Join the discussion on the following article:
Dallas Area Rapid Transit to spend $50 million to replace rail
The line in question is in the middle of a “concrete canyon”, and embedded in pavement (even though it is a dedicated corridor.) There are several cross streets as well.
Seems like a lot of money for 1.25 miles
Mr Guse,
I saw no mention of sub-standard material being used. Just the mention of wear greater than expected. And given there is a train every 2-5 minutes on each side of the dedicated double track directional running, I’m not entirely surprised. Add in the fact the track is embedded in pavement (concrete, brick, and “rubber”), all of which make it harder to limit the contaminates and keep them away from the rail, I’m even less surprised.
As to the bus drivers, DART runs a single fare system for buses and rail, frequently designing the bus routes to feed the light rail line.
I’m rather curious how they’re going to set up the work windows. There are only a few hours in the early morning when no trains are scheduled. And there are not sufficient crossovers in the segment under discussion (I only remember crossovers at the ends of the segment) to easily take a short portion out of service without effectively single tracking the entire 1.25 mile long segment.
It’ll be interesting to watch.
Leave it to government to fail to plan properly and use sub-standard materials. Of course, as always, expect massive cost over-runs, corruption, and money laundering. Which really doesn’t matter as long as the non-contributing recipients get what they feel they are entitled to at taxpayer expense. I can solve the problem of what to do to minimize passenger disruption right here and now. Very simple. Raise the fares until disruption is no longer an issue. I will predict that somehow, those bus drivers will magically appear with their vehicles to pick up the slack. Strange how that always happens. Must be a conspiracy.
Ya, merge 4 light rail lines into 1 & what do ya get,other than a lot of wear & tear & rail line jams backing up ?
ya, do construction & disrupt all this, I don’t think I want to be in Downtown Dallas for a couple years.
All on the same street the Railroads deemed unsafe for rail traffic almost 100 years ago - and moved their trains from it.
I hope they’re going to use something better for rails for the kind of money being talked about here.
For those of you that have never been there there is big temperature swings in Dallas. I’ve seen 18 wheelers far to many times following a pickup truck with two guys spreading sand after one of their big ice stroms with traffic at a stand still on I-35. I’ve also been there for multiple weeks of extreme heat with it triple digits for months on end. I’ve also been there for the rainy years when it is not a “dry heat”. That means severe expansion and contraction on rails buried in a street. Next you have four lines meet in an area because it becomes a transportation transfer area. The concept is also why a bunch of Interstate roads all intersect in Dallas.
Eric, thank you for the additional information. It helps people that don’t know details like that about the project (not including, of course, the people that don’t want to know anything but just post again, anyway).
Why don’t they just completely close the street off to auto traffic and make it a 4-track line? There are plenty of other streets to drive cars and buses on. I’ll see Guse mercifully stuck on the Mixmaster on I-30 if his idea is proposed.