Passenger Trains > Aurora colo gets light rail service today with the r line opening

opened at 11am today to some cold weather and snow ;  following I-225 roughly, north south line east of denver

Thanks for the heads up.  This is a "new" route with no parallel freight line, and IIRC much fewer grade crossings...no hiccups with PTC on this route?

The R Line is a new light rail line, so no need for PTC or anything more complex than usual. It is super slow though.

How do you define super slow?
​Not much difference from the E or F line Union Station/Downtown (42-45 minutes)- roughly 16 miles
​52 minutes for 18 mies (estimate) from Lincoln Avenue
​15 stops- this is not an express line to the airport

​Ron

 

casco17 Wrote:
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> Thanks for the heads up.  This is a "new" route
> with no parallel freight line, and IIRC much fewer
> grade crossings...no hiccups with PTC on this
> route?

No PTC but very slow (much is 35 mph or below) with numerous stations and street crossings (some with no priority for LR), some street running and crazy diagonal crossings at 4-way intersections. See this video to understand the situation:
https://youtu.be/a5gHD0uXvHk

It is hard to understand why a new light rail line would have so much slow running.

Difficult route winding around Aurora Metro Center Station/Towncenter Mall and shops along South Sable Blvd.

R Line  train @Colfax Station over East Colfax about 7 PM February 24, 2017. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/17 05:50 by cozephyr.

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   As a retired Denver light rail train operator (we are not conductors) I can shed some light on this. Our Light Rail Vehicles have a governor set at 57 mph with a top posted speed of 55 mph. The commuter trains top out at 79 mph. The routing through Aurora is the big bottleneck. There was a lot of back-and-forth between RTD and Aurora planners over this, such as emergency vehicles having to wait for trains at gated crossings.
​  The plan was to have nine trainsets in the rotation with 15-minute headways with some headway adjustment going through Aurora.

it was originally going to go next to a bunch of hospitals, but they were afraid of the vehicles effects on medical equipment, what a shame.  the new VA,.childrens, fitz, CU a shame it couldn't be closer

I was down in Aurora Friday for dinner at my favorite German restaurant and spend the night nearby which just happened to along the R line. The trains were running quite regularly. I don't believe this line was supposed to be high speed with all the stops they serve. The point being that I saw very full trains on Friday about 5pm. They are getting the ridership. And the R line does duck under I-225 to get to the west side and has an elevated station by 6th Avenue next to the Anschutz medical center. They just added like 6 or 7 new wings to that hospital. When I get back home from manning our model layout at the mall I will down load a few photos I took yesterday.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

The rides were free Friday. That's why so many people showed up. I remember running a train on the W line on opening day weekend. Load 'em and go, no schedule. (Actually there was a schedule but it was a work of fiction.)