Tag Archives: Israel

Rail Photo of the Month: March 2016

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Alstom Citadis 302 039

Alstom Citadis 302 039

Location: Derech Yafo (Jaffa Road) at Yafo-Merkaz Station, Jerusalem, Israel
Operator of Vehicle:  Citipass
Date of Photo: August 19, 2011

After many delays during its construction, the Jerusalem Light Rail opened to the public on August 19, 2011.  Thousands came to check out the line on its first day of operation.  However, prior to opening, many were critical of the impact that the light rail construction had on the Jaffa Road, one of the main streets through Central Jerusalem.  Buses were rerouted and many businesses suffered as the construction wore on along this major thoroughfare.  However, the pain was probably worth the gain.  As seen in this photo, the once congested Jaffa Road has become a well utilized pedestrian mall that is far more pleasant for enjoying a meal at one of the many cafes or restaurants along this stretch.  And the light rail itself is highly utilized and the centerpiece of a much improved transportation network for all of Jerusalem.  The road to get there may have been difficult, but the problematic aspects of the construction have been forgotten as time has gone on.

For more photos of the Jerusalem Light Rail, please click here.

 

Water Water Everywhere

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MAN NL-313 27631 on Sderot Rothschild at Tzahal, Haifa, Israel, June 7, 2013

One of my favorite things to photograph are fountains, waterfalls, and other water features.  My stay in Haifa in June 2013 was not my first trip to the city by any means, however it was just before a fairly significant change to the city’s transportation network would take place.  About two months after that visit, the Metronit bus rapid transit network began service.  However, the dedicated lanes that the system would ultimately use were constructed and being used by local buses as early as 2009.  The “Lin” station has a set of fountains constructed in the very wide median between the bus lanes as the road widens to go around a traffic circle and sculpture at the next intersection.  Needless to say, once I discovered this, I made a point of getting a photo of a bus at this location with the fountains in the foreground.  The photo you see here is the result.

New Arrivals

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Over the course of redesigning Oren’s Transit Page, I was also continuing to travel, take photos, and add them in to the queue to be included in the redesigned website once it launched.  Now that the redesigned website is here, keep reading to find out what new material was added in conjunction with the redesign.  This isn’t an exhaustive list but rather just the “highlights”, there is plenty of new content scattered around the whole site.

NABI 60-BRT 9574 on Main Street at Aliso Street
Los Angeles, CA
July 11, 2014

Starting off in the United States, I traveled to a number of places for the first time in my life in 2014.  I made a Midwest swing in May 2014 that resulted in the creation of sections for Minneapolis-St. Paul (just prior to the Green Line opening) and Kansas City.  After that, in July 2014, I did some long distance Amtrak travel (with some flights in between) and visited Los Angeles and San Diego for the first time.  Also on this trip were stops in Denver (in time for the soft reopening of Denver’s Union Station), Chicago, and San Francisco.  I had passed through Denver before but I had never used or photographed its mass transit prior to that summer.  The stops in Chicago and San Francisco were my first in each city since 2007 and were quite brief, but there are new photos in those sections as well, including my first photos of the CTA 5000 Series cars.

The Washington, DC section now includes photos of some of the newer buses to ply the region’s streets, such as WMATA’s New Flyer XDE40 buses and Ride On’s Gillig Advantage/CNG buses.  On the rail side of things, there is now a gallery for photos of the new WMATA 7000 Series railcars, manufactured by Kawasaki.

PCC 3263 at Capen Street
Milton, MA
May 2, 2011

I last traveled to Philadelphia in 2012 and was able to get a last round of Silverliner II and Silverliner III photos, in addition to my first Silverliner V photos.  I made two trips to Boston, one in 2011 and the other in 2013.  On the 2011 trip, I rode the southern end of the Orange Line for the first time, and both trips included a number of trips on the Green Line and Red Line.  I also was able to get photos from along the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line right of way and of various MBTA buses, including the trackless trolleys, in Cambridge.  Finally, for the first time since Oren’s Transit Page’s initial launch over 15 years ago, there are new photos in the Atlanta section.

There are also new photos from New York City, but due to the immense size of that section, it was decided to leave it “as is” in the old format and add the new photos to the Uncaptioned Photos gallery for now.  The New York section will be updated with the new design as soon as possible.

North of the border, there is a new section for photos from Niagara Falls, Ontario.  My only trip to South America to date was in 2010 so there isn’t anything new in the Brazil and Argentina sections (while Buenos Aires is on my bucket list, I haven’t found the occasion to get myself down there just yet).

Crossing the ocean to Europe, I visited both Hungary and Portugal for the first time.  My stop in Budapest was a layover between flights in 2011 that was measured in hours rather than days, but it was enough time to photograph some of the city’s trams, buses, and trolleybuses and whet my appetite for another trip there that will be longer 13 hours. I spent almost a full week in Lisbon, a city that shares many similarities to San Francisco including the fact that its trams are a tourist attraction in and of themselves, and visited continental Europe’s westernmost bus stop for good measure.

Bombardier Flexity Outlook “Cityrunner” 3069 at Place Royale
Brussels, Belgium
November 21, 2013

In 2008, I unexpectedly found myself with 90 minutes in Brussels due to a missed train connection, which was just enough time to get some transit photos before the next train to my destination came.  In 2013, I was in Brussels yet again, this time for a full 8 hours between flights, so that section has seen some additional expansion including a new gallery for photos of the Belgian National Railway.

Finally, in the Middle East, the Israel section has expanded further and to my knowledge, Oren’s Transit Page’s Israel section is the largest of its kind on any English language website.  The Jerusalem Light Rail opened to passengers just after I began the long process of overhauling the website, so many photos of revenue service along the length of the entire line are now included on the site.  The Metronit bus rapid transit system in the Haifa region opened in 2014, and there are also photos of that.  In addition, there are many new photos of the many bus operators that operate throughout the entire length of the country.

I hope you enjoy exploring the site, whether you choose to browse the new sections, old sections, or a mix of both!  And if you have a favorite section, let everyone know what it is in the comment section below!