Remarks: Under a clutter of catenary, a two car Link Light Rail train rolls along MLK Way. Each 2-car train can carry 400 passengers. That's equivalent to 354 cars or 10 articulated buses. In this shot are only a handful of cars and one articulated bus. On the mid-day train, there aren't 400 people on board, but there are still 100 or so traveling up and down the Link on the 2-car set. Each lane of traffic can ideally move 1000 vehicles/hour, or 1130 people/hour. One "lane" of Link Light Rail can move 12,000 people/hour. (Numbers based off ST estimates.) All the math aside, the new line has already attracted a fair number of riders, and plenty of new transit-orientated development along the line.
Remarks: Taking a mid-day rest. Three Sounder commuter rail trainsets warm up in a rare, weak winter sun. An Amtrak Horizon trainset is an unusual visitor as the Cascades trainsets have been problem free for a while now. The extra Horizon trainsets are helping provide an additional 4 trains between Seattle and Portland to help deal with the onslaught of holiday travelers. The Sounders in a few hours will perform their regular duties transporting busy Seattlites to and from their jobs. In the background looms a slightly wider gauge railroad; the Safeco Field roof! The impressive $200 million retractable structure runs on two rails and is propelled by electric motors. The roof over the stadium acts more as an umbrella since it does not fully enclose the stadium. Farther back are the skyscrapers of the Downtown Seattle skyline.
Remarks: Late Tuesday night, a Link Light Rail train layovers at Tukwila Station under an eerily-thick-for-Seattle fog. For the next 24 days, Tukwila will mark the south end of Sound Transits new light rail line. In 25 days, SeaTac/Airport Station will become the new south end of the line until 2020, when the tracks are extended south to Redondo/Star Lake. But for now, trains stop here and passengers take a bus to the Airport. During normal hours, two trains layover in the station, but in the late hours, only one train rests tonight.
Remarks: Red signals barely visible against the red Eastern Washington sky. For the engineer of BNSF 7531, reds, blues, and blacks are broken from the light of an oncoming manifest well over a minute and mile ago. Emerging out of the single track line, the manifest meets, passes 7531, and rolls onto the double steel to work north over Providence Hill. The double track from here over Providence Hill extends for nearly ten miles with one universal crossover at Beatrice. As the unknown manifest rolls north, along the '31s grain, its headlight becomes a little brighter and brighter against the black and blue hills, steel roofs, and lone distributed power.
Remarks: New Link Light Rail trains emerge from darkness into the light on a regular basis now. Within a couple of months of the new lines opening, the new smooth, silent trains are still a wonder to those who see them in the Downtown Transit Tunnel. Sound Transit and Metro are still working out operational and signal issues that are plaguing any new system. The "bus tunnel", originally built in the 80's and opened in 1990, housed dual-mode diesel/electric buses until a retrofit in 2005 that readied the tunnel for new light rail service. The remodel took two years. During the time, Sound Transit and Metro installed new rails, centenary, electrical substations, and emergency ventilation systems, and lowered the roadway 2" so trains could be boarded levelly. In the foreground track, three lime road turtles spot a 2-car train. Longer 3-4 car trains are to stop a the next set just down the track. Here, at the south end of the Tunnel, accents of Asian culture dot the concrete and stone, open-air station.
