Rail Photo of the Month: October 2016

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Oren

SBB RBDe560

SBB RBDe560

Location: Martigny, Switzerland
Operator of Vehicle: SBB CFF FFS
Date of Photo: March 15, 2008

No matter what rolling stock you may encounter while traveling in Switzerland, chances are it will arrive right on time. The stereotypes of Swiss railways running on time are not undeserved, though I do have to admit that I have been on a few delayed trains. However, whether the train is pulled by the Class 460 locomotives that perhaps are most associated with SBB, or one of the trainsets such as the RBDe560 featured here, rest assured your fellow passengers are likely to be anxious if the train slips even just a few minutes behind schedule.

These RBDe560 trainsets can be found on S-Bahn services in the Basel area as well as on suburban and regional services elsewhere in the country. They were first delivered starting in 1984 and while some of the cars have been retired, others were recently rebuilt and will remain in service indefinitely.

For more photos of SBB’s trains, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: October 2016

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Oren

NovaBus RTS T80 206 0309

Location: Massachusetts Avenue at Brattle Street, Boston, MA
Operator of Vehicle: Massachusetts Bay Area Transit Authority (MBTA)
Date of Photo: May 2, 2011

Since 1977, the “RTS” has been plying the streets for transit agencies across the United States. Perhaps, these buses are associated most with New York City, where they made up much of the bus fleet in the 1990s. However, they had a presence in lots of other cities, too, such as Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. It is in the last of these cities that I took this photo back in 2011. Even five years ago, the RTS’s dominance in the Boston bus fleet was already considered to be a time that had passed. However, the RTS is not completely gone from the streets of Boston. Although the RTSs are being retired gradually, the last ones are expected to remain in service until sometime in 2018.

For more photos of MBTA’s RTS buses, please click here.

Oren’s Reading List: Developing a Transit Map for Cairo

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Oren

Prior to my 2009 trip to Cairo, someone mentioned to me that the city’s Metro was the most orderly institution in the entire city. In a country where schedules, tourist information, prices, and just about anything else you might want to know while traveling there is unpredictable at best, the Cairo Metro operates a frequent, reliable service that connects to a number of major tourist attractions. It is also among the cheapest Metro systems in the world, charging a flat, one way fare of 1 Egyptian Pound (equal to 0.11 USD at the time of this writing). However, reliable and easy to use as it may be, navigating Cairo’s transportation network is not nearly that simple.

Enter Transport for Cairo (TfC). This organization consisting of young Egyptians are looking to revolutionize the city’s chaotic transit system. While a basic Metro map does exist, no tourist in their right mind would try getting anywhere using the city’s bus network or its informal network of microbuses. After all, Cairenes are forced to navigate the system without any sort of maps or other official guidance from the agencies operating the system. TfC is working to develop maps and other data sources for the city’s commuters to use to figure out how to get around the sprawling metropolis. You can read about their work in this article from CityLab.

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.

Jerusalem Meets Paris

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Oren

Alstom Citadis 302 001 on Derech Yafo (Jaffa Road) at Shlomtzion HaMalka, June 2, 2016

The Jerusalem Light Festival has been taking place each summer since 2011. Each night for just over a week, exhilarating light displays are set up throughout the Old City. This year, the festival extended up Jaffa Road, the historic main thoroughfare through the newer, western part of the city that now also serves as the right of way for the Jerusalem Light Rail route through the city center. One of the installations on Jaffa Road was a miniature Eiffel Tower. Since the light rail operates using French built Alstom Citadis 302 vehicles, it seemed only natural to try getting a photo of the Eiffel Tower replica and a light rail train in the same shot. This is where my title for the photo, and this post, came from.

Jaffa Road has become a great pedestrian space since road was closed to vehicular traffic and the light rail was constructed on the thoroughfare, so it was difficult to get a shot without pedestrians blocking either the train, the Eiffel Tower model, or both. Furthermore, the fact it was night meant that I needed to be using settings that ran the risk of a blurry photo if I wasn’t steady while I operated the camera and as the train went by. (This photo was taken with an ISO speed of 800, a shutter speed of 1/50 second, and an f-stop of 3.5.) Despite the fact it was about midnight when I was there, trains were running fairly frequently, and I had several opportunities to try getting the photo I desired. This is the best of my attempts, and I think it is quite a good one.

Incidentally, this isn’t my only photo of the light rail with a connection to this year’s light festival. Several trains had a band of lights installed along their rooflines and I got a few photos of those trains, too. One of those photos can be seen below.

Alstom Citadis 302 037 on HaTsanhanim between Damascus Gate and Kikar Tzahal, June 2, 2016

For more photos of the Jerusalem Light Rail, please click here. Oren’s Transit Page also has photos from some of the other cities around the world that operate the Alstom Citadis 302, including Paris, Madrid, and Rotterdam.

WMATA’s Oldest Railcar Still Rolling Along

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Oren

WMATA Rohr 1000, the lowest numbered car in the Metrorail fleet, at Silver Spring Station, September 14, 2016

Yesterday, I happened to catch a ride on board WMATA Rohr car number 1001. Although it isn’t the lowest numbered railcar in the fleet (that distinction goes to its mate, car 1000), it was the first to be delivered to WMATA and as far as I’m concerned, it is therefore the oldest car in the WMATA fleet.

Unfortunately, since 2009, the 1000 Series cars no longer operate at the ends of trains, so getting photos of the front end in the “usual style” is no longer possible without yard access. However, I did have the opportunity to ride both 1000 and 1001 prior to this policy change and also have photos of them at the front of trains.

As I wrote back when the first Rohr car was shipped off to Baltimore for scrapping, to my knowledge, there are no plans to preserve any of the Rohr cars. I doubt anyone on board the train with me yesterday knew about the significance of the train they were on, but it remains my hope that someone has the good sense to preserve the 1000-1001 pair as it makes up a significant piece of Washington, DC’s transit history.

London U-Bahn Map

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Oren

Did you ever expect to see the London Underground or “The Tube” referred to as the U-Bahn? U-Bahn is the German term for subway and is used in just about each German city that has an underground rail network. Yesterday, I shared a 1973 London Underground map with you. Today, I’m sharing another London Underground map, except this one is from 1975 and printed in German for the benefit of German speaking tourists. I don’t speak or read German aside from knowing a few select words, but my guess is that the texts on this map are just straight translations from the standard English language that would be used to German. It is certainly an interesting addition to my collection as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a London Underground map in a language other than English.

Here are the scans of the map. You can click on each image to make it larger and see it at full size.

Taking a Look at the 1973 London Underground Map

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Oren

As I mentioned last week, I recently inherited a number of old maps from a variety of places around the world and they are now a part of my collection of maps and other transit memorabilia. I plan to share some of the more interesting additions from this inheritance here on The Travelogue in the coming weeks.

This is a 1973 London Underground Map. While the London Underground map design has remained fairly constant since Harry Beck’s initial diagram in 1931, there are some notable things on this map that are not the case today. These include:

The Piccadilly Line to Heathrow Airport is under construction
The Jubilee Line is not yet open and Bakerloo Line trains operate the branch to Stanmore
The Hammersmith & City Line is still depicted as part of the Metropolitan Line
The East London Line has a partial identity of its own, but it is depicted in Metropolitan Line purple as opposed to the orange color it would have later on
The Docklands Light Railway is not on the map and will not exist for another 14 years

What other differences do you see? You can click on the images to make them larger. I apologize for any issues with the quality as the maps were scanned, converted to JPEG, and then compressed to a size manageable for sharing here on Oren’s Transit Page.

Oren’s Reading List: London Publishes Geographically Accurate Tube Map

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Oren

Have you ever thought to yourself while riding a train that even though the subway map seems to suggest the stations are evenly spaced, they aren’t actually so in reality? You’re right to notice this. Subway maps have been drawn without using a scale for a long time. The first example of such a map is Harry Beck’s London Underground Map form 1931. Many of the principles that Beck used in designing this map are still not only used in London but in many other cities around the world. However, people sometimes draw scale versions of various maps to show the differences between the official map and what a scaled map would look like.

Officially, Transport for London (TfL) has not put out a geographically accurate map since Harry Beck’s diagram became the official one in 1933. However, following a freedom of information request in 2014. TfL released such a map for the first time in many years. Read about the FOI process and see the map for yourself in this story from The Independent.

In upcoming posts, I plan to share some old maps that I recently inherited and added to my collection, the first of which will feature maps of the Underground. Stay tuned…

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.

Bus Photo of the Month: September 2016

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Oren

NABI 40-LFW 7051

NABI 40-LFW 7051

Location: 1st Street at Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Operator of Vehicle: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA)
Date of Photo: July 14, 2014

Los Angeles has far more public transit than one might expect for a city with such a car-centric reputation. In fact, it has the second largest bus fleet in the entire United States, with almost 2,500 buses! Los Angeles is also the inspiration for at least one other city’s current paint scheme. Since June 24, 000, LACMTA has been operating the “Metro Rapid” brand. Metro Rapid service is limited bus service that runs in the same corridors as standard “Metro Local” routes, with some of the components found on full fledged bus rapid transit (BRT) lines. One of the BRT features incorporated in to Metro Rapid is a special paint scheme for the limited stop buses. In the photo above, the Metro Rapid bus is painted maroon, while the Metro Local bus is in the “standard” orange LACMTA livery. I’m pretty sure that WMATA’s relatively new “MetroLocal” and “MetroExtra” schemes are inspired by Los Angeles’s schemes. This theory is bolstered by the fact that the general manager of WMATA at the time those schemes were adopted was John Catoe, who spent much of his career at LACMTA.

Personally, I’m not a fan of branded buses unless the operating agency can ensure that the proper bus is almost always assigned to the proper line. Otherwise, the branding is diluted. However, from what I could tell during my stay there, Metro Rapid buses seem to stick to the Metro Rapid routes and the same goes for the various other paint schemes that LACMTA has employed. What do you think of branded buses like those featured in the photo of the month this month? Leave a comment with your opinion!

For more photos of LACMTA’s buses and their various paint schemes, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: September 2016

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Oren

CTA 5000 Series 5040

CTA Bombardier 5000 Series 5040

Location: Quincy/Wells, Chicago, IL
Operator of Vehicle: Chicago Transit Authority
Date of Photo: July 9, 2014

The Chicago L is one of my favorite rail systems in the United States. The mostly elevated system twists and turns its way through the Chicago skyscrapers in the Loop in a way that no other transit system does in this day and age. Right in the middle of downtown, it feels like you can just reach out and touch the passing buildings. And to top it off, at Tower 18, you have one of the busiest train junctions in the country, and it is a flat junction at that!

I have yet to ride the CTA’s newest rolling stock, the 5000 Series, pictured here. The 5000 Series introduced a number of features to Chicago for the first time, such as AC traction, which is pretty much standard on new rail vehicles these days. However, some of the features proved to be a bit more controversial. Gone were the colorful roll signs that identified a train’s line color and destination, replaced with amber LEDs. That didn’t last long, as the CTA opted mid-order to have multi-color LED signs installed on cars that had not been delivered prior to the decision to switch being made. Cars that had the amber LEDs received colored LED signs through retrofit. Another change was a mix of transverse and longitudinal seating. Unlike the amber LEDs, this feature was not modified, though Chicagoans might prefer otherwise.

As I said, I haven’t been on one of these trains yet, though I look forward to having the opportunity the next time I find myself in Chicago.

For more photos of CTA’s 5000 Series cars, please click here.

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