Just remember to keep the tone and content of this thread civil. There are some interesting comments but please respect each others ideas.
rr503 wrote:The State has an obligation to provide services that will help the needs of the most people they can. Whether a train has 10 people on it or 1000, you are helping someone get to their job that might not have otherwise been able to.Incorrect. RER in Paris, Overground in London, and Sydney Trains in Sydney all operate heavy rail systems with vastly higher ridership than the LIRR with one or two crew members per train. The key? Turnstiles or scanners on the platform -- hardly some impossible investment. And it isn't like conductors are terribly effective today anyway...This isn't any of those places though. You can gather up all the facts from all over the world, but we are not talking about any of those places. The shot there at the end tells a lot about your lack of actual experience on trains. All your opinions are just based on numbers on a website or a casual visit here or there to these places.
I fail to see the logic here. We should spend loads of money on EMUs because...the platforms don't conform? The obvious solution here seems to be to fix the platforms. And, FWIW, successful bi-level EMUs do indeed exist. Look at Europe (whose trains we can get with the new FRA regs), METRA, whatever CalTrain is cobbling together, whatever Toronto has in store, and, of course, the NJT MLV EMU procurement.Buying single level MUs would require basically doubling the current fleet to meet the needs that the current bi-levels handle, but the platforms were not built for single levels passenger equipment, locomotive hauled or EMU. Sinle level trains require more cars per train, those trains are much longer than the platforms in most locations. And none of those equipment you mention come close to meeting the height restrictions, none of them, and as far as I know (without looking) are third rail powered.
The NY chauvanism is killing me! Toronto, Austin, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Dallas, Denton, Camden, all of Europe -- the list of successful DMU applications goes on and on.
A quick census calculation shows that 86% of workers living in the towns of Southold, EH, SH, Riverhead and Brookhaven commute within the island. Sure, those folks are harder to serve given the diasporization of jobs, but to focus all train service on the irrepresentative NY market is a waste. In fact, given this, an argument could be made that scoot service from, say, Hicksville or Babylon to Montauk would actually be more effective in serving commuter needs than a fleet of direct trains to NYC. The only way a service like that -- one which will probably have (relatively) low ridership density -- makes sense is with low cost equipment, which is why I speak so much of DMUs.
As for the DMUs, if they were the answer for here, or NJT (Aside from the River Line), or Metro North, it would've been here already. Why not? Because the reality is what looks good on a piece of paper or another place does not conform with the real world.