by "Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
Published 02/15/2017 at 16:12
by "Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
Published 02/15/2017 at 16:12
Tags: Tramlopnik
; Trainlopnik
; Alstom
STARS: 2
A what?
One of these. An Alstom Citadis tram.
Paris has had trams in the past and has found that they’re the future as well so is investing in new lines. This one was on line T3.
As mentioned above it’s by Alstom, a French company. RATP, operators of public transport in Paris, are obliged to invite tenders for their rolling stock so any maker in the EU and indeed elsewhere can bid. They do bid, but Alstom always win because they’re the last company making rolling stock in France. They supply almost all French rolling stock and there was huge controversy in France when Eurostar had the temerity to order its latest trains from Siemens, a company not notably French. But I digress.
So, let’s take a spin.
Performance
It’s a tram. It runs in town so 50 kmh limit. It’s a tram so it stops frequently and has frequent (albeit its own special) traffic lights so you’re never going to get up any speed. If you were to go the full length of T3 it would take something approaching an hour.
Comfort
It’s a tram and is designed to accommodate crowds at rush hour so not many seats. To maximise space the seven cars have no divisions so it’s one long tube that bends at several points. I had to stand for more than half an hour and comfort was in short supply. You stand there while the tram sways around and hang on. Think of standing in a crowded bus but with the benefit of no potholes (the encountering of potholes on a railway is a really bad thing). I did eventually get a seat for all of two minutes or so and it seemed fine.
It’s heated, so there’s that.
Toys, connectivity, infotainment
Few. It’s a tram. You do get a panel telling you what the next station is and how many more minutes you need to endure before you get to some stop deemed interesting. You also get announcements, with a few bars of music followed by two voices, usually one male and one female. Interestingly and by way of variety each stop has different voices and some of them are kids, one so young that an adult had to repeat the name of the stop just in case you missed it.
Usefulness
Depends where you’re going. If you have the option the Métro is quicker and you’re more likely to get a seat but the tramlines usually serve areas not on Métro lines so they get plenty of use.
3/10
would travel on again.
"PotbellyJoe and 42 others" (potbellyjoe)
02/15/2017 at 16:17, STARS: 0
Umm... So a bus?
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
02/15/2017 at 16:22, STARS: 0
light rail?
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 16:25, STARS: 0
...slower because they don’t have so many dedicated lanes and far fewer passengers per driver so less cost effective on really busy routes. Also shorter working lives.
I did go the airport by bus though, because cheaper than the train..
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 16:37, STARS: 0
Depends how you define it. The other transport option in Paris is the
RER
which is a suburban rail service but I don’t think it would be called light rail.
"benjrblant" (benjblant)
02/15/2017 at 16:42, STARS: 1
Is the grassy median with hidden rails common? Looks nice.
I’ve not had the opportunity to ride a tram in Paris, but the TGV is pretty awesome.
"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
02/15/2017 at 16:45, STARS: 0
Yeah, American “light rail” is usually more akin to European “Regional” (in the Romance languages). Most of the US doesn’t have any kind of tram system, we usually end up using buses to serve that role. I also find trams a little bit of a red-headed stepchild. There are a few places in Rome and Amsterdam I’ve found them useful, but most of the time subways or proper buses do a better job.
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
02/15/2017 at 16:48, STARS: 1
I love how this route looks. Running down rails in the grass is awesome.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
02/15/2017 at 16:50, STARS: 1
Utah has a light rail, its pretty handy. They range from the “streetcar” size
up to 4-5 unit deals
and then of course there is frontrunner
"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
02/15/2017 at 16:53, STARS: 0
Nice! Birmingham and SLC are nearly identical in size (MSA), but there’s no way in hell you’d get 20+ suburbs to agree on anything. Sometimes there’s a benefit to the “major city” in an MSA actually holding most of the people. Here only about 20% of the MSA lives in the city, so the rest requires cooperation among 4-5 counties and countless towns...
"facw" (facw)
02/15/2017 at 16:55, STARS: 0
Here in Houston, we have these:
Siemens S70s. They also have some CAF Urbos trains. They work reasonable well, and the system has added two new lines, plus a large route extension in recent years. Houston drivers have a lot of trouble with the concept of not making left turns in front of the light rail. It’s gotten bad enough that many downtown intersections turn all four directions red when a train is going through. They operate either as three car arrangements, or (as shown) doubled up into six-car trains.
Also there’s a part where it drives through a fountain:
Still it’s pretty pathetic that this is the best public transit that the 4th largest city in the US has to offer.
"facw" (facw)
02/15/2017 at 16:56, STARS: 0
Yeah, that grass approach is nifty. Could be useful here in Houston to extend the light rail to grass medianed avenues without losing green space (they city definitely doesn’t need more pavement).
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
02/15/2017 at 16:56, STARS: 0
its about the same here, the downtown population is vastly outstripped by the surrounding communities. The buy in here is that the valley is geographically limited to being mostly vertical and so a central line that takes people from the suburbs to the city makes a ton of sense for very little infrastructure. Most people love having in in their communities...plus the corridors for the rails were mostly already in place so it wasn’t like buying up neighborhoods for the line.
"benjrblant" (benjblant)
02/15/2017 at 16:57, STARS: 0
H-Town! I grew up there. Did the light rail ever stop eating cars?
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 16:59, STARS: 0
It’s not universal, no. Usually you just have lines running along the middle of a wide street.
"facw" (facw)
02/15/2017 at 17:03, STARS: 1
I think it gets fewer now, either because people are learning, or more likely because they’ve been trying to limit interaction.
I mean it is town where this happened:
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 17:06, STARS: 1
Interestingly, while that’s a Siemens train it’s a model that’s hardly used outside North America as it’s intended to be used with heavy rail, something rarely encountered in Europe. Instead Siemens sell urban-only trams.
"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
02/15/2017 at 17:13, STARS: 0
Good point...you also benefit from a relatively flat valley there, at least in the city proper. We have tons of ridges (+/
-
500' from one to the next, just enough to completely dictate our infrastructure and traffic choke points) that cut right across the major roads. The whole city was originally built due to iron ore mining, so it
’
s not exactly logical to set up a town this way if you knew it was going to get this big one day. The suburb where I live is on top of a small mesa (technically called a Cuesta, which is a rare Applachian landform) and was once a
“
weekend mountain retreat
”
for the original residents of the city. Now it
’
s just another small town/burb about 10 miles from downtown. Crazy how much transportation changes things.
"Clemsie McKenzie" (thestirringcolumn)
02/15/2017 at 17:30, STARS: 0
Man Paris’ tram is like the awful promiscuity of the metro coupled with the slow pace of the bus. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Most of the city’s public transport do their job pretty well. T3 can burn in hell.
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 17:47, STARS: 0
Well, I went to Rétromobile in 2015 from near Porte de Charenton and the most practical way to get there is T3a which goes right to the Paris Expo. The other choice would be M8 which goes on an underground tour of northern Paris first for about thirty stops.
"Honeybunchesofgoats" (honeybunche0fgoats)
02/15/2017 at 17:50, STARS: 0
Philadelphia has these running on a single route. They’re basically 1940s trolley cars refitted to modern standards.
The other routes use these:
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 17:52, STARS: 0
Cute!
"Clemsie McKenzie" (thestirringcolumn)
02/15/2017 at 17:59, STARS: 0
Oh yeah I’m not saying it’s not needed, I’m saying it’s shit. Paris is in dire need of a transversal line, just not tram or bus.
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 18:23, STARS: 0
They’re extending RER E to La Défense, if that’s any good to you.
There’ll be an 8 km tunnel westwards from St Lazare.
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
02/15/2017 at 18:48, STARS: 1
Trams have their uses though and they’re becoming more common - places that dropped them when buses became available have sometimes reintroduced them. Paris, for example. Trams were abandoned in the 1930s and then reintroduced nearly sixty years later. A tram can carry a lot of people per driver and with at least partially dedicated lines they’re faster than a bus and cheaper than suburban rail.
"DarkCreamyBeer" (darkcreamybeer)
02/15/2017 at 18:53, STARS: 1
PCC cars FTW. All attempts since to replace them have largely been failures, particularly Boston and SF Muni’s LRVs, the related but slightly more successful K-cars in Philly, and the Type 7s and 8s in Boston. It’s too bad the PCCs just aren’t wheel chair accessible, or they could live on forever.
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
02/16/2017 at 04:42, STARS: 0
e-class^^
w-class^^
while e-class in newer & carries more passengers, Melburnians still love the old ones so much they’re still in use today more than 60 years after the last one was built (they’re now remaking parts for them)
ratings? e-class 3-stars, w-class 5-stars.
"Insert Edgy Username Here" (billy-d)
02/16/2017 at 22:06, STARS: 0
Yeah, here in North America, “light rail” refers to an intermediate system between a tram and a metro. Like a tram, it runs above ground on a fluctuating schedule, with stops every 1/4 to 1/2 mile and using 2-3 car trains powered by overhead wires and driven by humans, but like a metro, it runs along its own grade-separated right of way with fully enclosed stations and fares paid by smart card before boarding and after alighting, and serves the entire length of the metropolitan area, not just a few select towns or neighborhoods. It’s an evolution of the old “inter-urban” trains used in the 40s and 50s (think old-school Birney or PCC cars on mainline railway tracks)