Railroad Forums
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Jehochman wrote: Departures seemed to be every 15 minutes.All even days a week they're scheduled for every 15 minutes from around 4 am to 6:30 pm, then every half hour outside that window (service runs approximately 3 am to 1 am).
Zuccaraillo wrote:With SEPTA's Silverliner Vs all out of service, have RTD's cars been pulled from service?Even better: Do RTD's S5A cars have the same trucks as the SEPTA cars? Have similar truck problems developed?
Construction is ramping up and so are the crews committed to delivering the 2.3 miles of new track on RTD's Southeast Rail Extension project by spring 2019.
Although the B Line is part of the sales-tax-funded FasTracks plan, RTD has said there isn't funding for continuing the train through Boulder to Longmont until at least 2040.That's Longmont City Councilwoman Joan Peck.
Peck said what's needed to finish the line is a partnership similar to the one that got the Westminster portion of the B Line built.
"That's an incredibly frequent level of service based upon projections of ridership," Reed said. "Once the communities can agree on a reduced initial service plan, we can then look at costs and work with Burlington North Santa Fe Railway to see what's possible."That's RTD spokesman Scott Reed.
DENVER—Maintenance backlogs, budget shortfalls and breakdowns plague many of the U.S.’s aging transit systems. But here, where the plains meet the Rockies, Denver’s system is a rare success.The article notes how Private Activity Bonds have been used, apparently to the liking of concerned parties, to finance the projects undertaken.
Created in 1969, the Regional Transportation District operated for years as a modest bus service, and in the 1990s it added a few rail lines. But in 2004, voters in the eight-county region approved an additional 0.4% sales tax to expand the train network, called FasTracks. That new funding dramatically boosted a stream of local tax money already going to transit.
RTD relies on public-private partnerships for much of its construction and maintenance, and its management takes a fiscally conservative approach toward expansion: It only builds what it can afford to operate and maintain for the long term, according to Heather Copp, RTD’s chief financial officer.
The FRA told Denver it had to use this new technology called positive train control when it asked to build the A and G lines.Looking at the remaining extensions,
“It is a safety mechanism that is designed to make sure trains only travel at the appropriate speeds,” Reed said. “If they exceed or fall below a set range, the train will be slowly stopped automatically.”
The problem is that the new technology isn’t working the way it should at vehicle crossings.
RTD is working to fix it on the A line, but the FRA says it can’t open the G line until it sees progress made on fixing the technology.
While the new L Line is great for light rail riders who use the train downtown, there’s another project in the area that might be more exciting: the Central Rail Extension. With the Central Rail Extension, light rail from Welton Street would be connected to the A Line at the 38th and Blake stop, providing a new downtown connection.
This being famously cash-strapped RTD and all, there are a few hurdles to overcome before it’s delivered. It’s the agency’s cheapest project in FasTracks at roughly $110 million, but funding hasn’t been identified yet.
RTD spokesperson Nate Currey said that the agency can’t quite issue that much money in bonds. Still, in the era of public-private partnerships and creative funding solutions, “all options are on the table.”
Someday, after funding has been identified, the CRE will give you a new way to ride from the airport to the core of downtown. All it will take is constructing less than a mile of additional rail and two new stations.
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