Last week, Bombardier demoed the new railcars for the Montreal Metro:
About 600 people were present for the unveiling at the Bombardier factory in La Pocatière — about 150 kilometres northeast of Quebec City — including Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, Quebec Premier Pauline Marois and hundreds of Bombardier employees. The new wagons have more standing room, bigger windows, and it will be possible for passengers to walk from one train car to the next while the metro is in motion.
Of course, Montreal’s new trainsets will be an articulated design. That is now a standard feature for heavy-rail metros. Articulated trains have better passenger circulation, and allow for more space.
Here is a diagram showing how the articulated section will look like on Montreal’s trains:
And here is an actual photo of the new rolling stock:
Many other transit agencies across North America have adoped articulated trainsets. A partial list includes:
Toronto: The newest subway cars (Toronto “Rocket“) is a fully articulated train design. They are built by Bombardier Transportation with designs based on the company’s Movia family of trains.
Vancouver: Mark II ART rolling stock, manufactured by Bombardier Transportation, used for Skytrain.
Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic): I wonder how many are aware that the Dominican Republic has an impressive metro system? It uses articulated trains built by Alstom (based on the Metropolis design).
Panama City: Currently under construction, it will open in early 2014. Their system will also use the Alstom Metropolis design.
Conspicuously absent from this list is any transit agency in the United States. Transit planners in the US have a deep aversion to articulated trainsets. So-called 3rd world countries like Panama and the Dominican Republic get the best possible trains — whereas the US (richest and most technologically advanced country in the world) is still using crappy train designs from 40 years ago. And the US is paying more too!
What makes it even worse is that the manufacturer of these trains makes so many US trains too. Chicago just got newer trains and they are hardly an interior improvement, especially with seat design. The Montreal trains look like the newer ones of the Paris metro. Even without articulation there’s more space and less crowding near doors with this design and they just won’t do it.
[…] cities are very bike and transit friendly, but traveling between them is a whole other story. Systemic Failure wonders what American rail planners have against articulated train sets. And Peninsula […]
I’m not sure I follow the relationship between articulation and walking between cars.
When we rode the Montreal Metro a couple years ago, there were no passageways between the cars. The car you boarded is the car you stayed on.
On BART you can walk the length of the train, if you can manage the double sliding doors between cars, but BART cars are not articulated.
The Santa Clara VTA light rail cars are articulated, but you can only walk within one articulated unit.
Articulation means there is no doors between the cars. And the space between the cars can be used to hold more passengers.
Here are examples:
http://michelequinn.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/img_3712-e1317520098759.jpg
http://img.fotocommunity.com/photos/3814665.jpg
Typically, the “cab” car is not articulated. That is why on VTA LRT, you can’t walk very far.
Even non articulated cars have no doors between them. Articulated means there is one pivot in the center of the two cars and there are two pivots in non articulated cars.
Mexico City’s new gold line has luxe articulated cars and a great passenger experience. I’m jealous since I’m usually stuck with the #1 and #3 lines which are the most crowded in the hemisphere and use older style rolling stock. The #2 line from the 1960s has been running articulated cars for a long time with great success.
http://www.excelsior.com.mx/comunidad/2013/05/15/899103
I think the cars are built by CAF in Spain.
(incidentally, 20 stations, 17 miles, dense urban area, severe hydrological challenges, 60% underground, for under $2 billion including rolling stock and interchange terminals and new payment systems implemented systemwide)
This is a feature conspicuously absent from BART’s new order of train cars.
The NYC Subway has expressed interest at looking at open gangways at some point in the future, but no concrete plans.
You write “(richest and most technologically advanced country in the world)”. Richest perhaps, but not the other. Technologically the US is falling quickly behind the rest of the world in many instances, whether you look at inefficient home-heating systems and appliances, the electrical grid, to the one you point out: outdated public transportation material.
Chicago likes to adjust train lengths. Chicago also has unusually tight 90 degree curves, which make safe articulation design difficult.
But what’s the excuse of San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, etc. etc. etc…
To be fair, Chicago has a lot of articulated buses that also make 90 degree (or sharper) turns. If it works there, it can work on a train. I’m sure they could figure something out for the train lengths.
Buses have different turning radii than trains. And buses can swing out to turn – if you notice, usually artic buses don’t manage to make right turns staying strictly within a single lane.
Also it’s not that Chicago “likes” to change car lengths. It’s that they don’t want to be accused by Springfield of running empty trains so they try to match capacity with demand.
Same deal in Prague, but with extra silliness due to the new M1 trainsets deployed on line C being permanently coupled, but not actually walk-through.
Articulation and walkthrough designs are only loosely connected. In the UK there are some trains that let you walk all the way through but aren’t articulated. Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples of trains that consist of multiple articulated units coupled together with no ability to walk between units (Vancouver’s trains are like this), and there are even some examples of articulated units with no ability to walk between the sections (some DMUs and Budapest M1 trains). Also, the NYC subway did in fact have articulated units of various types, developed by the BMT, with some surviving for quite a few years after unification.