Author Archives: Oren

Bus Photo of the Month: December 2024

Posted on by
Reply

New Flyer XD40 2124

Location: Duke Ellington Bridge, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: District Department of Transportation (DDOT)
Date of Photo: May 4, 2020

At the end of this month, the DC Circulator will cease operations after nearly 15 years of operation.  The service was started in July 2006 on two routes, with the goal of creating an “simple” and “easily navigable” bus system to supplement the existing Metrobus network.  In order to meet these goals, bus routes operated every 10 minutes around the clock on routes that connected major destinations around Downtown DC.  The system grew, often as select Metrobus routes were converted to Circulator operation to take advantage of lower subsidies and operating costs.  A National Mall route was also established following the discontinuation of the Tourmobile service that held the exclusive rights to offer guided tours within that area under a contract with the National Park Service.  

The discontinuation of the service can be attributed to several reasons.  Ridership has not rebounded since the Covid-19 pandemic, but arguably, many Circulator routes do not warrant 10 minute headways from early morning until late night (or 3 AM in the case of select routes on Friday and Saturday nights).  However, changing the headways was considered to be a non-starter on account of wanting the service to remain “simple.”  Furthermore, DDOT wished to have all eight wards of the city served by at least one route, a goal that was never achieved, but some wards simply do not have any activity generators that would warrant the level of service the Circulator committed to providing on all of its routes.

Service is currently running on 20 minute headways on five routes through December 31, 2024.  After that date, RATP DEV, which is the contracted operator for the service, will commence its final wind down procedures, such that the contract can be fully cancelled by March 2025.  

Have you ever taken the DC Circulator?

For more photos of the DC Circulator , please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: December 2024

Posted on by
Reply

Ganz CSMG 1313

Location: Clark Ádám tér, Budapest, Hungary
Operator of Vehicle: BKV Zrt.
Date of Photo: May 4, 2011

About a week ago, I saw this story about a Budapest tram made entirely of Lego bricks.  The tram is made up of 1.8 million blocks, weighs 6 tons, measures nearly 12 meters (40 feet) long, and took 90 people nearly 7,000 hours to build over a two month span.  Before you ask, no, you can’t ride it.  However, you can add a brick to it if you happen to be in Budapest in the next few weeks, and it was shunted from a depot to the location where it is on exhibit currently.

The rest of Budapest’s trams, such as this one, are made out of more conventional materials than Lego bricks.  This particular tram has been in service since 1967, and is one of three of its type currently remaining in service.  The Budapest tram network is the busiest in the world in terms of ridership and is also one of the longest in terms of route miles in the world, with 108 miles (174 kilometers) of track.

For more photos of Budapest trams , please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: November 2024

Posted on by

New Flyer XDE40 13013

Location: Charles Street at Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD
Operator of Vehicle: MDOT MTA
Date of Photo: November 25, 2018

This Tuesday is Election Day in the United States, and many transit systems will be offering free rides in order to facilitate getting to polling places so constituents can cast their votes.  I’ve seen notices of various agencies providing fare free travel on Election Day in recent years, including Minneapolis in 2014.  Other systems that I am aware of providing fare free travel on Election Day include Ride On, the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority, LA Metro, CapMetro, Knoxville Area Transit, Denver RTD, and the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority.  

Are you aware of other US transit systems that are offering free transit on Election Day?  Does this practice exist in other countries?  Leave a comment if you know the answer to either question.

For more photos of MDOT MTA Core Bus Services, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: November 2024

Posted on by

AnsaldoBreda P2550 742

Location: Del Mar Station, Pasadena, CA
Operator of Vehicle: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Date of Photo: July 14, 2014

A few days ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series for the first time in a full season since 1988.  (They won most recently in the COVID shortened 2020 season.)  A lot has changed in the Los Angeles transit scene since that championship.  The Los Angeles Light Rail did not open until July 14, 1990, when Line A (formerly the Blue Line) began service between Downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach.  The first Metro Rail line, the B Line (formerly the Red Line), opened on January 30, 1993 from Union Station to Westlake/MacArthur Park.  However, considering the sprawling extent of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, many places are not served by transit and Dodger Stadium is one of them.  In a somewhat viral social media post (also shown below), the LACMTA claimed one could walk from Dodger Stadium to the Chinatown Station on the A Line, and since the walk is only 25 minutes and all downhill, that this is a convenient way to get around stadium traffic after the games.  The LACMTA does run special express bus service between Union Station and Dodger Stadium for all home games, but the thought was that crowds exiting MLB’s largest venue after a playoff game might be such that it was worth mentioning this walking “alternative.”  It is not known how many people actually tried doing this after World Series games, but the suggestion was widely panned on social media and elsewhere.

For more photos of the LA Metro Light Rail rolling stock, please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: October 2024

Posted on by

Gillig Advantage 4058

Location: Rockville Pike near Wooton Parkway, Rockville, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Ride On (Montgomery County Transit)
Date of Photo: June 21, 2024

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the launch of Ride On Extra in Montgomery County, Maryland.  Ride On Extra is the branded service for Ride On’s “premium” bus routes.  The first route to operate under this banner is Route 101, a limited stop service along MD 355 between Lakeforest and Medical Center.  The trip time on the 101, both advertised and actual, is noticeably shorter than the underlying local service on routes 46 and 55, and depending on the circumstances, can even give the parallel Red Line a run for its money.

Last month, Ride On launched the first two routes of the Great Seneca Transit Network (GTSN), a series of improvements to the transit service in the “Great Seneca Science Corridor”, an area that includes locations such as the Shady Grove Metro, Shady Grove Hospital, Universities at Shady Grove, the Rio Center, and Kentlands.  These two routes have colored names, Lime and Pink; I believe this is to go along with the colored names that are also being used for the “Flash BRT” service that Ride On operates in the Route 29 corridor and will introduce to other corridors in the future.  Unlike the 101, the Lime and Pink operate seven days a week with service frequencies varying between 15 and 30 minutes depending upon the day of the week and time of day.  

Ride On is also engaged in the “Ride On Reimagined” project, which is a network redesign project that may introduce more Ride On Extra routes in the future as well.  It will definitely be interesting to see how Ride On Extra, in conjunction with the Flash BRT and other improvements, will change the transit landscape in Montgomery County.  

For more photos of Ride On’s Gillig Advantage 40 foot buses, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: October 2024

Posted on by

2600 Series Car 3109

Location: O’Hare Station, Chicago, IL
Operator of Vehicle: Chicago Transit Authority
Date of Photo: July 22, 2003

After a month’s break, the photos of the month are back!  There’s still a huge queue of photos for me to sort, caption, and upload to the site, covering a period of over 24 months at this point, and one of the reasons there were no photos of the month posts for September did not help to make the queue any shorter.  I have reason to believe there might be some time in early 2025 to make headway on that backlog, but we’ll see.

In the meantime, let’s return to our “regularly scheduled programming.”  I had intended to run this photo last month, so here it is, slightly later than planned.

Last month, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Blue Line extension to O’Hare Airport.  The extension opened on September 3, 1984 and to mark the occasion, the CTA operated its vintage 6000 Series rail cars between the O’Hare station and the nearby Rosemont Yard.  When the Blue Line reached O’Hare, it was one of the only direct transit connections from a city to its airport at that time.  Chicago would become the first city in the United States to have direct transit service to two airports when the Orange Line to Midway Airport opened in 1993.

I have never been on or seen the CTA 6000 Series cars, so I don’t have any photographs of them.  However, I have been on and photographed the 2600 Series cars that served the Blue Line when the O’Hare extension opened in 1984.  These cars remain in service on the Blue, Orange, and Brown Lines.

For more photos of Ride On’s Gillig Advantage 40 foot buses, please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: August 2024

Posted on by

Orion V 9641

Location: Friendship Heights Station, Chevy Chase, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: June 2000

Since I went way back in the past for the Rail Photo of the Month for August 2024 and chose a photo taken using film from the early days of this website, I thought I would do the same for the Bus Photo of the Month.  There most of what you see in this photo or in the surrounding area has changed in the ensuing 24 years, except for the bus terminal itself.  For starters, the 36 was extended to Naylor Road Station when it opened on January 13, 2001, and was ultimately truncated to Foggy Bottom in August of 2014.  The 1992 Orion V buses would be retired in the early 2000s, though newer Orion Vs would remain in WMATA’s fleet until 2019.

The shopping center seen behind the bus has been renovated twice since this photo was taken.  Although not visible in this photo, Mazza Gallerie was behind and to the left of where I was standing until it was demolished in 2023 to be redeveloped.  What was then a Hecht’s department store was directly to my left when this photo was taken, closed in 2005, and has since been redeveloped into the Shops at Wisconsin Place.  Other projects have also taken place or are ongoing in the general vicinity of the Friendship Heights station.  

Perhaps it also goes without mention, but photography technology has improved significantly since I took this photo, digital photography has been accessible to nearly everyone for many years now, and I’d like to think my photography skills have improved since I took this picture.  What do you think?

For more photos of WMATA’s 1992 Orion V Buses, please click here.  

Rail Photo of the Month: August 2024

Posted on by

M-4 1118

Location: 46th Street Station, Philadelphia, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA)
Date of Photo: June 27, 2001

Last week, SEPTA awarded a contract to Hitachi Rail for 200 railcars for its Market-Frankford Line, by far the busiest line in the Philadelphia transit network.  These cars are scheduled to be delivered between 2029 and 2031, replacing the existing fleet of M-4 cars seen here.  The M-4 cars were quite advanced at the time they were introduced, as they included features such as AC traction motors, interior LCDs to display the next stop and automated announcements.  Also, unlike most newer subway trains, they retained a full railfan window at the front of the train.  Now that these cars are over 25 years old, SEPTA has started the process of replacing them with what will be known as the M-5 cars.  From the renderings that SEPTA has made public, the cars will probably feel somewhat similar to the 8000 Series cars that Hitachi is currently building for WMATA, as the M-5s will feature open gangways, longitudinal seating, and designated spaces for bicycles, strollers, and luggage.  

Believe it or not, I am sharing a 23 year old photo of the M-4s because it is among the most recent photos I have of rolling stock on the Market-Frankford Line!  So if you’ve been like me and haven’t been on an M-4 in awhile (or even if you have been on one more recently), make sure to get some last rides in over the next 5 years or so!

For more photos of the SEPTA Market-Frankford Line, please click here.  

Oren’s Reading List: A Giant Tube Map Made of Lego

Posted on by

Geoff Marshall, a YouTuber who I think might be the best video creator in the transit fan space, has just released a video where he and some of his friends built a London Underground Map out of Lego, including with trains going back and forth along the tracks.  Check out what they did in the video below!

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.