Local Rail - An Overview
Posted by Jerome a Paris on July 6, 2007 - 3:43am
This is a guest post by DoDo, a railway professional in Hungary who front pages over at the European Tribune and posts here on TOD under the same name.
BruceMcF introduced us to various local transport modes as potential 'recruiters' for high-speed rail. Pursuing most of these is worth on its own, for local traffic. This diary expands on one of these: local rail. As the Recruiters diary indicated, local rail is just one alternative, but it should be the backbone of any decent public transport system.
Below, I first want to chart distinct categories of local rail: describe their specialities, their differing best uses, and some newer developments. In the real world, however, the boundaries of those categories are rather blurred, what's more, different locales use a bewildering array of rail terminology. But there are also some ingenious ideas mixing the 'basic categories', some of them will be described below, too.
This diary can also be viewed as a general guide as to what kind of projects local initiatives could aim for, and tries to give examples around the world that can be used as model for supporters and argument against opponents.
There's more… (4493 words) europe.theoildrum.com |
