I seem to remember having read that some newer transit systems (St. Louis? extensions of Newark?) use former freight only trackage that still hosts freight moves. As I recall, because LRT type equipment doesn’t meet mainline equipment collision standards, the freight movements are limited to hours when there is no transit service operating-in effect, freight isn’t allowed on the lines until all possible passenger operations are gone.
Is my memory faulty or my source or is this substantially correct?
You have the right idea. There are several light rail operations in this situation. The San Diego Sprinter between Oceanside and Escondido operates in this fashion on a BNSF branch and NJ Transit’s River Line between Camden and Trenton operates on a former PRR secondary line. There may be others.
The San Yisidro trolly line shares with the SD&E. Freight only runs between 2-4 am. I think they call it temperal seperation.
I know St. Louis uses old ROW but does not share the line with any other RR. It runs as Metrolink light rail with overhead catenary.
They use the Eads Bridge which did belong to Terminal RR and also the tunnel that comes through the downtown area. They also use part of the old Wabash line through Forest Park and passes underneath the old Wabash Delmar Station, which is still standing.
I can’t answer for any other cities, but St. Louis stands alone, does not share with anyone, except its’ own trains going in opposite direction. I’m not sure what they used on the IL side, but I think a lot of it was built as new rail, just like the Shrewsbury branch was.
Ditto for East County, El Cajon, specifically. There are some industry customers still getting cars from time to time, like the Toro facility, which often has three or four plastic pellet hoppers spotted on their track. There may be others farther west around Federal Blvd. I’m pretty sure that freight traffic doesn’t use the Broadway/Fletcher Pkwy trolley bridge, having to still go around on the ground-level stretch that predates the trolley. As Chad notes, it’s strictly an “after trolley hours” operation.
(“temporal separation”) See the Federal Transit Administration’s 2005 Final Report on “Sharing of Track by Transit and Freight Railroads: Liability and Insurance Issues” at this link:
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/Shared_Track.pdf (25 pgs., 204 KB file size). It lists several such operations on pages v and 3, etc.
See also the Report Summary on “Safe Transit in Shared Use” ( 2 pages, 1.06 MB file size) at:
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/FTA0008_Research_Report_Summary.pdf