Home

Metro Council Debates Transit

Wed, 06/18/2008 - 10:50 — Dave Morse

Just got back from Metro Council Budget, where there was a lively debate on transit options.  Download the entertaining audio files:

  1. Barry Barker's Initial Remarks - 13m
  2. Hybrids versus Clean Diesel - 9m
  3. TARC Senior Shopping trips, Charter busses, Q&A, TARC outside Jefferson Co. - 14m
  4. Commuter Rail on the Paducah & Louisville line, || Dixie Highway. "the Easiest way to add capacity to Dixie Highway" -BB. also: Louisville - Shelbyville - Frankfurt - Lexington line? - 2m
  5. Bus Rapid Transit corridors and neighborhood circulators - 2m
  6. Tina Ward-Pugh: More P&L, Dusting off T2 Light Rail, reasons for failure of T2 - 4m
  7. Grants, yet more P&L, Heiner: "Light Rail: the Sexiest Option" but expensive. Light Rail's effectiveness at blunting oil shock. - 5m
  8. TARC's Focus: BRT, not taxes. Yet more P&L - 2m

 

Comments

Sat, 06/21/2008 - 14:28 — Anonymous

Paducah and Louisville Railroad

 

Is it not ironic that our Metro Council is debating this? Yet there is a full report in the city archives on this very subject in a report given by the Louisville Rail Task Force a former committee of the Louisville Board of Alderman of which was a member along with several others including Charlie Castner ( former L&N publicist)
Baynard (Larry) Wright (Past President of the old Kentucky Association of Railroad Passengers) and many others.
Our report clearly indicated that a Commuter Rail Operation along the PAL Railroad would be the most doable for our city at the time. It avoided the high cost of Electrification and Construction associated with Light Rail and the Traditional Streetcar and issues of non FRA compatibility of Light Rail Vehicles sharing rights of way with or adjacent to Heavy Rail operations
We sighted the easy arability of used equipment from other systems such as Maryland Area Rapid Commuter which had recently retired many RDC's  , Chicago's Metra which was retiring many E 9 Locomotives and older Bi Level Coaches.  Rebuilding these would have been much cheaper that the cost of new equipment.
We also showed the willingness of Paducah and Louisville Officials to operate such a service and even went as far as meeting with PAL engineers to discuss locations for platforms and what would be needed for a long term operation between the Elizabethtown and Louisville area.
Looking at Nashville and their experiment using the Broadway Dinner Train over the Nashville and Eastern Railroad for a three week commuter test. We contacted the RJ Corman railroad about leasing the Dinner Train during its off season for a week long test over the PAL Railroad. The PAL management was receptive and so was RJ Corman. So were some city leaders but alias the lack of dollars and a means of funding made even the best efforts unobtainable?
 
The irony of all of this is as follows:
Our light rail project soon became to costly ----- T 2 dismantled for the most part ----- 
Yet our neighbor to the South now has an operating commuter rail system, five days a week mornings and evenings, using used F 40 locomotives, used Metra and VRE coaches with four dedicated train sets , operating over 60 mph track between Lebanon, Mt Juliet , Hermitage , Donaldson and Nashville its ridership continually growing.
 
And just think the idea started with Dr Art Cushman and his Broadway Dinner Train a few rail advocates, members from the Tennessee Central Railroad Museum and a passenger friendly freight railroad with 25 to 30 mph track that saw the long term benefits to Nashville and improved transportation for the region in the form of the Nashville and Eastern. Nothing fancy, nothing high tech, just some aging locomotives and old streamliner coaches retired by Amtrak years earlier.
 
Sounds like a familiar scenario of equipment we have nearby in Bardstown and a freight railroad that runs through Valley Station at 35 MPH.  Guess some of us were not far from the solution in the early 1990's
Timetable 1995 Nashville Commuter Demonstration Project
- 2007 Music City Star operating
Louisville still at square one
John Owen