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58 Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Rail Vehicles: A Practitioner's Guide
Figure 5. NJ Transit DMU Street running in Camden, NJ.
can use a radial mainline railway for line-haul transport from the suburbs, and then continue
or switch to local street-running tracks to serve the downtown destinations, and other routing
options are possible.
Historically nearly all SPRCs have used on-board diesel engines for power, and have been
capable of operation as a train with a single train or with multiple cars. SPRCs are commonly
called DMUs.
Additional economic advantages of concurrent track sharing can be realized if:
· There is an identified need to integrate transit service in a shared-track corridor with an exist-
ing light rail system;
· Street running is necessary to access downtown districts and serve dispersed demands within
a larger city; emergency stopping distances are more compatible with street running;
· There are community concerns about the noise, vibration, and visual impact of large commuter
rail vehicles; and
· The selected rail car whether LRV and SPRC is able to perform express, line-speed line-haul
functions on railroad tracks, and local multi-stop distribution functions on embedded street
tracks with mixed vehicular traffic.
Service Characteristics to Justify the Choice of a Light Rail System
Concurrent shared-track with light rail and conventional railroad vehicles is typically con-
sidered a fall-back option after it has been determined that the service requirements cannot
be satisfied with FRA compliant passenger vehicles or a separate light rail system. It may then
become necessary to conduct a feasibility study. If such a study concludes that a light rail sys-
tem is the only viable alternative to satisfy local transit needs, then a shared-track project may
be justifiable. The research for such a study should address four elements.
1. The travel forecasts. The rail transit should reach downtown to serve its primary market.
2. The pattern of development in downtown necessitates a street running transit service with stops
at dispersed demand generators. In downtown, transit service also should support redevelop-
ment objectives by improving mobility within the core.
3. The possibility of constructing a commuter railroad is an option that should be explored
although such an alternative may be fraught with difficulties, high costs, and considered
infeasible.
a. All current FRA-compliant equipment is 85' long and has a minimum turning radius of
12 degrees (approximately 145 m or 480 feet radius). Constructing a suitable alignment at
grade would necessitate substantial encroachment to traffic or land uses adjacent or prox-
imate to the right-of-way, and may represent an unacceptable level of interference and dis-
turbance to the local environment.
