rookzie

As old as I am and fortunately continue to amble around (while staying old), I continue to ride the city bus on occasion in places other than just Nashville. Even “big-small” towns like my former hometown of Champaign-Urbana, IL, back in the early 1960s, had sidewalks in just about the entire corporation limit, encompassing nearly 35 square miles. As a child (when parents could trust kids riding alone), I recall sidewalks everywhere that the then-modest-to-moderate bus system served, even to the extreme boundaries, where the city abruptly ended, and even houses on the frontal streets facing the county farmland had streetlights and sidewalks. Of course, my recent trip to Detroit this month showed the typical presence of sidewalks throughout that old city, not just downtown and Midtown. For riding DDOT, I did put on my “urban” appearance there, so I could feel “at home”.

Didn't know you were still around (as if I should talk..) ; glad to hear from you.

Yes, and that's what happened with First Baptist Capitol Hill in 1968, where that parking lot now sits on the SW corner of 8th (Rosa Parks) and Charlotte. I recall the bitter fight during high school. I'd hate to see that beautiful brick and limestone-quoined-window church education building razed.

I reckon it doesn't hurt too bad to dream that big. Thing is, Brightline has been hosted on existing RoW of FEC Industries (Florida East Coast RR), the only pre-existing U.S freight carrier (since FEC passenger service ended in 1971) to be pro-actively enterprising to promote new passenger-rail service (formerly "All-Aboard Florida"). Now that Virgin operates Brightline and has recently acquired the unfunded XpressWest efforts to run from Victorville to Las Vegas, Virgin has hit the ground running with the prospect of construction seemingly imminent. That line would use the median of I-15, as well as federally owned land. In the case of Nashville, and even Chatta., the issues of land-use and ownership seem to trump any realistic notion of ever seeing something like Brightline, even on the distant horizon, unless you look at that horizon from outer space. It would, however, take the financial mettle of Virgin to move forward with such an initiative, even though several years ago, independent preliminary planning was undertaken to determine the optimal route for the concept from ATL to Chatta. No CSX was involved with Brightline, one reason that it was able to happen at all. Hell, I'd settle for that engine and two cars I used to be able to ride between Nashville and Atlanta, until 1970. But even that never could happen again─not with the existing infrastructure, not anywhere close. It used to dump you off at Forsyth St. downtown ATL.

Is that your coach, Mr. Bond??!! That's a gorgeous model U got ThaR! Reminds me of a 72-foot (compartment; 80-ft overall) Southern Pacific "Sub" (suburban coach) used from the 1920s through the '60s, sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Harriman" coaches. The blue-and-cream sort of reminds me of Reading Lines (Philadelphia and Reading).

That's not to be unexpected in the least. Every rail-based line developed since early post-WW-II years in the nation, has encountered the "advocacy". You're not going to have chicken or beef without the salmonella, unless you cook it properly.

Very few if any airport rail lines are dedicated, and even Philly's SEPTA Airport Regional takes advantage of a few intermediate stops between the airport and Center City. That said, airport lines are almost always integrated into a network of one or more other lines with one or more direct interconnections. That helps to offset the cost of running an airport rail line, which still needs the frequency of convenience to attract collateral ridership. Not saying 37 stops would work, but airport lines work best in conjunction with a more inclusive service route, even if that requires expansion down the time line. Also, LRT would allow the line to possibly (but not necessarily) have a Gulch presence, for more centralized access to lines planable in the far- distant future (when we're all gone under), whether or not commuter rail with CSXT every materializes. An airport line really would fare better when it could become integrated with future routes, and that just cannot happen with the RJCorman-MCS line. And whether or LRT would have a Gulch presence, it needs to tie in with future lines somewhere not constrained by the current Riverfront stub-end. There actually might remain a possibility for some LRT within the Gulch district, some kind and somehow, but that has become remote, as most of the past potential has become consumed by development. Plus, no one seems to want a transit tunnel, as we have seen.

The reason Memphis MATA never forged through with an airport line was two-fold: push-back from merchants along the proposed most logical and best route; and lack of funding to pursue it. Merchants "feared" that the disruption during construction would kill their businesses. While there is some truth to that, other urban districts have funded measures to offset and/or mitigate such losses. MATA had been bad-off enough with streetcars that caught fire, due to deferred maintenance, and as you know, the streetcars were grounded fro several years by a moratorium, until relatively recently. As far as the Nashville MCS route is concerned, IMHO, I agree that M'boro Pk would be the most workable corridor for best access. If it were to be in the form of LRT (light-rail transit), then it could be a hybrid solution, similar to the eastern portion of the Portland MAX Red Line (without the Beaverton half), serving PDU. It could have the best of two worlds by serving the function of streetcar in the downtown area─running to an extent within mixed traffic, just as the MAX itself does, from Pioneer Square downtown Portland. As you are aware, MAX has no terminal per se, where all the trains convene under cover separate from traffic. All four of the LRT lines run through that area. One secret to that success (arguable to many) is that Portland has made judicious use of one-way streets in downtown, to help get the trains into and away from downtown, while still serving local points like the Convention Center in the Lloyd District (East Portland) on surface streets, before assuming much of its own RoW farther out, as on the Banfield Expressway and on the I-205 median. Access to BNA wouldn't necessarily need that kind of median expressway path, depending on a final analysis on an LPA (locally preferred alternative). Currently, in the U.S. only Denver, South Bend, Miami, and Philadelphia have railroad-type access to their respective airports. These are lines with FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) rail/equipment standards. Ordinarily that would be the requirement for the MCS route, that railroad of which now is owned by R.J. Corman (since Jan 01). Denver's A-Line is overkill, IMO, even for Denver, to have new EMU (self-propelled Electric Multiple Unit cars), basically FRA commuter rail compatible with freight movements (co-existent and concurrent), even though the A-Line is totally dedicated. South Bend (from Chicago Millennium Station at Randolph Street) has it known as the "South Shore Line" (NICTD - Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation Disctrict), considered the last of the historic heavy "Interurbans" and always did mix freight with passenger, even before the line was extended to the airport. Philly has it because SEPTA (SE'tern Pa. Transportation Auth.) was able to utilize a former reconstructed branch of the Pennsylvania RR (and a current freight branch), extended in a "fishhook" path to serve 4 inline stops at PHL. That line is considered "Regional Rail", with headways of some 30 minutes, and that also is one of the most expensive to operate─FAR too expensive, even if fares are kept manageable. South Bend's,Philly's, and Denver's airport lines are electric, far more that what Nashville would need, or even would be affordable. Miami's Tri-Rail is push-pull diesel-electric locomotive-hauled commuter, just as is the MCS. IMO to employ the MCS route with decent headways would require some massive improvements which might be untenable, because of obstacles like the Omohundro water treatment plant, with narrow RoW. The RJCorman needs to be able to run freight during the daylight periods, when the current MCS service is not running. That requires both FRA compliance and additional trackwork to accommodate the traffic for MCS to run throughout the day and with frequency worthy of airport service. There are examples of FRA variances granted for use of Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) with freight lines, Basically, DMU's are diesel-powered LRT cars, but usually are made with longer bodies for more capacity. They actually are more compatible with railroad curves than transit curves, so their use is better suited for totally dedicated RoW. That said, LRT really is more amenable to serve downtown Nashville to BNA. It would not need an existing RR and therefore potentially it could be made to terminate somewhere within the gulch district, with appropriate separation from RR activities, while still being highly accessible. Additionally, some 6+ years ago, analysts recommended Lafayette Street as a thoroughfare highly accommodating of a transit corridor. I would hope that the merits of LRT could become the LPA, if any there's going to be any serious consideration at all. Both LA and Toronto have had first-hand experience in migrating BRT to LRT. An airport line needs to be able to "attract" ridership, not just provide service. Just my take....

You know U're old when you were one year into life before that locomotive was retired from service (1952). It was one of ten identical locos delivered from Schenectady around 1942 or so, allowed production during war-time to haul troops and material. They died pretty young, with only 10 years of service, as the N.C.&St.L. (Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis) and the L&N (Louisville & Nashville), joint tenants of Nashville Union Station, were like most other railroads, especially in the South, where lines began to convert to diesel-electric prior to WW-II for their passenger ops. When I was born, 1951, over half the nation's railroad operations were still steam-powered, either coal- or oil-fired. Most oil-fired locos were operated out west. That's one reason that Nashville was a rather gritty town when I was hatched, especially since most households in the urban district burned solid fuel for heat, primarily coal, and since Nashville still was full of billowing smokestacks long prior to pollution controls of the 1970s. I posted the aerial a few years ago, of the former West Nashville Shops at Charlotte Ave, where One C!ty is now. When I returned to Nashville in 1992, after a long absence, two of those shops buildings shown in the mid-upper left were still intact, although long abandoned. Their foundations had remained even up until the last 5 years. That track shown curving off to the right, was the lead from which that locomotive Nº576 was towed to its former berth at Centennial Park in 1953. It had just been donated to the city and had remained there until two months ago (Jan 13, 2019), when it was trucked to a temporary berth beneath I-40 next to Herman Street, off Twelfth North. The city closed off the south ramp of I-40 (eastbound) to Charlotte Ave, to allow wrong-way movement of the locomotive and its tender (separately) to be trucked to near12th and Herman. After extensive air brake work was undertaken to render it rail worthy, last Saturday it was towed to the interchange near Herman and 14th Ave., where it was rolled from the Nashville and Western RR (purchased by R. J. Corman) on Jan 01) to the CSX line behind Marathon Village. At that moment, it was repatriated to one of the very routes that it served, Nashville-Memphis (now the CSX Bruceton Sub-Division), and Nashville-Atlanta (now the Chattanooga Sub) via what now is the WeHo district. That had been the city limit extent on the southeast until 1963. Nº576 at West Nashville Shops turntable (roundhouse), Circa 1948 NC&StL West Nashville Shops around 1940 (Charlotte Ave west of 25th Ave., extending to around 31st Ave). Note that 28th Ave North did not connect to Charlotte Ave until around 1987-90. It's shown in the upper-left of the aerial, where it abruptly curved westward and became an extension of Felicia Street. Being shoved (dead) to permanent display in park along temporary track removed shortly thereafter (1953). Nº 576 (background) and tender being trucked to temporary site in Jan. 2019. Note the locomotive being moved pointing rearward, and housed on a special self-propelled trailer (sounds like an oxymoron, but that's its formal name), tether-controlled from a pendant handheld by a worker on foot, and signaled by other personnel. Much preliminary work already had been undertaken at Centennial Park since 2016, in preparation for the move, including removal of vital running-gear and chassis components for specialized welding build-up and machining to restore dimensional integrity. Additional work shown below was performed during the 2 months prior to last Saturday., while beneath I-40. Now that the locomotive has been moved to South Nashville, to its rebuilding facility off Willow Street (at the Tennessee Central Railway Museum) the boiler tubes, internal apparatus and running gear must be restored and re-certified for high-pressure and thermal safety. Asbestos abatement had to be performed early on. Below is shown the completely restored double drawbar and spherical spring-loaded buffer between the loco and its tender.

Well I never...! I was told that I now must say "Portly" (or "Portleh" in regional dialect) Maybe the mass helps to dampen the impulses of shock imparted by the often uneven, and rippled roadway surfaces..just a guess.. -=

I "Feel" you, Dale, and if effect that is exactly what has happened here. In all fairness, I have to consider a tactical decision here on the part of the NERR (Nashville and Eastern) on which the RTA ops are hosted. The NERR had been up for sale for quite sometime, although it was generally undisclosed, that RJC (Rick Corman) has negotiated the purchase of the entire NERR (ex-Seaboard System, exx-Louisville & Nashville, nee-Tennessee Central), including the Northwest portion named the Nashville and Western (NWR - ex-Nashville & Ashland City, exx-Illinois Central/Illinois Central Gulf, nee-Tennessee Central), to be effective at the start of 2019. The timing seems a bit "off" to have forged for implementing PTC by the current deadline, without filing for an extension, yet PTC had been under consideration even since 2008, if not earlier. With the MCS future having been teetering on uncertainty almost since inception, until more recent years, one primary mandate for PTC is to protect passenger operations, although of course not exclusively. Such a massive expenditure would have to be shared by both the RTA and the hosting railroad, which the RTA does not own. Currently, the R.J. Corman Group owns a number of shortlines within the Eastern US, including the former Memphis Line from Bowlng Green KY through Russellville and Guthrie [KY], and Clarksville─along the former CSX (L&N). Therefore, this really comes as no surprise, and actually might have been the only logistical decision that could have been undertaken at this point in time. Otherwise the MCS operations might have to cease and desist as we know it. Consequently, that would lead to even more complications, such as the stipulated partial return of some FTA (Federal Transit Admin) grant funds designated for the initial physical improvements required for track and equipment, and the portion(s) allowed to be applied to its operation. That would be a "compounded" can of worms. While the curtailment of service does not constitute safer operation in lieu of PTC, it does spare the service as a whole, which has been marginal at best, without the Friday-evening RT. It is a bittersweet move, nonetheless. It is interesting to note that the RJC Group also has a division which has been contracted with the larger (Class-I) railroads to install PTC signaling. In the case of the Nashville RTA, the RJCorman would be in the best position with expertise and facility to install PTC on one of its own properties, right here in Middle Tennessee. May 11, 2018 Signaling Project Review – PTC Projects in Alabama November 10, 2017 R. J. Corman Signaling: PTC Support for Class 1 Railroads

Some of us in this thread have been aware of the curtailment of the Music City Star Friday evening service. I knew this all along, but I felt that it might have been irrelevantly technical (rather than technically irrelevant), to this topic. Positive Train Control (PTC), gives the engineer an auditory countdown to act if danger looms. If the train is headed toward a curve at too high a speed, for instance, the system will warn the engineer. If the engineer fails to take remedial action in a timely fashion, the computer takes control and stops the train. Railroads, complaining it is complicated and costly, have been slow to install the system. The federal government has repeatedly extended the deadline for railroads to have the system fully up, tested and running. The initial deadline of 2015 was first extended to the end of 2018, but that deadline, too, was extended for some railroads to 2020. A recent article in Trains Magazine, from a long-term friend of mine and from whom I had mentioned in a post last Jan. 8. This is one reason, as I had stated in a earlier but recent post, that the transit referendum might have been presented in too bitter a "packaging", in order to be supported. This is not to say that voters would have cared less or not at all concerning a Friday-evening round trip on the MCS, but it does point out a lack of engagement by the proponents with the stakeholders, and in bundling the plan to incorporate a broader mix of more salient intentions other than with transit. Music City Star cuts one Friday evening train to exempt itself from PTC rules By Ralcon Wagner | December 28, 2018 NASHVILLE — Music City Star riders may miss a Friday evening ride after today — all because of positive train control. The Regional Transportation Authority’s board of directors recently announced a new Music City Star schedule recently that eliminates a Friday evening round trip between Nashville and Lebanon, Tenn. The schedule also modifies arrival and departure times for other trains. While the Star’s ridership overall grew substantially in 2018 from 2017, it was necessary to eliminate a Friday-only evening train because it would put the commuter service over the maximum 12 daily trips allowed to qualify for a PTC exemption for the Nashville & Eastern Railroad. Friday is the only day that more than 12 trips per day is exceeded. The deadline for railroads to comply with PTC laws or secure a deadline extension is Dec. 31. The final Friday evening will train is scheduled for tonight. The restrictions are in place because none of the Music City Star trains or ones on the Nashville & Eastern Railroad is equipped with PTC. Last May, Nashville voters overwhelmingly rejected a controversial referendum for a $5.2-billion transit plan that would fund future light rail projects and improvements to the Star commuter service. PTC work was reportedly included in the plan. The Music City Star began operation in 2006. The service operates over 32 miles of the Nashville & Eastern Railroad Corp. between Nashville and Lebanon during weekdays. The track is owned by the Nashville & Eastern Railroad Authority. In November, R. J. Corman Railroad Co. announced an agreement to acquire the N&E Railroad Corp., and Transit Solutions Group, the agency responsible for operating and staffing the commuter service. Corman expects to assume operations of both in January.

I do love the purple and silver on white, but the diagonal purple slant wrapped at the left- and right-rear quarters of each bus is a bit "ephemeral" in style for any type of vehicle except for formula racing. IMO they took a good thing and made it tacky-a$$, but overall I believe it to be a dramatic improvement over the unimaginative white with a modest band and stripe of blue below the window line. Frankly, I would have preferred a more rectilinear scheme better matching the lines of the vehicle elements. The generic all-white scheme was understandable in terms of reducing costs, and now the agency has begun to out-shop some of its mid-age fleet with the purple scheme. "WeGo" is a bit "Bland" (pun intended─as in "Steve Bland"), as far as moniker-rebranding is concerned, as the Wego I've been familiar with has been around almost for 15 years as an online travel search engine. (spelled as "Wego"). So as trite as "WeGo" sounds, I might have cocked my head more at the choice of something more eyebrow-raising like "BubbaZipp". Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority (RPTA) of Greater Phoenix has had a purple-based color scheme since the mid-1990s, most recently having adopted a purple-and-silver scheme with light-limish green border between the two main colors with delivery of its New Flyer and Gillig buses beginning around early 2011.

Right decent sized meet last Saturday, I see. Almost worth filming.. Even a few heads Up In Thar, whose names I no longer can recall.. -=

He's lucky that he went flopping up like rag-doll into the air, instead of going "plmp-plmp.."

To say that light rail transit (LRT) is a transit killer, is neither a fair assessment for Charlotte nor for the subject of LRT as a generalization. While only a handful of, say, some 35 major transit districts have experienced increase in ridership overall, there are several factors that collectively play into sway either way. One of them is the mounting use of ride-sharing, an alternative already quickly zoomed in popularity, even in medium-sized cities which have been served relatively recently. It also is of no surprise that the U.S. rate of private ownership of vehicles is one of the highest in the world, along with fluctuating prices of often cheap gas and relatively ample parking, both of which contribute to the perceived advantages of private car use. Ride-sharing actually has contributed somewhat measurably to increases in traffic congestion and tends to undermine use of mass public transport. Below the radar of public awareness or even concern, Uber's business model is its wealthy capital funding to subsidize fares and flood streets with cars, in order to grab market share and eventually market pricing power, negatively affecting not only taxi networks and other ride-sharing companies, but also public transport. Its use reinforces and in some ways arguably worsens existing racially and socially discriminatory patterns in transport systems. According to Governing Magazine, a publication rather objective in its statistical analyses, "in nearly all urban areas, data indicates public transportation commuters tend to be disproportionately poorer than those driving to work." This primary sector also tend to be disproportionately people of color, and any new policy or technology that impacts public transportation always results in a vastly disproportionate impact on minority- and both service- and working-class communities. These sectors tend to depend far more on public transport, for reasons obviously reflected in the affordability of public transport for generally much lower incomes. As a prime example of the impact of ride-sharing on larger public transport systems, one study from the U Cal. Transportation Center found that nearly half of respondents said that if a ride-sharing service hadn't been available, they would have taken a bus, train, bike, or simply walked. In another study, if ride-share users did not have that option, well over half of their trips either would have been done via mass transit, bike, or foot, or they wouldn't have been made at all. Still another study found that ridership declined significantly on the Bay Area's (BART) SFO airport extension, as Uber and Lyft saw their ridership to the airport rise almost six-fold. The ridership decline led to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, the regional mass transit system) revenue falling under budget for the year 2017 by nearly $4 million. I recall having to take a city bus (San Mateo Transit [SamTrans]) from the airport to Daly City in order to take BART to East Bay (Oakland) back in Nov. 1987, a rather awkward intermodal trek at best. It took San Francisco over 10 years to garner the billions in state and federal funding to extend this line from Daly City to the airport, and in the recent 5 years that usage of that extension has measurably dropped, and examinations revealed that the biggest factor of this decline has been ride-sharing. I can say that few cities have managed to buck the trend and to spur continually increased ridership. As I said in one of my first posts back in 2013, it takes something to get something else, and cities where more people are choosing to ride transit have made significant investments in transit over time. Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Nashville-Davidson historically have not come even close to doing so, even with respect to the percentages of resources as invested by Seattle-King Cnty, for example. Surprisingly, even Houston-Harris, a recent bastion of a car-centric city with no advanced-capacity transit, has managed to stave off a drop in ridership with its MetroRail and bus system. As with Houston, spending resources on transit has meant the importance of spending them well strategically, by emphasizing the whole system, not just improving or adding one route at a time, not for LRT alone but also for the network of bus routes, their equipment, and their integration within the respective network. Again, that almost always has meant that a city already has to have a decent basis in place, in order to build on that base and buck the trend from unintended consequences of policy-making. Light rail in itself is not a transit killer, and CAT's LYNX Blue Line, as it currently exists, does not well serve a very high percentage of local transit patronage. A single line based on the constraint of a repurposed railroad RoW, along with some additional trackage, rarely can be expected to benefit an entire city, but that very well could change in 20 years, if Charlotte can infuse a "favorable" mix of resources to attain its long-range planned network goals, before other yet-unknown elements evolve, beyond these currently augmenting to full-force counter-transit. I'm also not bashing ride-sharing. With an aging parent and with no friends locally to shuttle me to and from the airport, I have chosen to use ride-sharing, as an alternative to costly airport parking and to the wrestling with bulky luggage often too unwieldy for me at my age to handle into and out of city buses.

My unsolicited editorial on the subject of referendum: The road to sustainable transit funding takes time, from a ground-zero base point as that of Nashville. Communication can never be too much, and not only must a plan be open to feedback from various sections of the community, but also there have to be creative ways to bring those groups to the table for ongoing discussion. There needs to be lot of stakeholder buy-in—much more than what seems to have met the eye here in Nashville, in spite of what we THINK we did, during and since the East-West Connector (“AMP”) discussion. It might have been learned that the region would have been more open to installing BRT lines, as opposed to light rail, because the impacts of having BRT are more immediate, even for the light (lite) versions. More transit for more people more quickly. That’s one factor that Raleigh was able to leverage to pass its tax referendum, amounting to less than half the tag amount of the Nashville proposal. Being transparent with voters about what they were actually voting for is important as well, never claimed transit could reduce the area's congestion problems, but rather that it would provide alternatives. Unfortunately, while being questioned on the referendum, following the resignation of Mayor Barry, I heard Briley on live media refer to the “solving traffic problems”. Perhaps he simply had not been well informed on the theory and best practices of transit as alternatives as opposed to solutions—IDK. The advocacy opponents, mostly driven by dark-money institutions such as AFP, were overlooking the larger issue of the transit plan, which really hadn’t been aimed at responding to Nashville’s current travel patterns, but more about creating a framework for the future development of the city around a reliable transit system. Perhaps had the referendum been passed and the proposal successfully implemented, it would have made it possible for the city to become more transit-oriented, where living without a car is now virtually impossible. The plan seemed aimed at creating the groundwork for an alternative mode of development, than that dominated by the current construction that entails allocation for high rates of parking, typical for sprawl cities. This in itself requires a policy change. In general, policy has been the bane of transit initiatives within Metro Nashville as a whole. One common denominator among cities like Nashville, Raleigh, and Tampa is that these are overwhelmingly car-centric with relatively low transit accessibility rates for both captive and choice riders for travel between their homes and work centers. One reason that Tampa likely passed its referendum is that from the start its proposal had earmarked a higher percentage of funding for roadway and sidewalk infrastructure improvements than that for transit-based improvements—a 54:45 ratio, with the remainder for long-range planning transport planning. One of the more apparent reasons that Nashville’s transit plan referendum was defeated then might have had less to do with what was offered and more with how it was framed—primarily for transit. Transit referendums often are defeated, when they tout universal, lump-sum solutions focused on a single aspect of transportation issues. Ballot measures historically have failed with a lack of consensus among a base of stakeholders within a county-city consolidation with distinctly varying values among its sub-communities. It’s been stated here before by more than one member that perceived needs vary widely among stakeholders within Nashville’s make-up of urban and rural-like pockets and enclaves—a highly non-homogeneous bunch to boot. Instead, a much less ambitious and more modest approach might be more favorably undertaken with the policy of small, incremental stages. This is what has been the case of KCMO, which had to employ different “tactics” available within the state of Missouri, to finally launch its streetcar start-up, much less ambitious than what KC had proposed in each of its failed referendums. For Nashville then, instead of an ambitious start-up network of radial light rail lines emanating from the core, incorporating some limited aspect of the vision might also include revisiting the proposal of the Northwest Corridor, to the extent that it would serve only within the Davidson County portion of the proposed route to Montgomery County (Clarksville). An abridged Northwest corridor actually might have been potentially viable, in consideration of the current use of SR-12 (Ashland City Hywy) as a major and often heavily utilized arterial for the commute between Cheatham Cnty and Nashville. In other words, a bit of regional implemented as urban for the time being. Nashville is not Seattle or Denver or Portland, and to propose a transit referendum for rail-based transit alternatives on such a massive scale as before almost could be considered “predictable” if not “imminent” suicide. Even for Seattle and Denver, critics have argued that the plans for these have cost too much for too little reward, and that the tax increase (although property- rather than sales-based) would impact funding for education. Briley would be wise to defer such a referendum proposal from any campaign platform until such time as appropriate. He might be well served to observe working practices in external districts and to consider a task force and even 3rd-party facilitation and mediation to engender dialog from all relevant stakeholder groups—especially those entrenched deep in obscurity. The process has to engage all those who have pertinent knowledge and a stake in the issue─not just those who come to the table on their own spirit─ if results are to be legitimate and feasible. The outspoken proponents and opponents are obvious choices, but the stakeholder group also should include those who could benefit and those who could be harmed by any agreement. All the affected interests jointly have to engage in face-to-face dialogue, bringing their various perspectives to the table to deliberate on the problems they face together. Buy-in for a transit referendum is more likely to make it successful, when this "partitioned" collaboration is melded with consensus-making. Until a transport plan can become "vetted" with this process (with repeated "iterations" of intermediate steps, as much as warranted), then a referendum likely will be D.O.A.

I had school that day and the day before (Friday), at the Lipscomb Univ. Sparks campus downtown. So I got to experience that reopening , while as a bonus, being able to ride senior fare on one of the new 2018 Gillig Low-Floor Advantage purple-and light-grey jobs. Now only if they could add infra-red overheard heaters, just as the outdoor shelters used to have in the early years of MTA and its predecessor the Nashville Transit Co, (NTC) during the 1950's through the early-mid '70s, before being displaced by the Legislative Plaza and the truncation of Deaderick St. and Capitol Blvd. I guess that's too much to expect beyond the current climate-conditioned waiting rooms─at one end of each level─within which clear view of arriving buses is often obscured.

You dug up the dead, when you pushed that button, Smeags...You must have a dog whistle for the “Deep-Six’d”. Most of you's guys out thar who know me from way back also know how to change the freakin channel when I get on a long wind. This might be the next case of TL;DR. If there ever were a chance of inducing CSXT to consider a sale of Radnor, then it would have been during summer-fall 2017, when former CEO E. Hunter Harrison had gone on a rampage to shut down hump-operations at many if not most CSX hump-type classification yards system-wide, including those of Selkirk NY and Cumberland, Md. Harrison, who arguably had undertaken some questionable but dramatic operational changes as the CEO of other Class-I railroads previously, took the helm of CSX in January 2017. Hunter regarded hump yards as inefficient. Hump yards are large railway classification facilities where trains are broken down into individual cars by pushing them over an incline, with gravity sending them down different tracks, controlled by predetermined arrangements for each individual car. The cars may be rerouted in either outgoing mainline trains to other terminals or in trains for local distribution, which in the case of Radnor would be for within Nashville Terminal (primarily all Davidson Cnty). The cars are "shoved" at slow speed over the crest of the "hump" and uncoupled, for free-rolling to the classifying tracks. To regulate the free-rolling speed, automatic electro-pneumatic devices referred to as "Retarders" and placed at certain points downhill, press against the inboard faces of the wheel flanges as necessary. On the other hand, flat-switch yards move train cars using only locomotive power, instead of gravity, and manual switching. At the time of the shake-up, Harrison said hump yards were inefficient and too costly. Harrison passed away just less than a year in control, due to physical complications. Because of the current CSXT management's business decisions to return to the practice at some crucial sites, Radnor recently restarted hump ops following about a month of restorative preparations this past summer. Had the sudden passing of Harrison not occurred, the possible, or rather "probable" sale of Radnor would have been a long shot at best, given the fact that it never would have been released on the cheap, and as I see it, the use of Radnor would better lend itself to regional rather than local (urban) coverage, which requires the difficult consensus-building among different jurisdictions to support a decent regional commuter-rail initiative. While it "never" necessarily is impossible, I don't think that a referendum would have advanced beyond the first day of early voting, so to speak. These are examples of retarders (named until someone claims it politically incorrect, and renames them "energy attenuators") ___________________________________ I'm actually a bit unresolved to think that a clear and conclusive solution lies with the goal of relocating Radnor within Middle Tenn. Until I can hear or read about some well-defined rationale in a plan to handle the geographic movements of main-line freights through the area as a whole, then I really am not convinced of any real resolution with such a move. I repeat an earlier dialog I offered on my opinion, when I first had caught wind of the Radnor idea. Attempting to lure CSXT to give up Radnor in and of itself does nothing to divert these movements passing through the city from the several railway sub-divisions ─ West, NNW, NNE, SE and South ─ spoking into CSXT Nashville Terminal, which includes Radnor. Not all the movements passing through the city pass through Radnor, and in fact many bypass Radnor, so I don’t quite buy TDOT’s argument in mid-2016 on the purported benefit of relocating Radnor for that purpose. Nissan is not the only bread and butter in the region for CSXT, as there also is GM as well, in Spring Hill, on the S&NA (North and South Alabama Sub-Division). Logistically, the freights on these various main-lines cannot be easily diverted around Nashville, without some major infrastructure addition or without some disadvantage to the carrier incurred with circuitous re-routing to bypass the city as, the tracks are now established, and nearly all these (if not actually all) routes provide a remote interchange point for freights with other lines (Memphis, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, Chatta,...) And this is only an aside from the mention of long-term "environmental" impact on the concentration of activities on the West- and East Banks of downtown (which pale in comparison to the around-the-clock activity of Radnor). Then there's the Cockrill Bend Industrial complex, which is no small operation. All this customer base collectively constitutes rail activity which requires the classification procedures handled by a facility like Radnor, where freight cars to and from a major classification yard must be handled by local switching. If they want to do away with Radnor, then they also need to deal with Kayne Ave in the Gulch, since Kayne is the primary staging point for local switching in the districts just mentioned, an intermediate point of handling for locally confined movements of cars to and from Radnor as the “final-“or “initial- terminal” break-up or assimilation of main-line trains. To relocate Radnor, say, to Rutherford Co., would mean higher tariff rates to local customers for drayage and car spotting along stub spurs. This could ramify favorably with the result of a CSXT election to abandon these local districts and with a takeover purchase by a regional short-line, such as the passenger-friendly Nashville and Eastern RR. My point is that relocation of a major railroad facility as Radnor affects collaterally the remaining brick-and-mortar mercantile operations, which the city seems totally oblivious to within its own backyard. The CSXT couldn’t really care less about the calculable effects on local business in Davidson Co., since it cares most about its lucrative mineral- and intermodal (containerized) movements. I’d be all for re-purposing Radnor, but not without a more comprehensive analysis of collateral ramifications on the local industrial eco-system, and TDOT and other proposal makers need to re-scope they vision, if they’re entertaining the concept with such a huge order of magnitude in funding. All that notwithstanding, CXST IS on a mission to shed some 1100 miles of its current routes, but none of that appears to be with this region. In many cases, the line can abandon some of these routes in favor of redundantly serving segments, acquired through previous mergers.

You shoulda just pushed and shoved them out of the way on the right side of the plane, for your pic. Besides, the plane already was landing, convenient for TSA to take you into custody, without delaying your flight. -==-

......... With $9 M, and from Steve Bland's tweet, the reference to "Hybrid-Electric" implies that these are likely what you already have been seeing ─ new hybrid diesel-electric, versions of what Nashville has been purchasing since the early 2010s. I can't yet see the Proterra buses coming out of this, except perhaps to supplement the existing free-ride route. Many older Gillig Low-Floors in the existing fleet are straight diesel and are approaching their EOL (end-of-life), without a costly rebuild. I found that out personally during winter 2016, when a sizable proportion of them were out of commission. Most of the newer units (beginning with 2008 delivery locally) can be identified with their single stainless-steel rectangular exhaust diffuser affixed to the top left-rear corner. The more effficient Hybrid series have those strange-appearing roof-mounted pods containing battery packs. In addition to Proterra, Gillig also has entered the all-electric (onboard battery-electric, or BEB [battery-electric bus]) market, but it will be a bit before the 40-foot/40-passenger series buses have become proven in regular use, particularly for hilly terrain, stop-and-go traffic patterns. The funds most likely will be for additional Gillig Low-Floor purples you now see. MTA ─ now WeGo ─ seems to have a strong affinity for (Gillig) first, and New Flyer (second) ─ New Flyer only because of their 60-foot articulated buses ear-marked for the stillborn East-West BRT ("Amp"). Transit buses, even the 40-foot jobs are not cheap, to boot. The city-wide fleet as a whole needs to be protected constantly with newer vehicles, and the fleet as a whole needs a dramatic increase in overall quantity, in order to ever justify any eventual advanced-capacity rail-based solution in the urban districts. WeGo needs to focus on that IMO, to reduce headways and to increase breadth of coverage. Recharge is performed by the driver remotely from within. Shown is the charging station at the SE corner of Rosa Parks Blvd and Harrison St. In fact, riding the Proterra units to the State Mall, when I was in a hurry, occasionally would make me late for appointments, because the driver had to recharge.

We know all about them "fart bro's", don't we!..-= I'll speak for myself though, to play it safe..

I actually agree with that, Neige. Thing is, it was a hard sell nonetheless ─ a Catch-22, as it were. Sure, MPO's require such projections, but on the other hand, the mix of growing polarity in opposing constituencies and their respective elements perhaps eventually came from behind and doomed the proposal. In the case of the failed Transit referendum, the leadership arguably appears to have failed in its capability of addressing adaptive challenges requiring adjustments from numerous places throughout the community at large, in spite of what may have appeared to have been MTA's comprehensive n-Motion drive to solicit feedback. People push back when they perceive that their personal and institutional equilibrium is about to become disturbed, and as we have observed, these people resist in all kinds of creative and unexpected ways that can squelch a plan which might otherwise appear virtuous in its own right. People don't necessarily resist change per se, but rather they resist perceived loss. Leadership becomes on the block when it must confront people with "loss", even in the form of an incremental sales-tax hike; or with the perception of protracted disruption, despite that fact that the plan most likely would have been implemented as a series of sub-projects, rather than at once. I just didn't see the presence of adaptive handling in leadership for the making the case for the Transit referendum, with the conditions attached, even from the start, during the Barry tenure. Oh yes the plan sounded and appeared "Tasty", and perhaps "sexy" at least in part, but the touting as it was perhaps also created risk conflict and instability in probability of being passed, because of failure to address some civic issues and underlying adaptivity to problems that come with upending deep and entrenched norms. In this respect, the touting of the Transit plan was perceived as an importuning. I don't think that the presentation had been engineered at a rate that voters could ingest and absorb. Not even Denver implemented its start-up plan at once, but also Denver long previously had started preparing for the ability to fund its rail, during the early 1980s. Just saying.

My point is not about the merits of such an initiative, Dale, but rather with the politics of making the case for a wide spectrum of demographics, irrespective of whether or not light rail is tenable for Nashvillians. I honestly believe that the proposal was much too generous and ambitious as a startup, for any city, let alone Nashville and Davidson County. Notwithstanding the fact that a long-term 25-30 year plan is mandated under the MPO requirements for establishing a vision, it's very difficult to sell to a motley, heterogeneous community, such a product which in some ways appears aggressively aimed at achieving a "goal", while in other ways is criticized as not going far enough to appeal to become palpable. Projects (and project touters) have been brought down, when that support erodes and becomes a “then, but not now” situation. The project model just might have shifted deplorably about its axis (or axes) of "attitude" about its trajectory, in terms of voter vantage points of view and its hopeful and pre-conceived targets of buy-in, wherein the previous 2 or 3 years have been spent in advancing the project to the extent that the proposers believe that they decisively have garnered community support. But on the day of the referendum, the project gets squashed like a roach under foot by the electorate (quite often which no longer is the same as the community at large), leaving the administration to say "WTF did I just see!"

IMO your point, if that's what you're referring to, IS popular and pertinent here. This is exactly what I've supposed for years, just never shared it as an opinion. Other medium-sized cities encompass considerably smaller land areas with or without consolidated city-counties. In some cases, such as former Norfolk County Va, the city-county areas became consolidated into separate cities, each with its own equivalent independent services jurisdiction, unlike the urban services and general services districts of consolidated Nashville and Davidson County. The remains of Norfolk County, for example, became consolidated into what now are the independent cities of Norfolk and contiguously bordering Chesapeake. While Chesapeake in some ways roughly represents the same dichotomy of urban-rural areas of large combined square-mile area, as that of Nashville, although without the typical historically central business district of an older core municipality, Norfolk, on the other hand, encompasses a much smaller area, than that of either Chesapeake or of Nashville, and as such primarily is urban throughout. Stakeholder representation and physical-geographical boundaries had much to do with Norfolk's ability to garner decisive support for the start up of its first advanced transit initiative, the Tide Light Rail, a standard-gauge set-up with a modest length of 7 -1/2 miles and which began operation in mid-2011. Unsurprisingly, construction incurred a few delays, and the project was not without some cost overruns, something rarely avoided with the complexity of that type of start-up. The city of Virginia Beach, another independent city but consolidated with the former Princess Anne County and also bordering Norfolk, pulled out of the initial planning for the light rail back in 1999, and while in 2012 Virginia Beach voters approved a non-binding referendum supporting expansion of the Tide light rail into Virginia Beach by a 62% majority, four years later, voters there disapproved a referendum regarding to use city funds to pay part of what would have been the first extension of the Tide, to connect three miles farther east to Town Center, in what is now the "CBD" of that city. Much of the city of Virginia Beach consists of urban and rural districts and is rife with sprawl, with demographic constituents much different from that of neighboring Norfolk, which had been bestowed with a somewhat embracing and engendering climate for instituting the light-rail, which utilizes a portion of the same abandoned railroad R.o.W. as that which would have been re-purposed for the Va. Beach extension. All this is to say is that, had the proposal for the SE Va. light-rail project been contingent upon the aggregate approval of a much larger combined jurisdictional area of Va. Beach and Norfolk, the combined equivalent area of which is less than 70 sq miles larger than that of Metro Nashville, then that light-rail project to this day arguably might have remained stillborn if not aborted. . Nashville seems to have become a victim of its own will, as far as taking locally unfamiliar risks is concerned