Passenger Trains > Southbound Frontrunner in the Rio Grande Plan project area

I believe the 600 West crossing is the best place to get a video of the Frontrunner in an urban setting. This crossing would be eliminated by the expanded Rio Grande Plan put forward by Salt Lake City. As much as I enjoy taking videos here, the grade separation through downtown is desparately needed. The Rio Grande Plan isn't a done deal yet, but there is a lot of movement behind the scenes. We're working on addressing UPRR's concerns, some of which are valid. The largest concern for me, put forward by a union rep is regarding safety of crews should an incident occur in the below-grade Train Box. The railroad official's concerns seem minor, loss of the disused downtown yard and loss of access to the remaining customers in the project area. I still believe in the Rio Grande Plan and am working hard to make it a reality.

I'll also include a picture of a TRAX unit recently wrapped up in a new look inviting the Olympics back to town.

---

You must be a registered subscriber to watch videos. Join Today!

I see a 30 mph speed limit sign on the curve.  Mighty slow.  Looks like 40 would be possible tomorrow.

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I see a 30 mph speed limit sign on the curve. 
> Mighty slow.  Looks like 40 would be possible
> tomorrow.

When it was Grant Tower (before Frontrunner), the curves were only good for about 10-15 mph, so 30 is a huge improvement.  Believe the UP curves (tracks in the back) are good for 40 mph now.  

The Frontrunner cuves don't need to be much faster since the diesel trains cannot accelerate that quickly.  The train is just departing the North Temple station which is behind the North Temple St bridge where you first see the train appear and it makes the curve towards paniolo_man.  The train is then entering second part of the S curve at the end of the video as it moves away from him, and shortly after exiting the curve will be entering the Salt Lake Central Station.  As the crow flies, the stations are less than a mile apart.  As the train goes, maybe it's a mile, or a tad bit more than a mile.  So faster curves probably aren't worth it.

Glad to hear you are involved with the Rio Grande plan paniolo_man.  I saw the news the other day about the Rio Grande District that the Salt Lake City Redevelopement Agency recently released.  Unfortunately it doesn't have anything in it related to the Rio Grande Plan, but hopefully we can get that changed.  Recently I completed the survey for UTA's Tech Link Corridor about the proposed Orange line from the Salt Lake Airport to the University of Utah Research Park.  While I think that plan is awesome, I do hope they keep the Rio Grande Plan in mind (I mentioned it multiple times in my survey answers) and that they don't build their connection to the Salt Lake Central station as proposed, but instead to the Rio Grande station.  Fingers crossed! 

Nathan

My son (a graduate student in Urban Planning) and I visited the area a couple years ago.  From what I've seen of the planning for this area, this sounds like a good idea.  Here on the east coast, comprehensive plans like this are hard to pull off.  Too many people who can say "no" and hardly anybody that can say "yes" and make it stick.

I don't want to return to the Robert Moses days, but we need to acknowledge that anything we do in an urban area (including doing nothing) is going to produce disruption somewhere, to somebody.