As an Aussie tramway/streetcar tragic, this video is great to see, thank you!

Coming back to these videos to watch again :)

for me, light rail is either !- mostly grade seperated. Dedicated stations. bigger than a tram, smaller than commuter rail. Powered by electricity.

The busways are so emblematic of Pittsburgh's retooling after so much of its industry crashed. The mid-80s, when the busways got started, were a pretty low point for the city. Now they're a huge part of what makes the city work. Thanks for featuring them -- and for designating them the champs of CAR EXCLUSION! <3

this looks like garbage when did you start playing this game last night? if this is the midwest where are all the meijers this is all wrong come fight me

Good stuff like train

My dad was SR conductor in the summer to get a break from freight trains he would take crew work on passenger trains usually about 2 weeks, while the old guys took off sometime he took me might have been 6 or 7 old had run of train even loco once, put me on in Rome Ga, remember it like yesterday, I’m now 70 years, he ran Atl to Chattanooga gotta go now a little terry.

It is very encouraging that someone so young has taken such an interest in these things. Best wishes for the greatest success in all of your life's efforts.

I rode it in late March of 1979, from Atlanta to Baltimore, and then, a few days later, from Baltimore to Atlanta. On the initial trip, it was Southern Railway. On the return trip, it was Amtrak.

You missed one Rock Island Railroad operated the twin cities rocket and the Peoria rocket. They should be first

I know that the Central of Georgia was purchased by Southern Railways in 1963, and was subsequentially purchased by Norfolk Southern in 1982. The Central of Georgia was made up of several old roads at the turn of the century, like the Savannah & Atlanta and the Western and Atlantic railroads (think the great locomotive chase between the Texas and General engines that belonged to the Confederacy during the Civil War). I have a 12 inch section of Central of Georgia mainline rail (120 lb.) I use as an anvil. Cheers - TN

I model the Central of Georgia in HO gauge 'cause I used to live in Jonesboro, GA, and my wife even remembers riding on the famous "Nancy Hanks II" and the "Man O War". I've got several Southern Crescent Limited coaches that I pull with the famous #4501 Southern Crescent Limited which is the last of the MS class Mikados (2-8-2). The #4501 has been repainted black and is located at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. I've been there several times before the restoration of the 4501 and can't wait to get back there to take a ride on the 4501. I've seen a photo of Johnny Cash waving out the window of the 4501 on the engineers side. Cheers from eastern TN

The failures of these systems in the timeframe of their creation, yes, seems like a waste of money in hindsight, but as a result of all that investment, we now have a bunch of high capacity, high frequency, non-dilapidated, accessible rapid transit corridors with excellent connection infrastructure built. Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Cleveland, the Bay Area, and Capital region all now have the bones of an excellent network, and have the resources to do something amazing with their networks. Take BART for example. The trans bay tube is, I would argue, the greatest and most important single piece of infrastructure built in North America since its construction, and is only surpassed by the Delaware Aqueduct, which was built nearly 40 years earlier. This may sound like Hyperbole, but it is a piece of infrastructure that equitably connected the East and West Bay (Some may argue the Bay bridge was the equitable piece, but streetcars/interurbans were on their way out, with cars and congestion becoming the status-quo for the bridge, and the bay bridge was woefully underdesigned for earthquake loads, meaning that it was susceptible to long term closure, choking off one region from another). Suddenly, the poorer areas (at the time) of San Francisco and Oakland were connected together reliably, and provided service to places of immense job growth and innovation such as Walnut Creek, Berkeley, and Richmond. BART as a system transformed the Bay Area and is arguably part of the reason San Francisco became such an important hub in the US. BART eventually came to carry more than 300K passengers per day across this one tube (more than the North River Tunnels in NYC), something that would have required another bay bridge and twice the freeway capacity of the east Bay, as well as significant parking supplies to be added in San Francisco. It was a success, a huge one, in spite of the massive flaws that plagued the system. Lack of TOD (relative to NYC or other more historic hubs), lack of agency integration, way too much interlining (reducing frequencies and constraining capacity across the bay), high fares, and poor bus frequencies on agencies outside of the key Oakland and SF bus systems. Those failures, however, present the biggest opportunities in urban development in the history of the United States. Sure, people like to talk about California HSR, Calmod, BART to San Jose, and all the other transit expansions in California, but we currently have a system with some of the best bones of any major system, cities along the corridors that have the potential to be complete urban spaces in a matter of years (looking at you Oakland and Berkeley), so much available land to develop serious transit-oriented development, park-and-ride lots that can be relatively easily rebuilt as housing or places of commerce, a fare system that can be seriously rejigged into a zone based system that's completely integrated with local transit (think taking a bus from one side of Berkely to BART, then taking BART to West Oakland or Fruitvale, then another bus to your home all on the same fare of say 3$ instead of 2.50 for the BART fare and 4.00$ for two separate AC transit fares), and the ability to massively increase frequencies with a single project - a second trans bay tube (connecting to a Geary Subway). You could decouple the Yellow and Green lines from the Red and Blue lines with ease and basically triple capacity with this project, while significantly improving the rapid-transit accessible footprints of BART in San Francisco and Oakland/Almeda. These are huge potential impacts that could shift the Bay Area from being a Good Transit region to being one of the best in the world, and all with mainly some policy changes. The same can be said about every other system. While Baltimore and Cleveland are having trouble gaining residents, their heyday will come again, and its up to them to enact policy decisions that support the use of their god-given metro corridors. Miami (and to a lesser extent, Atlanta) is a good example of what not to do. They have a corridor, yet they choose to develop their city around sprawl, and make everything absurdly expensive for everyone. Policy is key to fixing the metro systems, and it is our job as advocates to discuss these benefits with the public and convince them to make changes that will support progressive city development.

Didn't the Rock Island run passenger trains after Amtrak came into being, not because they wanted to but because they couldn't afford to hand over to Amtrak?

I rode the RGZ several times just for fun, even flying to Denver and I hate flying.

ALL ONE WAY ROADS NEED TO END BC THAT CAUSES MUCH CONGESTION THEN NORMAL FLOW

I bought one of the old SR sleeper cars from Amtrak, SR 2023 Warrior River, in 1982. If you ask me, I stole it, too! Operated it on Amtrak for many years before replacing it with ATSF Vista Canyon.

We will always love your voice and pray for you sweetie!

7:23 amazing

Do you think it would be possible for inclines like Cincinnati had (carrying streetcars rather than their own vehicle) could have a place in modern transit planning?

Apparently I have a more-than-latent interest in mass transit, and streetcars are just fascinating to me. I grew up in Los Angeles, which per the legends, had one of the most extensive streetcar systems in the world. What a damn tragedy it got all torn down. I know LA Metro is a step to returning to some halfway decent mass transit back home, but oh, what would I have given to ride a Red Car. The only street car I really grew up with was the SF cable car system. I had left SoCal by the time the Red Line opened in San Diego and right after ground was broken for the LA Subway. I live now between Baltimore (which has a sad system) and Washington (which is pretty damn good, quite convenient). and wish to the transit gods that intercity travel was actually a good thing. I mean, WTF that there's no MARC on the weekends. I can still see old streetcar tracks scattered about Baltimore, and I just wonder how it was like in the past days. The light rail works well enough, but we only use it to go to Orioles game or Inner Harbor. WMATA is far more efficient and extensive. Heh, I lived in Philadelphia for years and thought SEPTA was a mess. That thing runs like clockwork compared to MTA. :/ Thank you for these videos.

The Soo line ran a mixed train into the 80’s I believe… somewhere way up north to Duluth.

36:00 You might not be aware of this, but a long time ago there was this thing called the Civil Rights movement. This was a nationwide movement of the blacks coordinated to accomplish several goals, one of which was the implementation of the welfare state, the next was the desegregation and then further inclusion of racial discrimination in public schools (trust me that's a wild journey!), the other of which was the codification into law of equal access to housing. Well, the blacks got all of those things, in the form of the Great Society legislation creating the welfare state, and the Equal Housing Act, which guaranteed an end to housing discrimination (as well as the inclusion of racially motivated subjects being taught in public schools and universities). Now, as the one thing came to fruition, segregated housing projects were considered to be obsolete, and the specific example of the Atlanta housing neighborhood you point out was likely under consideration for re-development, and thus the planned expansion of the rapid transit wasn't needed at the time. However the implementation of welfare threw a wrench into the works, because in order to qualify for welfare, you had to be a single unsupported parent. So what we saw was a nationwide phenomenon of low income families separating themselves so they could qualify for welfare, which suddenly plunged many previously intact working families into the hellscape of broken homes. As the family unit was broken, the ability to provide the care and maintenance a home needed declined as well. So those who would have had the opportunity to move into more affluent areas and purchase a home, once again found themselves isolated by their own hubris. As the living conditions in the projects declined, eventually protests against the conditions became too much, and the city was forced to intervene. Newer low income housing projects were built in the late 80's and 90's, and the welfare class moved back into the downtown areas. The outlying projects were demolished, and everyone stood back and declared a great victory in the name of equality and justice. The welfare moms got new subsidized housing, the construction firms and big corporations got their tax shelters in the form of these new projects, and the property developers got to tear down the old projects and prepare for re-development. Now we skip ahead to the present day, where the long since abandoned plan to expand rapid transit has come home to roost: If you look at the area of Atlanta in which the former projects resided, you will find a bunch of abandoned empty areas, often with the foundations of those old buildings still in place. Turns out, without access to rapid transit, no one even wants to develop those areas anyway, and no one is interested in living there either. Isn't history fun?

_"Sales tax is regressive."_ Wow, that is literally the first time I have ever heard that. I didn't know that the people who buy more stuff somehow pay less tax than those who don't.

_"People who use mobility aids just require training."_ Given the videos I've seen on the internet, that man was absolutely correct. The thing is, increasing accessibility also increases throughput and efficiency. Having the floor of the car be level with the platform allows people to simply walk on, and walk off the train, without having to take the extra time to negotiate a small set of stairs. When you have tens and hundreds of thousands of riders every day, making the process a few seconds quicker actually increases your profits by a measurable proportion. I guess what I'm trying to say is that accessibility was an inevitability, regardless of circumstances.

You know, I kinda feel bad for Atlanta. It's gotta be tough being a major metro center that is literally in the middle of nowhere.

21:35 omfg lmao

I remember when the ride share program was first implemented back in the 80s. The high minded planners of that system failed to account for one important thing: That while people are willing to ride public transport with strangers, they most certainly are NOT willing to share an automobile with one. The public nature of the former, and the very intimate nature of the latter runs contrary to human instincts. This is why the idea of automated sharable taxicabs is dead on arrival.

They included the suburbs in their plans because trains are more scalable than roads. All you need to do is add more cars to the train and it can still run on the existing track. The only way to add more cars to a road is to either lower the speed limit, (which congestion does naturally until it literally slows to a crawl) or you have to seize private land to make the highway larger. They were trying to solve the interstate highway congestion problem before it became a problem. They fully understood the pattern of population growth and realized that despite all the money poured into interstate and intercity highway development, they would soon reach the limits of it's capacity. You don't bother sinking enormous sums of money into the most densely packed areas, because those areas are already "walkable", and you are better served by just increasing the access from the surrounding areas. This is why a lot of old elevated lines were eventually torn down or abandoned, because they served areas more easily and flexibly served by busses or simply pedestrians. It doesn't matter the ethnicity of the people being served, it's about the development of infrastructure, and realizing it's limitations. The history of transport is riddled with bad decisions, incompetence, and poor planning, but it's not like anyone sat down and said, _"Well let's make the metro line skip over that neighborhood, because we don't want those filthy blacks to be able to travel."_ Holy crap, I come here for a history lesson, not a lecture on social justice. Especially an unfounded one.

_"I don't know how people were creating these walkable places."_ Well congratulations I can enlighten you to the fact that before Henry Ford, walking was THE ONLY WAY TO GET AROUND THE CITY. Of course it's going to be built to be walked, WHEN LITERALLY EVERYONE WALKED. Why this has become some generational mystery just boggles my mind.

When hundreds of thousands of soldiers came home from the Civil War with amputation, injury, and trauma; we don't sit here and bemoan the lack of services as some form of cultural oppression because back then such a lack was just normal for the culture. Same reason those Blacks deliberately provoked a desegregation response, as part of an ongoing war to extract money from the whites through the instigation of litigation. You won't believe me but take a look at the 27 million dollars given to Georgia Florida's family as a settlement, when we all know that guy's worth to society is the same as his phony 20 dollar bills. You bohemians are so damn funny.

_"Genocide, cultural erasure, and mass displacement."_ Yeah that's called "War" there buddy.

It's got nothing to do with gentrification and everything to do with the allocation of development funds. These modern streetcar programs are just a scheme to launder money.

What a sad waste of money time and resources. Do urban managers possess any common sense anymore?

Love your channel! Plus so indelible Beautiful Soul! ❤❤❤

Hi bigmoodenergy. Quebec City in Canada also has a well used funicular, although it is mostly for tourism. They also have a normal publicly owned/ free elevator that connects the more modern downtown to the Old City built on the hill. Saves you 5-10 minutes of stairs. Not sure I’ve seen something like it elsewhere in NORAM.

So Baltimore has one little line, that doesn't connect to the light rail, Amtrak or the airport. That's shockingly bad

The audio is horrible. Interesting topic, but cut my viewing short. The tin-can voice drove me bonkers. Sorry 😮

Could You Do Some Videos on Being Transgender! Such Beautiful aura! Thank-You! ❤❤❤

Love Transit! ❤❤❤❤

❤❤❤❤

Alexandria, Love Trains and Femininity! So Beautiful and so Divine! ❤❤❤❤

The Southwest corridor project to extend the MAX Green Line to Tualatin is planning on building a new modern funicular to link the Gibbs St stop with OHSU on Marquam hill. I don't know if you heard about that, there is a big flaw with it tho and that is that the funicular is only going from Barbur Blvd to Terwilliger Blvd and not any closer to the Hospitals. But it's cool anyways! I hope you make videos again you still are one of my favorite urbanism youtubers even though you stopped uploading.

Hope you make more videos in the future, you are the best english language transit youtuber out there fr

In the last couple years, passengers had to keep the car clean themselves. The freight crew made sure they used every minute of their 14 hour clock. Originally the GA RR didn't go past Rutledge. Later it was extended to Atlanta after it became the terminals of choice for railroads building in and out of the state. Atlanta didn't exist yet when the garr began construction from Augusta.

Video of last runs of the Rio Grande Zephyr: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4u9YmWsmadjfrs

I don't understand amtrak , they have 5 east coast true long distance trains the lakeshore , silver meteor , silver star , the crescent , and the cardinal , a few years ago amtrak took delivery of 25 new viewliner dining cars and a few more sleeping cars the next thing you know they came out with some bull about how people didn't want to eat together anymore and stopped serving pretty good food and started serving air line type food even removed the dinning car from the crescent which was one of the highlights of its long run from ny and nola then changed the schedule to what seems like a local north of wdc , I don't know about anyone else but that doesn't look like they're trying to improve east coast long distance service to me

0:54 my home station?!

I've been thinking about one-way streets as a rationale for road dieting, thus I came back to this video. While it isn't addressed here, the argument for "same number of car lanes(in one direction), fewer conflict points, more bike or transit access" is a strong one for me. I observe many neighborhood shopping streets in my city that are ultimately limited by two-way car flow creating conflicts for all other users. Giving the car users fewer total lanes doesn't do a lot to impact their access, and the confusion and danger of the one-way downtown is mostly brought on by the combination of one-way and speed making drivers feel rushed to make complex decisions.

Horrible.