Baltimore Red Line

I just saw that Baltimore and Maryland have approved Light Rail with a tunnel under the inner harbor for the Red Line.

I have to say this might be the one decent thing Omalley has done with Maryland. It's going to cost an arm and a leg to build that tunnel, but it's probably going to have a decent return.

The only question that remains is will they be smart enough to run a few light rails around last call on the weekends. Septa runs special trains on some of their lines on the weekends.

do you have a link to a story on this, I did a google search and nothing relevant came up.

See http://www.baltimoreredline.com. All the info you could possibly want.

according to the link oknazevad gave the tunnel's underground beneath downtown Baltimore's inner harbor area streets
Although more expensive than a surface line I think that will probably be cheaper than a submarine tunnel beneath the inner harbor.

Would these "lightrail" vehicles interchange with/be stored/maintained with the existing lightrail fleet or will they go with something like the existing metro rolling stock? Or a third alternative?

kaiserworks wrote:Would these "lightrail" vehicles interchange with/be stored/maintained with the existing lightrail fleet or will they go with something like the existing metro rolling stock? Or a third alternative?

According to the map at the site, Red Line vehicles are slated to be stored and serviced at a facility near West Baltimore station. There's no track connection planned with the Central Light Rail (aka the Blue Line), as far as I know; considering the Red Line is supposed to be underground at the point where it crosses the Blue Line, I would think it difficult.

Baltimore has a "long range" transit plan that has quite a few rail lines envisioned.
http://www.baltimoreredline.com/images/ ... 20plan.jpg

If they do not all materialize it may be a mistake not to plan for a connection between the existing lightrail line and the new redline at this time. The flexibilty of planning future routes without commuters having to transfer trains will be compromised. An example would be commuting from Woodlawn out to BWI. A good area for making a connection at grade would be near the Howard st tunnel portal / camden yard area.

I doubt the purple and orange lines on that map will ever materilize; Amtrak and CSX aren't likely to allow anything that could possibly interfere with the operation of the national rail network. And the existance of the Howard Street Tunnel only makes any connection more difficult, as it will force the Red Line tunnel (which is underground at that point in part to avoid the HST ,iinm) even deeper.

It's odd, but every so often one hears rumblings from CSX about eliminating the Howard Street tunnel through the construction of a belt line around the city of Baltimore. The costs of such a project would be astronomical (to say the least). The only way I could see eliminating the Howard Street Tunnel would be for CSX to somehow be involved in the eventual rebuilding of the Northeast Corridor's tunnels. Don't hold your breath waiting for funding, though.

There's been some postings about it at Greater Greater Washington, including an overview map of potential alignments. The plan then would be for MARC to go through the Howard Street Tunnel. Here's the link: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3467