Rail Photo of the Month: August 2018

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Kawasaki 7028

Kawasaki 7028

Location: Columbia Heights Station, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: August 30, 2015

If you happen to have been on the Washington Metro in recent weeks, you’ve probably heard a train declare “This is a 7000 Series train” as its doors open at each station.  This is being done as a safety initiative for passengers with vision impairments, the merits of which will not be discussed here at this time.  However, transit fans and frequent Metrorail riders probably do not need to be told when they are boarding a 7000 Series train, as these cars are quite different than any others that have operated on “America’s subway.”  The cars are made of stainless steel. They feature the new “disco ball logo” rather than the traditional brown stripe along the sides. The trains have a new interior color scheme, automated announcements, multiple interior LED and LCD displays, an updated cab layout, and numerous other features.  Personally, I’m a much bigger fan of the “legacy fleet” than the 7000 Series as the former is what I grew up riding and am most familiar with.  However, the 7000 Series cars are certainly recognizable by many riders, not just transit fans, and anecdotally, the riding public has enjoyed riding these cars since they entered service in 2015.  

For more photos of WMATA’s Kawasaki 7000 Series cars, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: August 2018

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Yutong ZK6121HQ

Yutong ZK6121HQ

Location: Sheva Hayim at Sderot Golda, Jerusalem, Israel
Operator of Vehicle: Afikim
Date of Photo: May 25, 2018

For many years, the Israeli bus scene has been dominated by European manufacturers.  For much of the 21st century, this has meant that most buses are built by companies such as Mercedes-Benz, MAN, Volvo, and VDL.  However, this is starting to change.  In recent years, Israeli bus companies have begun ordering buses from two Chinese manufacturers.  Yutong, which was founded in 1963, makes buses such as the one seen here.  Golden Dragon, another Chinese manufacturer founded in 1992, has also delivered units to Israeli companies.  Chinese buses aren’t new to the Middle East, as many of Israel’s neighbors have been ordering Chinese buses for some time.  However, they are new to Israel and part of a rapidly diversifying bus scene as other companies such as Solaris break in to this market as well.

For more photos of Jerusalem area Afikim buses, please click here.

Photographing the Same Train on Two Continents

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Over the years I’ve managed some neat feats in terms of fleets and/or vehicles that I’ve photographed.  At one time, I had a photo of every vehicle in the active TCAT fleet in Ithaca, NY.  I have photos of most (but not all) of the 46 Jerusalem Light Rail Alstom Citadis 302s.  However, back in January, I accomplished a feat that I don’t think I ever expected to do: photographing the same train car on two different continents.  And just to be clear, this wasn’t accomplished in Istanbul.

In 1998, the Madrid Metro accepted delivery of its 6000 Series cars from CAF for operation on that system’s Line 9.  The 6000 Series were the first Madrid subway cars to feature exterior destination signs and an articulated joint between each pair of cars, and were designed with the needs of Line 9 in mind.  I rode and photographed these cars in Madrid each time that I was in that city, first in 2005 and then again in 2008.

In 2013, most of the 6000 Series cars were sold to the Buenos Aires Underground for about 32.6 million Euro, a purchase that has since been derided as the worst rolling stock acquisition in the hundred-plus year history of the Buenos Aires system.  Buenos Aires purchased these cars to operate on their Line B, despite some significant differences between the specifications of Buenos Aires Line B and the wide profile Madrid Metro lines.  Most notably, the Madrid Metro powers its trains using overhead catenary, as does Buenos Aires for five of its six subway lines, but Line B is the lone Buenos Aires Subte line that uses third rail power.  In other words, Buenos Aires officials ordered a fleet of subway cars with the intention of using them on the one line in their network where there was no way to power the cars without significant modifications being made to both the tunnels and the 6000 Series cars themselves.  The 6000 Series cars were also narrower the other cars that had historically operated on Line B, requiring “skirts” to be added to the cars in order to close the gap between the train and the station platforms.  The 6000 Series trains ultimately entered service in Buenos Aires starting in 2014.

I traveled to Buenos Aires in January 2018 and explored the city’s subway network, so naturally, I re-encountered the 6000 Series cars in their new home.  I don’t have logs of which cars I rode in Madrid and which cars I rode in Buenos Aires, but after my trip, I compared the unit numbers in the photos I took in Madrid with those I took in Buenos Aires.  Through that process, I discovered that I photographed car 6006 at the Avenida de America station in Madrid on June 11, 2008, and photographed the same car at Carlos Pellegrini, station in Buenos Aires on January 10, 2018.

Here are the aforementioned photos:

CAF 6000 Series 6006

CAF 6000 Series 6006

New Photos from Israel & Washington, DC Added

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VDL Bus SB230 76273
The summer travel season is well underway, and photos from my adventures in May and June are now available for your viewing pleasure here on Oren’s Transit Page.

Most of the new content can be found in the Israel section, where you will find new photos of the Jerusalem Light Rail, Egged buses in Jerusalem (including the Solaris Urbino 18 unit currently on trial), Egged Ta’avura buses in Jerusalem, Afikim buses in Jerusalem, Kavim buses in Jerusalem, and Superbus buses in both Jerusalem and Tiberias.  If you haven’t been to Israel lately, with the entry of the Golden Dragon and Yutong bus models from China and Solaris buses from Poland in to the Israeli market, there is quite a bit of diversity in Israeli operators’ fleets beyond the typical MAN and Mercedes-Benz buses that have dominated the scene for years.  You can also find photos of the exterior of the new Jerusalem High Speed Railway station (the interior of the much delayed station will be open to the public this fall if you believe the latest rumors).

In addition, new photos of various WMATA equipment types have been added as well.

Here is the complete list of pages with new photos in this update:

Oren’s Reading List: Trackless in Seattle

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Gillig Phantom 4193
I’ve been to Seattle twice, although it has been over 10 years since my last trip.  Lots has changed there in the intervening interval, but one thing that stood out to me on my previous trips is the ubiquitous presence of trolleybuses in the King County Metro fleet.  This dates back to a decision to retain some electric powered transit lines, albeit with rubber tires as opposed to steel rails, as the Emerald City’s streetcars were decommissioned.  And in recent years, Seattle in conjunction with KCM are implementing plans to develop the trolleybus network even further, as they have proven themselves to be a low-cost zero-emission component to the city’s transportation network over decades of service.

Can you name the five U.S. cities where trolleybuses operate?  (You already know one of them!)

To read more about Seattle’s trolleybus network, click here. 

Bus Photo of the Month: July 2018

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NovaBUS LFS-A 5490

NovaBUS LFS-A 5490

Location: Broadway & West 86th Street, New York, NY
Operator of Vehicle: MTA New York City Transit
Date of Photo: June 15, 2018

On June 29, 2008, New York City Transit introduced its first “Select Bus Service” route, the Bx12 on Fordham Road in the Bronx.  The Bx12 SBS featured off board fare payment, all door boarding, new bus lanes, and traffic signal prioritization. Over the past ten years, SBS service has expanded to 17 routes serving all five boroughs, which most of these same features being introduced on the subsequent SBS lines.  In addition, the SBS bus fleet features a special light blue livery, seen in the photo above, so passengers can easily distinguish SBS from regular local buses.  Have you been on SBS in New York City?  What do you think of it?  

For more photos of New York City area buses, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: July 2018

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Multi-level car 7058

NJT Multi-level Car 7058

Location: Metropark Station, Iselin, NJ
Operator of Vehicle: New Jersey Transit
Date of Photo: August 6, 2017

What do you do when you operate a commuter rail service in to the busiest train station in the United States, want to add service, but that station is at capacity? In New Jersey Transit’s case, the answer is design and purchase Multi-Level cars!  However, this was more challenging for NJT than it might have been for some other US commuter rail systems.  The multi-level cars had to be designed in a way so that they could fit in the North River Tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York Penn Station.  Those tunnels were constructed in the early 1900s and opened in 1910, and as it is, the multi-levels’ design makes for a tight fit.  Double decker trains such as Amtrak’s Superliner cars and the Long Island Railroad’s C3 cars can’t fit in the North River Tunnel at all.  Although the tunnels  clearances are not nearly as restrictive as in the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel south of Baltimore Penn Station, MARC exercised an option order on NJT’s original contract with Bombardier for its own multi-level cars.

For more photos of New Jersey Transit trains, please click here.

Riding to the Southernmost Subway Station in the World

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Many are familiar with some of the world’s geographic extremes.  The lowest point on earth is the Dead Sea.  The highest point is Mount Everest.  The geographic center of the lower 48 United States is about four miles west of Lebanon, Kansas.  But have you ever wondered where the world’s southernmost subway station is located?  Wonder no more and keep reading!

Located at 34.643028 degrees south, 58.461611 degrees west, the Plaza de los Virreyes – Eva Perón station of the Buenos Aires Underground holds the distinction of being the southernmost subway station in the world.  As is the case with many things of this nature, there is some dispute as to whether Plaza de los Virreyes should get the title.  The Parliament Station in Melbourne, Australia is further south.  However, that station serves “suburban railway” trains, not subway trains.  What is the difference between a suburban railway and a subway?  Now we’re getting into some subjective details, but I don’t think many people would consider SEPTA’s Suburban Station or New York Penn Station, even though both of them are underground, to be “subway” or “Metro” stations.  The trains serving Parliament Station in Melbourne are akin to commuter rail trains that one might find in North America, and therefore, I don’t personally consider Parliament to be a subway station.

There isn’t a whole lot that is particularly noteworthy about the Plaza de los Virreyes station once you get there, other than the feeling that the tracks at the southern end of the station mark the “end of the world” so to speak and that no subway train anywhere can take you further south.  The tilework is unremarkable.  The station’s mezzanine feels a lot like just about any other “end of the line” terminal station mezzanine, with a number of onward connections available at the street level.  The lighting for photos of trains in the station itself isn’t all that great.  But despite the lack of noteworthiness in other ways, Plaza de los Virreyes gets to be the southernmost subway station in the world and no one can take that distinction away from it (for now).  

Even if Plaza de los Virreyes itself is perhaps a bit underwhelming, the journey to get there is not.  Following the 2013 retirement of the 100 year old “La Brugeoise” cars that operated on Line A, Line E of the Buenos Aires Underground has the distinction of operating the city’s oldest subway cars, the CAF-GEE cars, that were manufactured in 1968.  Some of these cars have not been refurbished and still feature wooden seats and incandescent lighting, and some aren’t even painted in the standard yellow livery that most Buenos Aires Underground trains feature.  The artwork at some of the stations along the journey to Plaza de los Virreyes is in fact eye-grabbing and worth closer examination if you have time.  Line E may not be the busiest or fastest line in Buenos Aires, but it certainly has a certain “blue collar” charm to it, and knowing no train in the world takes you further south definitely gets the line some extra brownie points.  It is definitely worth exploring if you find yourself in Buenos Aires!

The following is a selection of images from Plaza de los Virreyes – Eva Perón Station and the rest of Line E of the Buenos Aires Underground.  

For additional photos from Buenos Aires, please click here and stay tuned for future Travelogue posts!

 

“Buses”: An Exhibit at the Israel Museum

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Last month, I visited Guy Marco Shani’s exhibition, which is entitled Buses, at the Israel Museum.  You can read an explanation of what the exhibit is about on the Israel Museum’s website.  I enjoyed the exhibit, but not for the reasons I expected.  For me, the exhibit turned out to be a sensory experience involving more than just my eyes as I walked through the space.  Have you visited it, and if so, what were your impressions?

Buses is on display at the Israel Museum through October 31, 2018. Click here for more information about the exhibit, museum hours, and more.

Rail Photo of the Month: June 2018

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Class 3250 EMU

Class 3250 EMU

Location: Cais Da Rocha, Lisbon, Portugal
Operator of Vehicle: CP Urbanos de Lisboa (Lisbon Area Commuter Rail)
Date of Photo: November 15, 2013

The high speed railways in European countries such as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy are well known both among transit fans as well as other travelers.  Many are familiar with the TGV, ICE, and AVE names, even if they are not necessarily the types of people who might visit this website on a regular basis.  However, not every country in Europe is as reliant upon high speed trains for its intercity transit network.  One such country is Portugal, where eighty percent of the country’s railroad ridership is on the commuter rail lines serving the Lisbon area.  The Lisbon commuter rail is not even the biggest “attraction” in the city’s transportation network (that title goes to the Remodelado Trams), but it is very useful for anyone who wishes to visit Cascais or Sintra.  In addition, the Cascais line right of way runs adjacent to one of Lisbon’s tram lines and several bus routes in the vicinity of its Cais do Sodré terminus.  Isn’t it fun when three different modes come together like that?  

The Class 3250 EMU train photographed here was introduced in 1959 and refurbished between 1998 and 2002.

For more photos of Lisbon area commuter rail trains, please click here.