Railroad Forums
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Dallas, TX - On Monday, June 4, 2012, Administrator Joseph Szabo of the Federal RailroadSource: http://www.dcta.net/images/stories/pdfs ... by_FRA.pdf
Administration (FRA) in conjunction with the American Public Transportation Association Annual
Rail Conference will formally announce approval of DCTA’s request to operate the Stadler GTW
concurrent with traditional, compliant equipment. This means that for the first time ever; lightweight/
fuel efficient, eco-friendly low-floor vehicles will be permitted to operate in rail corridors
concurrently with traditionally compliant vehicles. The waiver, a first of its kind, will expand
commuter rail options for transportation authorities across the United States.
will be permitted to operate in rail corridors concurrently with traditionally compliant vehiclesConcurrently? Does that mean no time separation- i.e. concurrent operation, or just meaning sharing the tracks, but with separate designated windows?
kaitoku wrote:First, it means DCTA can mix of Budds (traditionally compliant) and the Stadlers (AVT waivered), permitting a larger, mixed fleet until all the Stadlers have been delivered (at which point the Budds go back to DART). Second, it means ops in general are more flexible ( I believe, "Yes" it *technically* means they could mix freight) but as a practical matter they will continue to maintain temporal separation (running freights at night).will be permitted to operate in rail corridors concurrently with traditionally compliant vehiclesConcurrently? Does that mean no time separation- i.e. concurrent operation, or just meaning sharing the tracks, but with separate designated windows?
the Denton County Transportation Authority says it will seek an Alternative Vehicle Technology (AVT) waiver so that DCTA can operate new Stadler GTW diesel multiple-unit (DMU) trains without temporal (time-of-day) separation from freight trains.According to the article, FRA gave NJT similar waivers for its RiverLINE (diesel) and Newark Light Rail (electric LRT) both of which technically enforce temporal separation, but both of which can operate (as I extrapolate) without as-rigid operational rules.
[...] "What we said from very beginning was that we would run the Stadler vehicles during the day and the freight at night therefore it will be temporal separation," [DCTA VP] Leggett said. "The waiver we're applying for will allow us to run the current [ten Budd RDC] vehicles with the [six] Stadler ones. So we won't have to wait until we receive all [eleven] Stadler vehicles to run them"
M&Eman wrote:Does this also apply to the older model GTWs used on the RiverLINE in New Jersey?Did NJT also ask for the same wavier? I don't think the RiverLine GTWs have the same crash energy management technology installed that the DCTA trains have. I doubt they'll be included under the DCTA wavier. But that doesn't mean they can't qualify under a new NJT wavier request.
jtbell wrote:What's a reasonable estimate of how long the Budds will continue in service before being replaced completely by the Stadlers?DCTA is leasing the old RDCs from DART. As soon as the GTWs are all operational, they'll stop leasing RDCs. DCTA is only buying 11 GTWs, and had #10 in service last week. I really don't know the status of all the GTWs, whether any have had problems that need to be corrected before entering service. But if #10 is already in service, it's safe to assume #s 1 thru 9 should be, leaving #11 to finishing testing. The RDCs should be gone by July or August at the latest, assuming no problems arise during testing.
jtbell wrote:What's a reasonable estimate of how long the Budds will continue in service before being replaced completely by the Stadlers?DCTA plans to end their lease of DART RDCs in February 2013. At that time they will be running GTWs exclusively. They had extended their lease of the RDCs a few months at the request of the FRA because they were experiencing shunting problems with single GTW operations. They will have new wheel scrubbers installed by January 2013, and DCTA is hoping to get FRA authorization for single GTW operations. They have been running the GTWs in trains with two GTWs for several months without any loss of shunting.
