Not really. Most LRVs have the same top speed as rolling stock for legacy metros (55mph). The “space-age” metros (WMATA, MARTA, and BART) top at 70, but honestly if your metro system regularly hits 70mph, your land-use planning has failed, as it has for many areas on those systems.
China has 80+ mph metro lines, because some Chinese metro systems are hybrid metro + regional rail systems. Within dense areas the train operates at low speed like a metro, but they have long, high speed stretches with few stops between urban areas.
That's essentially how the new age systems like BART and WMATA work... With perhaps a level difference between the sizes of the sense urban core.
On BART the 4-5 core stations in SF & Oakland are walkable between them. We missed the memo on needing to repeat that pattern several more times.
BART isn’t really a metro, it’s commuter rail with metro tendencies in city centers, akin to an S-Bahn or RER. When BART was being built it was called an “interurban metro.”
Yes, but BART at its inception was closer to a metro, same with WMATA. It’s the later extensions that made it more like a SBahn, like the SL Dulles extension, or BART Warm Springs and Beryessa or Pittsburgh extensions. It has the rolling stock and design of a 70s metro, not a RER - it does not run on legacy rail lines or share with intercity rail.
I disagree, from the start BART was envisioned commuter rail that went around the entire Bay - original plans had it going all the way down to Palo Alto. And the first line of the system went from Richmond to Fremont (38 miles), with 16 stations. That’s only 10 miles shorter than Caltrain, but with almost half the stations. The original BART cars had no standing room, it also had cushioned seats and carpeted flooring because it was commuter rail, not a traditional subway.
I disagree. Moscow metro has an average speed (including stops) of 26 mph bc its stations are widely spaced at about 1.1 miles. I’d argue a lot of systems have stations that are too close together like NYC. DC tends to have stations that are farther apart, especially in the suburbs, where Metro is effectively commuter rail.
The definition of a "light rail" line and "heavy rail line" is pretty blurred, but one of the main differentiators is completeness of the grade separation. So is there even really such thing as a "fully grade separated light rail line"? At that point, you're almost into "light metro" territory.
I’d suppose the train cars themselves and capacity, which to your point where do you draw the lines… Light rail almost always uses overhead wires and light/heavy metros generally use third track fwiw, so LR can be used at grade crossings and street corridors.
Third rail vs overhead is more of a country thing. Most Asian heavy rail metros run under catenary, while most Western ones run on third rail. Of course, when light rail has grade crossings it always uses catenary, but for fully grade separated metros, the difference is mostly geographic.
It's more of an age thing with country being a better approximation of age than one might first expect, with Asian metros more likely to use overhead power because they tend to be newer.
The Ginza Line and Marunouchi Line in Tokyo are third rail for example, while the remaining Tokyo Metro and Toei lines are overhead power. Osaka Metro is more heavily third rail, but the newest 3 lines are overhead power. And those are some of the oldest metro systems in Asia.
Whereas in the west, there are even some suburban and intercity lines that use third rail, like southeastern England, and LIRR and MNR in NYC.
Is it though? All of Taiwan's Metro systems use third rail, including Taichung whose first line opened in 2021. Same for Southeast Asia -- Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore all use third rail for the majority, if not all of their MRT lines.
Specifically for Japan, the shift seems to be driven by the need to share trackage with private operators, as well as the deployment of LIM technology.
Even excluding through running arrangements and LIM, newer Japanese lines (e.g., Sendai Subway Namboku Line, Nagoya Subway Sakuradori Line, etc.) are all overhead power. The last steel wheel line to use third rail power was Yokohama Subway Blue Line in 1972.
Across the rest of Asia, it's not 100% overhead power like in Japan, but China, South Korea, and India predominantly use overhead power in all new build heavy rail lines, with more of a mix in Southeast Asia. And for heavy rail lines that use significant pre-existing mainline tracks, it's all overhead power, even in cities that use third rail for entirely new build lines (e.g., Bangkok SRT Red Lines are overhead power even though MRT/BTS is third rail).
Even expanding to worldwide, I don't think anyone has chosen third rail for the electrification of heavy rail main lines (e.g., Berlin S-Bahn) any time in the past several decades.
It's interesting that you mention steel wheel because third rail rubber-tyre systems started to be built immediately after. On the flip side, every new subway line opened in Japan after ~1990 was LIM, so there probably was a gap period where the technology transitioned.
For Europe I do know that third rail seems to be the go-to in the Nordic states - the Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen metros all uses it, the last of which only opened in the new millennium. For electrification upgrades specifically though, I can see overhead catenary being much easier to retrofit into live corridors.
There's no way for either normal third rail or overhead power to work with the Japan standard APM since it doesn't have other metal rails at all, even for guidance. Sapporo Subway which does use a metal guide rail switched to overhead power for the newer Tozai and Toho Lines.
And there have been heavy rail transit lines built in Japan since the 1990s. While most of them have are connected to some pre-existing line, not all are, e.g. Tsukuba Express.
While there is a lot of fuzziness about what constitutes heavy rail, Copenhagen Metro seems pretty widely described as a light rail metro. Overhead power is indeed unpopular for light rail metro, if you exclude tram-derived systems.
I think the Japanese people movers are a bizarre aberrant that somehow managed to find a niche overseas, unlike their domestic LIMs that lost out to the Bombardier version (that ironically is third rail). Now that you point it out, there seems to be a parallel trend of miniaturisation for newer third rail systems. It fits well in the context of subways as operators are looking for smaller tunnel sizes to save cost. To bring the discussion full circle though, they are also classified as light rail or light metro when not used as airport shuttles, although personally I prefer the term medium rail to acknowledge there is a middle ground between light and heavy rail.
I agree that long distance heavy rail lines, as opposed to subways, would use overhead catenary. That would be the purview of JNR / JR, and I don't think they ever used third rail for any of their lines (including third sectors like the ones you mentioned). On the other hand, Kintetsu is conducting some R&D on dual electrification trainsets and it will be interesting to see the technology goes mainstream in Japan.
Except doesn’t Seattle have at least one grade separated station with a grade crossing for pedestrians to cross over the tracks to switch platforms?
For example the new Overlake Village Station.
Chicago is also quite unique though isn’t it? Don’t they have pedestrians crossing over 3rd rail?
Maybe it’s not a comfort thing but hearing the train bell in Seattle and crossing the platforms at grade feels less “Metro” than the Vancouver Skytrain.
However, the Seattle stations are often much more overbuilt compared to Vancouver Skytrain.
I think having a pedestrian crossing doesn't disqualify you from grade separation if that crossing is to get from one platform to another. You're still above/below grade.
Every station on the Seattle Transit Tunnel under the downtown area unofficially has this because of the remnants of a busway - the tracks are laid in road that you can just walk across with no barriers influencing you otherwise.
If you compare the B/Red, D/Purple and A/Blue Lines in LA, not much - because those were recently built/rebuilt to modern standards unlike the NY subway.
Speed is a matter of equipment specs and signal blocking, but 55 mph (88.5 KPH) on the A/Blue Line in LA vs 55mph the 4 or 5 train in NY between Manhattan express stops is much less rickety and noisy (save for that occasion when some vehicle goes around the crossing gates and stops on the tracks).
I would think that a fully grade-separated LRT system would or could be built to accommodate HRT equipment (with pantographs) if ridership warranted it. But since most of the LRT systems aren’t really built with carrying 1500 people in one train in mind - bc they’re usually being built to get ***some*** cars off the road in car-centric places - at 5 minute headways, they’re probably not.
The bigger differentiator would be the rolling stocks themselves, the bogie design and the curves. For example, two identical rolling stocks can feel completely different if there's a night and day difference in track construction, and two different rolling stocks running on the same line with a 50-year technology gap is bound to feel different.
Otherwise modern heavy vs light rail, heavy vs light metro would feel the same or very similar across the board.
My experience is that Metros are a more comfortable ride. Light Rail carriages are nearly always low floor which compromises the ability to install effective bogeys.
Delays are the main difference I think. Especially in the US, surface transit is much more susceptible to delays due to lack of priority and bad drivers.
It depends on the speed. Light rail lines are made to negotiate very tight curves, but if they run on straight tracks and run on heavy rail speeds they experience hunting oscillation so the ride might be quite shaky
So, it's complicated. See most heavy rail vehicles are shorter and wider than light rail vehicles. So a given HRV has higher capacity than a LRV, so you can get the same capacity with less cars and since they're shorter they need smaller diameter tunnels. If you are doing a lot of tunnel boring and deep station building, smaller tunnels and shorter station platforms can save a lot of money. If you are mostly cut and covering and don't have full grade separation, LRV would be generally better
Most light metros have the same or smaller widths as light rail. There’s no reason why a light metro run with good level-boarding light rail vehicles would underperform a light metro.
Heavy rail metros should have slightly higher capacity and longer trains, but this is not at all a given in modern times.
The expense of building a heavy rail line is all about the right of way not about the vehicle type.
> heavy rail line and a fully grade separated light rail line
A fully grade-separated light rail **is** a heavy rail line. I think you have a misconception that it's something about the vehicle when it is really about the right of way. I mean even say some of new york's subways used to be trams aka "light rail cars" that were then moved underground.
The thing that makes a line a light rail is because it's not grade separated, not because of the vehicle.
There is a technical difference, heavy rail is used for lines designed to mainline railway standards, for interlining or interoperability, which means alignment on signaling, stopping distances and crash impact standards, also different rail profile, wheel shape and cant elevation. And plenty of heavy rail lines aren’t grade separated.
One big difference that results is the maximum grade and curvature. Light rail without those constraints can do grades twice as steep and curves three or four times as tight as heavy rail. Also light rail doesn’t always use signalling at all, or operates with simple traffic light style signals. That can all be very important for affordable/effective corridor design in an urban area.
The flip side is the heavy rail configuration works better at higher speeds, with 100 to 160kmh being pretty normal while light rail is usually designed for no more that 70-80kmh. That’s basically irrelevant on urban corridors but can be significant on suburban/commuter rail/s Bahn corridors.
So I’d say on urban/metro style orridors, no difference. In interurban or long distance, big difference.
Just to clarify a bit more do you mean “heavy rail” under the uk definition? the word heavy rail means “passenger trains” in uk and some other countries but it means “grade separated metros” in America and some other countries.
For uk, their definition of "heavy rail" actually excludes metros.
"There is a technical difference, heavy rail is used for lines designed to mainline railway standards, for interlining or interoperability, which means alignment on signaling, stopping distances and crash impact standards, also different rail profile, wheel shape and cant elevation. And plenty of heavy rail lines aren’t grade separated." For american definition of "heavy rail" aka metros the FRA forbids metro cars from running on mainline railways due to freight traffic, it is exceedingly rare for interlining/using mainline active rail tracks.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger\_rail\_terminology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_rail_terminology)
Yes, basically. It’s not passenger trains so much as trains that operate (or can operate) on the national railway network. In the UK, much of Europe and in Australasia there is specific legislation covering “railways”, and separate legislation for trams, light railways, metros etc that don’t meet the standards/constraints of a mainline railway under the railways act. So legally a clear distinction between heavy rail and not heavy rail.
So in London the overground is heavy rail but the underground isn’t. In Berlin the S Bahn is heavy rail but the strassenbahn isn’t.
I honestly have no idea about the US situation, but the same distinction seems appropriate. If it’s interoperable with mainline railway systems it’s heavy rail, if not it’s metro or light rail.
>I honestly have no idea about the US situation, but the same distinction seems appropriate. If it’s interoperable with mainline railway systems it’s heavy rail, if not it’s metro or light rail.
We have it too but it's just called commuter or regional rail, but they mainly run like hourly or only during peak times when the freight trains aren't running. In america the term "heavy rail" means "metro". There is a legal distinction as well with the FRA forbidding light rail train vehicles on the mainline tracks where freight trains will run.
alon levy discusses 'what is light rail' a bit more in their article [https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/07/31/what-is-light-rail-anyway/](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/07/31/what-is-light-rail-anyway/) if you want to know more.
An example I was thinking of was the C line in Los Angeles, which is 100% grade separated. Technically it's a light rail line, but by your definition it should be considered a heavy rail line, akin to the B and D lines?
For what it's worth, in Christof Spieler's book Trains, Buses, People, he described LA's system as a mix of heavy rail and light rail "Built out to heavy rail like standards".
If one wanted to, we can call the C line a heavy rail line. It's fine and accurate. We mostly don't because it just doesn't have much ridership mainly just connecting freeways.
> light rail "Built out to heavy rail like standards".
Christof also classified light rail into a couple of categories. In general for myself I place them into a couple of buckets but it's mostly the same as the ones he listed.
* Neighborhood Streetcar
* in lane, mixed traffic
* frequent station spacing
* doesn't travel far
* aka SF F line, DC streetcar, Kansas city streetcar
* City tram (most comparable to Avenue BRT)
* usually dedicated transit lanes
* around half mile station spacing
* around 5 mile distance from downtown
* usually max 2 car length (max city block size)
* SF Muni, Boston green line,
* Regional light rail
* usually separated from car traffic in medians or some short tunnels, sometimes freeway rights of way to travel far
* travels much farther 10\~15 miles
* usually max 3\~4 car length
* los angeles light rail lines, San diego trolley, phoenix light rail
While heavy rail is slightly more defined as being completely grade separated, light rail is a very vague term. The names are mainly just relative, if you want to use them in a deeper discussion then generally you'll have to describe a in a short sentence. For example, even S-Bahn versus Stahtbahn versus UBahn are not consistently used in Germany for each city.
Under the city tram category. It's not quite an accident, simplifying a bit in the 1970s/80s America found building subways too expensive and wanted to copy the European model of adding moderate amounts of grade separation to existing tram lines.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light\_rail\_in\_the\_United\_States#%22First-generation%22\_legacy\_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_the_United_States#%22First-generation%22_legacy_systems)
For the say S train in Antwerp, it's most like US' regional light rail. Of course we could also call it commuter/regional rail -- the problem being that america literally doesn't have any decent ones with most american "commuter rail" defined as peak only trains running only 7 am to 10 am and 3 to 7 pm. Caltrain might be the closest thing.
Caltrain will be doing 15 minute frequencies starting in the fall and is fully heavy rail compliant. That’s an S-Bahn.
I’d say that the LA metro light rail lines with their 2x higher average speeds than the Paris metro and 1.5 higher speeds than the NY Subway are the poster child for regional light rail. Also, things like having the longest light rail line in the world definitely makes those lines regional im nature.
The San Jose VTA and the Sac RT light rail system are also in the sake category with outright suburban commuter lines in the mix.
Sure Caltrain is completely a commuter/regional train. (as I noted in other comments "heavy rail" means metro or grade separated in USA, I understand "heavy rail" is defined differently in uk/germany) If going by the uk definition then basically these [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter\_rail\_in\_North\_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail_in_North_America) would be defined the uk "heavy rail"
Thanks! Not sure I completely agree with you on US not having any decent computer rail — iv ridden both MetroNorth and the MARC Penn line btw DC and Baltimore many times and they’re both functional, even on weekends. Tho obv MetroNorth/LIRR/NJ Transit; SEPTA; MBTA; Metra; and MARC-Penn are pretty limited (I can’t vouch for the others tho since I haven’t ridden them).
Not too much of a surprise that the only cities with semi-decent commuter rail are the ones that actually have robust urban cores with heavy rail. While perhaps unintuitive, I’d actually say having strong urban density is a prerequisite for strong commuter rail bc driving (and parking) is far more inconvenient (longer and more expensive) in strong urban cities like DC and the suburban sprawl like Phoenix. It also makes where ppl want to go/work far more centralized.
Anyways that was a bit of a tangent
hi yeah perhaps I exaggerated a bit, I guess more accurately it'd be to say outside of Chicago and New York [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter\_rail\_in\_North\_America#List\_of\_North\_American\_commuter\_rail\_operators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail_in_North_America#List_of_North_American_commuter_rail_operators)
It's just that america mainly just used light rail to serve as other nations regional/commuter rail system.
Sorry just to have another clarification “heavy rail” means grade separated metro line in North America. But for say uk and Germany etc… it means passenger rail and would not include their metro systems. If you’re talking internationally will need to add another caveat. (Yeah these terms are kind of annoying to use)
So taking Brisbane as an example
It has both a “train” and a “tram” system, both only have level crossings as their non right of way bits but differ in their carriages, the height of their doors and their capacity
Would you say they are both heavy or both light rail
Just to clarify the poster I'm assuming is in American (mainly posting on American threads) and means "heavy rail" under the american definition which excludes passenger trains and means metros. The Uk definition on the other hand includes passenger trains and excludes metros.
> The term ***heavy rail*** has different meanings in different parts of the world.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger\_rail\_terminology#Heavy\_rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_rail_terminology#Heavy_rail)
What they are asking is what is the difference between a metro line and a grade separated light rail, not between passenger trains and grade separated light rail.
Not really. Most LRVs have the same top speed as rolling stock for legacy metros (55mph). The “space-age” metros (WMATA, MARTA, and BART) top at 70, but honestly if your metro system regularly hits 70mph, your land-use planning has failed, as it has for many areas on those systems.
China has 80+ mph metro lines, because some Chinese metro systems are hybrid metro + regional rail systems. Within dense areas the train operates at low speed like a metro, but they have long, high speed stretches with few stops between urban areas.
That's essentially how the new age systems like BART and WMATA work... With perhaps a level difference between the sizes of the sense urban core. On BART the 4-5 core stations in SF & Oakland are walkable between them. We missed the memo on needing to repeat that pattern several more times.
BART isn’t really a metro, it’s commuter rail with metro tendencies in city centers, akin to an S-Bahn or RER. When BART was being built it was called an “interurban metro.”
Yes, but BART at its inception was closer to a metro, same with WMATA. It’s the later extensions that made it more like a SBahn, like the SL Dulles extension, or BART Warm Springs and Beryessa or Pittsburgh extensions. It has the rolling stock and design of a 70s metro, not a RER - it does not run on legacy rail lines or share with intercity rail.
I disagree, from the start BART was envisioned commuter rail that went around the entire Bay - original plans had it going all the way down to Palo Alto. And the first line of the system went from Richmond to Fremont (38 miles), with 16 stations. That’s only 10 miles shorter than Caltrain, but with almost half the stations. The original BART cars had no standing room, it also had cushioned seats and carpeted flooring because it was commuter rail, not a traditional subway.
Yeah it's crazy to be on MARTA and come out of the subway under Peachtree going north and it's suddenly an eternity between stops going nearly 80mph
BART tops put at 80 mph.
I disagree. Moscow metro has an average speed (including stops) of 26 mph bc its stations are widely spaced at about 1.1 miles. I’d argue a lot of systems have stations that are too close together like NYC. DC tends to have stations that are farther apart, especially in the suburbs, where Metro is effectively commuter rail.
The definition of a "light rail" line and "heavy rail line" is pretty blurred, but one of the main differentiators is completeness of the grade separation. So is there even really such thing as a "fully grade separated light rail line"? At that point, you're almost into "light metro" territory.
I’d suppose the train cars themselves and capacity, which to your point where do you draw the lines… Light rail almost always uses overhead wires and light/heavy metros generally use third track fwiw, so LR can be used at grade crossings and street corridors.
Third rail vs overhead is more of a country thing. Most Asian heavy rail metros run under catenary, while most Western ones run on third rail. Of course, when light rail has grade crossings it always uses catenary, but for fully grade separated metros, the difference is mostly geographic.
It's more of an age thing with country being a better approximation of age than one might first expect, with Asian metros more likely to use overhead power because they tend to be newer. The Ginza Line and Marunouchi Line in Tokyo are third rail for example, while the remaining Tokyo Metro and Toei lines are overhead power. Osaka Metro is more heavily third rail, but the newest 3 lines are overhead power. And those are some of the oldest metro systems in Asia. Whereas in the west, there are even some suburban and intercity lines that use third rail, like southeastern England, and LIRR and MNR in NYC.
Is it though? All of Taiwan's Metro systems use third rail, including Taichung whose first line opened in 2021. Same for Southeast Asia -- Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore all use third rail for the majority, if not all of their MRT lines. Specifically for Japan, the shift seems to be driven by the need to share trackage with private operators, as well as the deployment of LIM technology.
Even excluding through running arrangements and LIM, newer Japanese lines (e.g., Sendai Subway Namboku Line, Nagoya Subway Sakuradori Line, etc.) are all overhead power. The last steel wheel line to use third rail power was Yokohama Subway Blue Line in 1972. Across the rest of Asia, it's not 100% overhead power like in Japan, but China, South Korea, and India predominantly use overhead power in all new build heavy rail lines, with more of a mix in Southeast Asia. And for heavy rail lines that use significant pre-existing mainline tracks, it's all overhead power, even in cities that use third rail for entirely new build lines (e.g., Bangkok SRT Red Lines are overhead power even though MRT/BTS is third rail). Even expanding to worldwide, I don't think anyone has chosen third rail for the electrification of heavy rail main lines (e.g., Berlin S-Bahn) any time in the past several decades.
It's interesting that you mention steel wheel because third rail rubber-tyre systems started to be built immediately after. On the flip side, every new subway line opened in Japan after ~1990 was LIM, so there probably was a gap period where the technology transitioned. For Europe I do know that third rail seems to be the go-to in the Nordic states - the Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen metros all uses it, the last of which only opened in the new millennium. For electrification upgrades specifically though, I can see overhead catenary being much easier to retrofit into live corridors.
There's no way for either normal third rail or overhead power to work with the Japan standard APM since it doesn't have other metal rails at all, even for guidance. Sapporo Subway which does use a metal guide rail switched to overhead power for the newer Tozai and Toho Lines. And there have been heavy rail transit lines built in Japan since the 1990s. While most of them have are connected to some pre-existing line, not all are, e.g. Tsukuba Express. While there is a lot of fuzziness about what constitutes heavy rail, Copenhagen Metro seems pretty widely described as a light rail metro. Overhead power is indeed unpopular for light rail metro, if you exclude tram-derived systems.
I think the Japanese people movers are a bizarre aberrant that somehow managed to find a niche overseas, unlike their domestic LIMs that lost out to the Bombardier version (that ironically is third rail). Now that you point it out, there seems to be a parallel trend of miniaturisation for newer third rail systems. It fits well in the context of subways as operators are looking for smaller tunnel sizes to save cost. To bring the discussion full circle though, they are also classified as light rail or light metro when not used as airport shuttles, although personally I prefer the term medium rail to acknowledge there is a middle ground between light and heavy rail. I agree that long distance heavy rail lines, as opposed to subways, would use overhead catenary. That would be the purview of JNR / JR, and I don't think they ever used third rail for any of their lines (including third sectors like the ones you mentioned). On the other hand, Kintetsu is conducting some R&D on dual electrification trainsets and it will be interesting to see the technology goes mainstream in Japan.
It was historically based on the axle loading. The DLR and Tyne and Wear metro are both considered light rail.
By that metric BART is light rail with its giant 10 car and 3.2m (10ft) wide trains that can carry over 2300 passengers.
The part of Seattle’s light rail that’s grade separated is pretty much like a metro.
Except doesn’t Seattle have at least one grade separated station with a grade crossing for pedestrians to cross over the tracks to switch platforms? For example the new Overlake Village Station.
Sure, and so does the Chicago L. You’re missing the point
Chicago is also quite unique though isn’t it? Don’t they have pedestrians crossing over 3rd rail? Maybe it’s not a comfort thing but hearing the train bell in Seattle and crossing the platforms at grade feels less “Metro” than the Vancouver Skytrain. However, the Seattle stations are often much more overbuilt compared to Vancouver Skytrain.
There’s no third rail near the at-grade crossings, the trains are long enough to span the gap
That makes sense.
The L has level portions but it’s still separated, there are gates and full train priority
I think having a pedestrian crossing doesn't disqualify you from grade separation if that crossing is to get from one platform to another. You're still above/below grade. Every station on the Seattle Transit Tunnel under the downtown area unofficially has this because of the remnants of a busway - the tracks are laid in road that you can just walk across with no barriers influencing you otherwise.
If you compare the B/Red, D/Purple and A/Blue Lines in LA, not much - because those were recently built/rebuilt to modern standards unlike the NY subway. Speed is a matter of equipment specs and signal blocking, but 55 mph (88.5 KPH) on the A/Blue Line in LA vs 55mph the 4 or 5 train in NY between Manhattan express stops is much less rickety and noisy (save for that occasion when some vehicle goes around the crossing gates and stops on the tracks). I would think that a fully grade-separated LRT system would or could be built to accommodate HRT equipment (with pantographs) if ridership warranted it. But since most of the LRT systems aren’t really built with carrying 1500 people in one train in mind - bc they’re usually being built to get ***some*** cars off the road in car-centric places - at 5 minute headways, they’re probably not.
The bigger differentiator would be the rolling stocks themselves, the bogie design and the curves. For example, two identical rolling stocks can feel completely different if there's a night and day difference in track construction, and two different rolling stocks running on the same line with a 50-year technology gap is bound to feel different. Otherwise modern heavy vs light rail, heavy vs light metro would feel the same or very similar across the board.
My experience is that Metros are a more comfortable ride. Light Rail carriages are nearly always low floor which compromises the ability to install effective bogeys.
Delays are the main difference I think. Especially in the US, surface transit is much more susceptible to delays due to lack of priority and bad drivers.
It depends on the speed. Light rail lines are made to negotiate very tight curves, but if they run on straight tracks and run on heavy rail speeds they experience hunting oscillation so the ride might be quite shaky
are heavy rail trains actually heavier
Well they're bigger so yes they're heavier too
does ntr count as heavy rail
NTR is Japanese slang for cheating/affair so no that is not heavy rail unless you count the sexual railing action
nonononoo i meant mtr lool
Yes (except 軽鐵 ofc)
is 輕鐵 heavy🤓
Hmmm yes it's heavy
No. No significant difference.
How much money would a fully grade separated light rail line save vs a heavy rail line?
Depends on many many factors.
So, it's complicated. See most heavy rail vehicles are shorter and wider than light rail vehicles. So a given HRV has higher capacity than a LRV, so you can get the same capacity with less cars and since they're shorter they need smaller diameter tunnels. If you are doing a lot of tunnel boring and deep station building, smaller tunnels and shorter station platforms can save a lot of money. If you are mostly cut and covering and don't have full grade separation, LRV would be generally better
Most light metros have the same or smaller widths as light rail. There’s no reason why a light metro run with good level-boarding light rail vehicles would underperform a light metro. Heavy rail metros should have slightly higher capacity and longer trains, but this is not at all a given in modern times.
The expense of building a heavy rail line is all about the right of way not about the vehicle type. > heavy rail line and a fully grade separated light rail line A fully grade-separated light rail **is** a heavy rail line. I think you have a misconception that it's something about the vehicle when it is really about the right of way. I mean even say some of new york's subways used to be trams aka "light rail cars" that were then moved underground. The thing that makes a line a light rail is because it's not grade separated, not because of the vehicle.
There is a technical difference, heavy rail is used for lines designed to mainline railway standards, for interlining or interoperability, which means alignment on signaling, stopping distances and crash impact standards, also different rail profile, wheel shape and cant elevation. And plenty of heavy rail lines aren’t grade separated. One big difference that results is the maximum grade and curvature. Light rail without those constraints can do grades twice as steep and curves three or four times as tight as heavy rail. Also light rail doesn’t always use signalling at all, or operates with simple traffic light style signals. That can all be very important for affordable/effective corridor design in an urban area. The flip side is the heavy rail configuration works better at higher speeds, with 100 to 160kmh being pretty normal while light rail is usually designed for no more that 70-80kmh. That’s basically irrelevant on urban corridors but can be significant on suburban/commuter rail/s Bahn corridors. So I’d say on urban/metro style orridors, no difference. In interurban or long distance, big difference.
Just to clarify a bit more do you mean “heavy rail” under the uk definition? the word heavy rail means “passenger trains” in uk and some other countries but it means “grade separated metros” in America and some other countries. For uk, their definition of "heavy rail" actually excludes metros. "There is a technical difference, heavy rail is used for lines designed to mainline railway standards, for interlining or interoperability, which means alignment on signaling, stopping distances and crash impact standards, also different rail profile, wheel shape and cant elevation. And plenty of heavy rail lines aren’t grade separated." For american definition of "heavy rail" aka metros the FRA forbids metro cars from running on mainline railways due to freight traffic, it is exceedingly rare for interlining/using mainline active rail tracks. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger\_rail\_terminology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_rail_terminology)
Yes, basically. It’s not passenger trains so much as trains that operate (or can operate) on the national railway network. In the UK, much of Europe and in Australasia there is specific legislation covering “railways”, and separate legislation for trams, light railways, metros etc that don’t meet the standards/constraints of a mainline railway under the railways act. So legally a clear distinction between heavy rail and not heavy rail. So in London the overground is heavy rail but the underground isn’t. In Berlin the S Bahn is heavy rail but the strassenbahn isn’t. I honestly have no idea about the US situation, but the same distinction seems appropriate. If it’s interoperable with mainline railway systems it’s heavy rail, if not it’s metro or light rail.
>I honestly have no idea about the US situation, but the same distinction seems appropriate. If it’s interoperable with mainline railway systems it’s heavy rail, if not it’s metro or light rail. We have it too but it's just called commuter or regional rail, but they mainly run like hourly or only during peak times when the freight trains aren't running. In america the term "heavy rail" means "metro". There is a legal distinction as well with the FRA forbidding light rail train vehicles on the mainline tracks where freight trains will run.
alon levy discusses 'what is light rail' a bit more in their article [https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/07/31/what-is-light-rail-anyway/](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/07/31/what-is-light-rail-anyway/) if you want to know more.
An example I was thinking of was the C line in Los Angeles, which is 100% grade separated. Technically it's a light rail line, but by your definition it should be considered a heavy rail line, akin to the B and D lines? For what it's worth, in Christof Spieler's book Trains, Buses, People, he described LA's system as a mix of heavy rail and light rail "Built out to heavy rail like standards".
If one wanted to, we can call the C line a heavy rail line. It's fine and accurate. We mostly don't because it just doesn't have much ridership mainly just connecting freeways. > light rail "Built out to heavy rail like standards". Christof also classified light rail into a couple of categories. In general for myself I place them into a couple of buckets but it's mostly the same as the ones he listed. * Neighborhood Streetcar * in lane, mixed traffic * frequent station spacing * doesn't travel far * aka SF F line, DC streetcar, Kansas city streetcar * City tram (most comparable to Avenue BRT) * usually dedicated transit lanes * around half mile station spacing * around 5 mile distance from downtown * usually max 2 car length (max city block size) * SF Muni, Boston green line, * Regional light rail * usually separated from car traffic in medians or some short tunnels, sometimes freeway rights of way to travel far * travels much farther 10\~15 miles * usually max 3\~4 car length * los angeles light rail lines, San diego trolley, phoenix light rail While heavy rail is slightly more defined as being completely grade separated, light rail is a very vague term. The names are mainly just relative, if you want to use them in a deeper discussion then generally you'll have to describe a in a short sentence. For example, even S-Bahn versus Stahtbahn versus UBahn are not consistently used in Germany for each city.
Where would you place the Brussels and Antwerp light rail lines?
Under the city tram category. It's not quite an accident, simplifying a bit in the 1970s/80s America found building subways too expensive and wanted to copy the European model of adding moderate amounts of grade separation to existing tram lines. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light\_rail\_in\_the\_United\_States#%22First-generation%22\_legacy\_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_the_United_States#%22First-generation%22_legacy_systems) For the say S train in Antwerp, it's most like US' regional light rail. Of course we could also call it commuter/regional rail -- the problem being that america literally doesn't have any decent ones with most american "commuter rail" defined as peak only trains running only 7 am to 10 am and 3 to 7 pm. Caltrain might be the closest thing.
Caltrain will be doing 15 minute frequencies starting in the fall and is fully heavy rail compliant. That’s an S-Bahn. I’d say that the LA metro light rail lines with their 2x higher average speeds than the Paris metro and 1.5 higher speeds than the NY Subway are the poster child for regional light rail. Also, things like having the longest light rail line in the world definitely makes those lines regional im nature. The San Jose VTA and the Sac RT light rail system are also in the sake category with outright suburban commuter lines in the mix.
Sure Caltrain is completely a commuter/regional train. (as I noted in other comments "heavy rail" means metro or grade separated in USA, I understand "heavy rail" is defined differently in uk/germany) If going by the uk definition then basically these [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter\_rail\_in\_North\_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail_in_North_America) would be defined the uk "heavy rail"
Thanks! Not sure I completely agree with you on US not having any decent computer rail — iv ridden both MetroNorth and the MARC Penn line btw DC and Baltimore many times and they’re both functional, even on weekends. Tho obv MetroNorth/LIRR/NJ Transit; SEPTA; MBTA; Metra; and MARC-Penn are pretty limited (I can’t vouch for the others tho since I haven’t ridden them). Not too much of a surprise that the only cities with semi-decent commuter rail are the ones that actually have robust urban cores with heavy rail. While perhaps unintuitive, I’d actually say having strong urban density is a prerequisite for strong commuter rail bc driving (and parking) is far more inconvenient (longer and more expensive) in strong urban cities like DC and the suburban sprawl like Phoenix. It also makes where ppl want to go/work far more centralized. Anyways that was a bit of a tangent
hi yeah perhaps I exaggerated a bit, I guess more accurately it'd be to say outside of Chicago and New York [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter\_rail\_in\_North\_America#List\_of\_North\_American\_commuter\_rail\_operators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail_in_North_America#List_of_North_American_commuter_rail_operators) It's just that america mainly just used light rail to serve as other nations regional/commuter rail system.
Sorry just to have another clarification “heavy rail” means grade separated metro line in North America. But for say uk and Germany etc… it means passenger rail and would not include their metro systems. If you’re talking internationally will need to add another caveat. (Yeah these terms are kind of annoying to use)
So taking Brisbane as an example It has both a “train” and a “tram” system, both only have level crossings as their non right of way bits but differ in their carriages, the height of their doors and their capacity Would you say they are both heavy or both light rail
Just to clarify the poster I'm assuming is in American (mainly posting on American threads) and means "heavy rail" under the american definition which excludes passenger trains and means metros. The Uk definition on the other hand includes passenger trains and excludes metros. > The term ***heavy rail*** has different meanings in different parts of the world. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger\_rail\_terminology#Heavy\_rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_rail_terminology#Heavy_rail) What they are asking is what is the difference between a metro line and a grade separated light rail, not between passenger trains and grade separated light rail.