TT Report - HSR Mountain Transit Centre Open House (September 21 2024)

[@argopunk]

Naturally "street railway" will make more sense with the Light Rail Transit than it has since the 1950s. They'll be back in the rail game. Go Hammer! Love your dive bars!

[@withershin]

no not even close. One city in pretty much all of North American kept the "street railway" into the 2020's. Name another. Light rail is still rail - we can nerd out about gauges later. All Toronto streetcars are still street rail but it's the also confusing TTC (there was a commission? What is a commission?). The Hammer has to be one of the few that uses the old world terms. HSR! LRTs are quite embarrassing. "okay so you are building a Tram line... no? ummm.... okay so if I say LRT instead of the more commonly used Tram we cool?" - Streetcar instead? Cool?

[@argopunk]

@@withershin Wow. And I thought I was a geek. Oh well, my family has been riding Toronto street railways since they've been in existence. I hope they keep going eternally.

[@mbogucki1]

@@withershin Streetcar/Trams and LRTs are two different things.

[@mbogucki1]

Hamilton needs to bring back Trolleybuses! Cleaner, quieter, and more efficient. It would be more economic than building an LRT at this point as well.

[@obus7800]

A consultant's report from the early 1980s showed that trolleybuses cost significantly less for maintenance and far less for energy than either diesel or CNG buses (the most costly to operate). Nevertheless management pushed for getting rid of the trolleys rather than upgrading the fleet to modern standards. I was an trolley operator at the time and couldn't understand their obsession with adopting the worst possible alternative. Now it is clear that there were political considerations at play that took precedence over sound transit planning. I think politics will again overtake any other consideration when it comes to battery electric buses...another bad idea.

[@withershin]

no never. Those overhead bus/trolley things were garbage. Hamilton will instead argue for 50 years about bringing the street railway back to the HSR. I grew up on the Barton Trolley Bus. They thankfully got rid of all those stupid electric lines for busses - Hamilton has easily spent a billion on nothing. We dropped streetcars for Trolleybuses because marketing and then 50+ years later couldn't afford to build a new street railway on the Hamilton Street Railway system. That is embarrassing.