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Alstom unveils Citadis Spirit light rail vehicle
Is it just me, or is it a little confusing that EMD and Alstom are using the same brand-name?
65 mph?!? Holy Smoke batman!! These “street cars” will be passing some Amtrak trains. Which brings me to the question as to why American and Canadian passenger trains (long distance and commuter) seem to creep forever away from and into terminal stations. Lots of European main stations are stub end (train comes to a stop near an end of track barrier) and cross through numerous switches to reach platforms but do so at reasonable speeds. Are we stuck in 1919 yard terminal think or are the tracks and switches at most stub end stations in such terrible shape that creeping speeds are necessary?
Look forward to Ottawa’s LRT, the core portion with 3 stations will be in a deep tunnel. Prep work has begun this month. The rest replaces some expensive to operate and build/wide busway. Compliments NS diesel line on former freight track.
Now we just need a U.S. LRT system to break free of the artifical constraint of the 2G buff strength mentality and order some 100% low floor cars. The Canadians have already done that with these cars for Ottawa and Bombardier cars for Toronto. Sadly, the US lags behind the rest of the world in LRV design…