Dan416
Senior Member
I actually would like it if they used RER officially.
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SmartTrack (Proposed)
- Thread starter aquateam
- Start date
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Smart Tracks is what everyone else usually calls suburban rail.
There are many such examples such as in German cities and the S-Bahn systems. If you want to understand what ST tracks is then probably the easiest comparisons in a newer world systems are the suburban rail systems of both Sydney and Melbourne.
Electrified one or two level trains with fewer stops than conventional subways but more than conventional commuter rail. Most have non-level crossings to keep the trains on time and the car traffic moving especially in Sydney who's suburban rail is 800km. The tickets are usually distance or zone based and are integrated with the local bus fares. They run about every 10 minutes in rush hour, 20-30 minutes during the day, and 30 to 60 minutes late night. The lines however meet at a central point downtown so as the lines intertwine closer to the city the trains become much more frequent such as GO trains do the closer you get to Union.
For the inner city/downtown population they offer subway level service {in both Melbourne and Sydney they converge into downtown tunnels} but due to the size of the system it also means people in far flung suburban areas still have a fast route downtown with far fewer transfers that most systems and better off peak/weekend service levels than standard commuter rail.
Sydney and Melbourne are both making get strides {like GO} to get rid of all the level crossings and when finally done they will effectively be huge subway/metro systems but with far lower frequency the further you go out of the city.
There are many such examples such as in German cities and the S-Bahn systems. If you want to understand what ST tracks is then probably the easiest comparisons in a newer world systems are the suburban rail systems of both Sydney and Melbourne.
Electrified one or two level trains with fewer stops than conventional subways but more than conventional commuter rail. Most have non-level crossings to keep the trains on time and the car traffic moving especially in Sydney who's suburban rail is 800km. The tickets are usually distance or zone based and are integrated with the local bus fares. They run about every 10 minutes in rush hour, 20-30 minutes during the day, and 30 to 60 minutes late night. The lines however meet at a central point downtown so as the lines intertwine closer to the city the trains become much more frequent such as GO trains do the closer you get to Union.
For the inner city/downtown population they offer subway level service {in both Melbourne and Sydney they converge into downtown tunnels} but due to the size of the system it also means people in far flung suburban areas still have a fast route downtown with far fewer transfers that most systems and better off peak/weekend service levels than standard commuter rail.
Sydney and Melbourne are both making get strides {like GO} to get rid of all the level crossings and when finally done they will effectively be huge subway/metro systems but with far lower frequency the further you go out of the city.
GenerationW
Senior Member
It's a lot better than GO-REX.
Adjei
Senior Member
Why don't we come up with something unique of our own instead of latching onto a name popularized by others...
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
P
Paolo
Guest
I dont get why they say electrifying the trains will be greener? So lets break it down... instead of using deisel gas on the trains, they will get their hydro from a supposed "third rail" or "overhead wire" which gets their hydro from toronto Hydro, who is really buying it from the former Ontario Hydro which is known as Hydro One, and along the path of hydro to the trains it has to go through so many transformers and switches and train monitoring equipment which also uses hydro and what not, how much hydro is already waisted, then to top it off, your putting more hydro consumption on the grid, thus making more green gases. Electric trains really means the pollution problem is somewhere else on the line not at the trains. good one ontario. You can take your RER and shove it up your RER
JayBeeGooner
Active Member
Electric Trains will be "greener" in the corridor and through their neighbourhood. That's the point of their argument. They don't want the pollution associated with diesel trains in the corridor.
DarnDirtyApe
Active Member
Also, the majority of power produced in Ontario comes from Nuclear and renewables and the rest is Natural Gas which is a much cleaner fuel source than diesel. Also, the province currently has a power surplus whereby excess power is sold at a loss to other regions.
ShonTron
Moderator
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Paolo: Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
P
Paolo
Guest
well i have not made any newsletter announcements yet but when i do, you will be the first.
aquateam
Active Member
Even if the electricity used to power the trains was generated from burning fossil fuels instead of renewables (like hydro or nuclear, which provides a majority of our energy) it's much more efficient to generate it off-site in large generators going at steady-state (which can also use emissions-reducing technologies like inlet-spray injection) than it is to generate it in small local motors that have transient power demand.
Plus, the emissions generated at power plants are further away from when people are, and are usually dispersed through smoke stacks, so people aren't exposed to the same health impacts as they would if they lived next to the corridor when these trains are producing emissions.
The electrical losses in transmission are about ~7-8%, which is much less than the gain in efficiency from using large distributed generators. Plus diesel engines have losses from the braking, whereas electrical engines can use regenerative breaking.
Electrification offers considerable cost savings in terms of reduced fuel costs, and allows for faster braking and acceleration.
Right, and diesel just magically appears in a tank. No extraction, refinement, or shipping required... Unless you're driving a solar powered car, ALL vehicles require some sort of back end production and distribution, which carries a pollution cost. Producing power (most of Ontario's in nuclear at this point) and transmitting it via wires is much more environmentally friendly than extracting oil from the tar sands (using vehicles that are burning diesel to pull it from the ground, of course), refining it (again, requiring loads of energy to complete that process), and then shipping it across the country (on freight trains that also run on diesel).
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Nicely succinct. Not to mention diesel is not a renewal resource (unless we're talking about biodiesel, which comes with a subset of issues of its' own).
AoD
Thanks. And yes, you're right. It just bugs me when people dismiss a technology because of the "back end pollution", while completely ignoring the back end pollution of the alternative. The carbon footprints of electric EMU vs diesel EMU is like the difference in the size of a footprint between a chicken and a T-Rex.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Oops, by bad I meant renewable. In any case, the benefits of electrification operationally and environmentally is clear, and to argue otherwise seems a little off.
AoD