rail transportation classification questions

[JonMyrlennBailey]

What is the difference between LIGHT RAIL and STREETCARS?

What is the difference between a LIGHT RAIL train an AMTRAK train?

What is the difference between a RAILWAY and a RAILROAD in America?

Is a SUBWAY or an ELEVATED RAILWAY technically a RAILROAD?

Is BART in northern California technically a RAILROAD?


There is a reason for asking these questions because different people have different perceptions of what a TRAIN is?

In New York City, somebody might say I am taking the SUBWAY from Central Park to lower Manhattan.

In San Francisco someone might say I am taking BART from Market Street to Oakland.

In Oakland somebody might say I am taking the TRAIN to Sacramento, however. (The person might be referring to the Amtrak California corridor route).

Some people do say I am taking AMTRAK from Chicago to Denver but they might also use the word TRAIN.

It seems like TRAIN is used for long-distance passenger rail travel much more often than for local or regional rail transit.

For people using local rail passenger service they are more likely to refer to the carrier company name (or the type of system it is eg. LIGHT RAIL) than the vehicle (TRAIN) ridden upon.

On the San Francisco Peninsula, northern California, people say CalTrain more often than they say I am riding the train to San Jose from San Bruno.

A TRAIN is a vehicle but BART is a rail system.

 

[oknotsen]

Here is the answer to your first question.
I am sure you can figure out most of the others after that.

 

[cascaderailroad]

BART, streetcars, subways, etc ... are light rail, not because they use lightweight balsa wood tracks, but the rail is quite smaller as it does not have to carry heavy weights ... A train is a train ... a railroad is a railroad ... even if it is just a transportation system ...the are all choo choo's

Bart and CalTran may have heavier rail in some sections, where heavier equipment and locomotives are used

People may say: "I am flying to New Orleans today", but that doesn't really mean that their arms will be really tired

 

[pcas1986]

...
There is a reason for asking these questions because different people have different perceptions of what a TRAIN is?
...

In Singapore they have the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) and in Hong Kong they have the MTR (Mass Transit Railway). I visit both places and can never remember which is which. Both are very modern and very good at moving lots of people very quickly.

And in the UK, Londoners call their Underground "The Tube" probably because it looks like one. The carriages have a very low roof line. You feel like you are riding in a tube.

I think of Light Rail as lightweight train like vehicles that often runs in the street. Or is a tram?

The BART system is of special interest to me. When I was in Uni it was the topic of how not to run a project. I think I had to write a paper on it. I especially liked the "phantom trains" that prevented the driverless trains leaving a station.

 

[JCitron]

Light rail is the new terminology to replace street cars and trolleys here in the US. In Europe they call these trams, but they are the same thing. The idea of a trolley and street car is old-fashioned and in order to reinvent this mode of transit, the transit experts had to come up with a new word. In Boston, for example the Green Line is their light rail system, which used to actually have PCC Trolleys running on it until the 1990s, and before that street cars made by Peter Witt and Burney.

The rapid-transit 3rd and 4th-rail systems are considered heavy-rail due to the heavier rail and equipment which runs on it. Boston like most places in the US, uses a third-rail system. London opted for a 4-rail system due to the wet ground causing too much corrosion on the running rails. On their system, one is a power rail, while the other is a ground rail with the other rails being the ones the wheels are placed. On our 3-rail system, it works like the old Lionel O27 gauge trains with a power rail on the outside and one of the rails that the train runs on being the ground return.

Are these trains in the literal sense? Yes they are. They run on a fixed guide way made of steel rails upon which are placed carriages or motor-driven carriages with fitted with steel rails, which are all coupled together. We can't get anymore train like than this?

Could Amtrak be considered light rail, no because of the kind of equipment and heavier rail system it runs on.

I heard about the phantom trains on the BART system. It's rather funny when you think about it now. This is good old AI in action just as we suffer from in Trainz today.

 

[edh6]

London opted for a 4-rail system due to the wet ground causing too much corrosion on the running rails. On their system, one is a power rail, while the other is a ground rail with the other rails being the ones the wheels are placed.

This isn't quite right. 4 rails were chosen instead of three allow the return current to be properly insulated and prevent it leaking into the metal tunnel lining and other adjacent underground services. Also rather than being a ground rail the centre rail has a negative voltage with a magnitude value of one third of the total voltage. The outer rail has a positive voltage with a magnitude of two thirds the total. The exception is on overground sections shared with trains that use a three rail system. On these sections the centre rail is bonded to the running rails which are grounded whilst the outer rail carries the full voltage. There is a gap slightly longer than the longest expected train between the two voltage set-ups which trains must coast through.

Earlier the tube was referred to. Traditionally the tube name applies to the deep level underground lines that run in cylindrical metal lined tunnels with reduced profile trains with an obviously curved roof profile. There are also "sub-surface" lines that are much closer to ground level (usually immediately below the roads) that have more traditional brick tunnel construction and can take trains closer in size to those used on the mainline. These days however the whole underground system is colloquially referred to as the tube.

The UK has similar confusion in railway terms to those given by the original poster. Trams, super-trams, tram-trains, metros and subways all exist in various cities, the names usually being a result of marketing efforts rather than attempts to describe the characteristics of the system.

Interestingly the term metro used to describe urban transit systems comes (via the French who copied the name) from an abbreviation of Metropolitan Railway. The Metropolitan Railway was London's first underground and acted as the template for the various others that followed it. London's Metropolitan Railway was never known as the metro though and is normally nicknamed "The Met".

The UK also has Light Railways. The term refers to lines built under the Light Railway Act which allowed lines to be built without the full act of parliament otherwise required. These lines were generally lightly built with minimal signals and subject to a speed restriction (commonly 25 mph).