Trolley, Streetcar, LRT or, or, or, What Do They Mean?

[Ocklawaha]

What do all these darn names mean? What is a Trolley? What is a Streetcar? Heavy Rail? Light Rail? I'm your Huckleberry, for this question...


Trolley-Bus


Cable Car... NOT A TROLLEY


Potato Chip Truck Bus "Thing" also... NOT A TROLLEY

Trolley: Is really a term that refers to the tiny power pick up wheel that rolls on the wire above a streetcar. The trouble with the term in English is that it can be either a bus or a rail vehicle (including mine equipment) that have that darn trolley wheel... Thus both ELECTRIC overhead powered RAIL and BUS are proper "Trolleys". Over the years in America, "Trolley" has come to be the famous Judy Garland, "Meet Me In St. Louis" film vehicle. Or "The Streetcar Named Desire". The fact that the GM part of the powerful highway cartel that bought, and destroyed, the rail transit systems in America, quickly crushed our up-start "Trolley-BUS" industry, just added to the confusion. As those buses REALLY ARE "TROLLEYS" too. Then along comes the "Potato Chip Truck" that looks something like a San Francisco Cable Car (NOT A TROLLEY AT ALL, as they are towed by a wire rope cable in a slot within the street)... and you can feel the mess we've created in terms in the good ole USA. For simplicity we Transit Types have tried to use the word Trolley to define Rail Vehicles, and Bus or Trolley-Bus to define the true electric trolley buses that remain in a few cities. But then what does one do with the little toy, fake potato-chip trucks? New Orleans and Tampa run "TROLLEYS". Seattle, Dayton and San Francisco run "TROLLEY BUSES", Jacksonville has "Potato Chip Trucks" that carry people and are misnamed. Knowing the facts...revisit the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".


Streetcar or a Trolley with a semi-modern "Heritage Trolley" look.


Modern Streetcar (not usually called Trolleys, the electrical collection is different, note the missing Trolley Pole and Wheel, replaced by wipers on a pantograph)

Streetcar: A transit vehicle that runs on Steel Rail, with Steel Wheels, usually with an overhead electric wire system of either simple or compound design. They can be run in trains with one operator, and are usually larger then buses in capacity, often double. They can run in lanes with traffic or anywhere a railroad can be built. They can also run quite fast, and have set World Speed Records in the past. Their speed and stopping power is on average about twice as good as a City Bus. Tampa, Memphis, New Orleans, Albuquerque and Charlotte are examples.

Tram or Tramvia: If we only still learned Latin! In the EU and South or Central America, Tram or Tramvia means STREETCAR! No other term fits. The word BUS is translated as "BUS" (pronounced with a long "U" as in the sound of the end of the word caBOOSE, gee that was easy!) But leave it to us to muddle up the works, various State agency's started calling logging and mining railroads "TRAM ROADS" in the 1700 and 1800's to define them from common carrier or regular railroads. Rio and Mexico City have "heritage" and "modern" Tramvia's respectively.


Classic Interurban on the Milwaukee Northern or Main Street USA


Another interurban scene demonstrates the flexibility

Interurban: These were simply streetcar or street railways that grew up to run beyond the suburbs. Since the equipment was lighter, and much cleaner then coal fired steam trains with open windows, they became overnight sensations. At one time using over a dozen companies, one could have traveled from New York to Chicago via Interurban Railway's with only about a 15 mile gap in the whole trip! Sadly Florida, always slow to react to national transit trends, never really got into the interurban era. Jacksonville Traction did have the Camp Johnston Line, (NAS JAX) at time when THAT was far out in the country. Pensacola, Sarasota, Coral Gables, Tampa and St. Augustine are the other systems that might qualify, if we fudge on equipment. Interurban cars were typically larger then streetcars, and offered big train services, such as express, mail and lounge or dining cars. They also pulled freight trains, but sometimes ran down the middle of the street WITH the streetcars. Only Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland OR have a working piece of the old Interurban network today. We should be so smart! The Chicago Sough Shore and South Bend Railroad (found on YouTube) is a fine example of traditional Interurban with modern equipment.

LRT and LRV: Light Rail Transit or Light Rail Vehicle. Simply modern terms to again try and fix what an electric rail vehicle really is. Again we muddled it up by BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) foes of rail, giving off a label that all LRT is like "MODERN INTERURBAN" (usually added to the LIE that it is VERY expensive) and "Modern Streetcars" are more like traditional downtown "trolleys". SAY WHAT? To be correct LRT is ALL modern light rail transit. So called because it's light construction, lighter rail size (in pounds per yard, Railroad rail typical is 136 pound, LRT is about 80-100 pound, this too has variations, as in Colombia, we use 90 pound on the mainline railroads, something I've been dancing on their fingers about, as our coal loads will KILL that track!) and LIGHT COSTS compared with Skyway's or Heavy Rail Transit. New Orleans, Dallas, Charlotte and St. Louis are all examples of Light Rail types.


Miami Metro Rail

HRT or HEAVY RAIL: HRT is a heavy construction train system. Usually double track, elevated or subway with a third rail for electric pickup. Atlanta's MARTA or the Miami or Washington DC Metro are good examples of Heavy Rail. Today's costs are making these systems harder to build though many major metro areas around the World and here in the USA are working full speed on developing them. Including Bogota, Colombia and Curitiba, Brazil, both of which were supposed poster children for BRT's "World Conquest," which has fallen flat on it's expensive bumper.


Trinity Rail Express in Dallas, running Cab Car first


COMMUTER RAIL: Generally it refers to a Diesel or electric powered TRAIN on a regular railroad like CSX or NS or FEC. A locomotive pulls several coaches. Some newer equipment is self propelled with Diesel or electric power.
Tri-Rail in Miami-West Palm is a fine example. It is often the cheapest of all to build, but can have higher operations costs if the Transit Agency owns land, track and vehicles. Usually these trains are NOT turned, they run Locomotive first in one direction, and Coach First in the other using a special Coach with a small "CAB" in one end known as the "CAB CAR".  Colorado Rail Car and Bombardier both make these types of trains and have web-sites on-line. To further blur the line here, many of the new Commuter Rail hybrids are rather combination "Streetcar and Rail Coach"... These cars are either DMU or Diesel Multi Unit, or EMU for Electric Multi Unit.


My Colombia, "Go ahead...Make my day!"

Now that you are all scratching your heads, I need to call Bello, in South America and check on my U-10's and 20's, the Mikados and Berkshires are still in storage and my DMU's are in the hole for Drummond somewhere up by Santa Marta..."El Gringo Loco..."

Ocklawaha

[Jason]

Excellent explanations Ock.

[midnightblackrx]

thanks for clearing of the confusion Doc (Holiday that is)