even the idea of commuter rail. In those days, they would have been described as branch line railroads. Because of these origins, I wouldn't place those lines that have been abandoned in the category of "urban rail failures", as many of them ( Elwyn- West Chester is a good example) were in trouble long before the present concept of "urban rail" was developed. The Elwyn-West Chester ( actually the Media-West Chester) portion of what is now the R-3 suffered from low, almost non-existant ridership as far back as the mid 1950's. That line is a bit of a paradox, because the Philadelphia- Media portion has always been heavly travelled, with an extreme drop off in ridership west of Media.--- I remember in the 1960's, the PRR ran several rush hour through trains between Philly and West Chester-- trains that ran between Philly and Media as 10-14 car trains. At Media, the last 8 or ten cars would be dropped, and the train would proceed to West Chester as a two car train--- and the only reason it was a two car train was because the PRR MP54 MU cars then in use were almost never operated as single units because of weak braking abilities of the cars as single units.----

Because of this history I would look at the abandonment of the Elwyn-West Chester portion as more of an adjustment to an almost 50 year reality ( extremely low ridership) than as an Urban Rail failure. The PRR could easily have abandoned that service in the 1960's---before that line would have been considered as a part of an Urban Rail system.