I'm not necessarily opposed to including the railfan score, but it shouldn't be weighted the same as actual operations categories, especially since it's entirely subjective and old equipment that gives a system "railfan appeal" actively harms operations by being less reliable and more expensive to maintain and giving the system a public image of being outdated and unappealing that discourages ridership even if the service is good.
GO Transit needs a higher score! They have both two-way all day service on almost every single line (except 2) and have frequencies of up to 15mins on weekends for three of the lines! How is it in the same tier as rail lines like exo who don’t have two way all day service :( Also the longer trains aren’t causing less frequency, we need those long trains since it’s still so so packed sometimes
I agree with you. GO transit might use the same locomotives with a few F59PH units but the trains are actually being used which explains why they are using 12 car trains
I Agree all the way I went to aldershot ON and saw 11 trains in an hour I've riden on smoothest ride ever so quiet And the railfan score there are hundreds of people that love these maybe thousands and the engineers are so nice they honk they wave they give me stuff frequency to Niagara Falls ON and back Is at least a 4 they could do better that's the only problem I have! I really should have been a 36
I think the only thing I disagree is Metra's usefulness score. Chicago's traffic has been worse than ever, and with this shift to cars happening as metra ridership is still below pre-2020 levels shows how vital the commuter lines are, and having Metra be less useful than SunRail even though there are 12 lines that radiate out from the city core, some of which nearly parallel said freeways, seems a little off.
Came here to say exactly that. Even without the heritage corridor and the north central service line. There's still 9 other lines with better service then 90% of commuter rails across the country. Metra runs almost 700 trains a day...how can you not call the useful
@@Clerkenwell If the Heritage Corridor could have more frequent weekday and weekend service, the SouthWest Service restored weekend service, weekend service was added to the North Central Service (along with half-hourly trains every day from downtown to O'Hare Transfer), we'd be better off.
@@TheLewistownTrainspotter8102 100% agree, I would use the heritage every weekend to go hiking if it ran and I would use the nsc if it ran weekends too
The low frequency for some GO transit line is not due to the longer train but due to the class I owned tracks for those routes. Take Milton line as an example, CPKC only allow GO transit operates rush hour commuter services, that is trains for Union Station during the morning rush hours and Leaving Union Station during the evening rush hours on weekday. On the GO transit owned lines service is fairly frequent with lakeshore lines has a train at least every 30 minutes which is excellent by North American standard.
@@awesomeman116a Kitchener Line between Union Station and Bramalea also have 15 min frequency service during the week. The score for GO transit is definitely too low for all category except "Railfan" category. In my experience, GO transit is probably one of the best commuter rail in the North America
Yeah this. Length does not matter here as the locomotives are powerful enough for it not to be a problem. imo not enough research was done into the frequency of GO.
That GO Transit score is criminal! How on earth is North America's third most used commuter rail system with one of the biggest networks on the same tier as EXO, TRE, or Tri Rail? Sure the Milton and Richmond Hill lines suck compared to the other five lines, and they all have their issues, but it is way better than C tier. High B tier I feel is WAY more appropriate
Low A teir with 15 min weekend headways on Lakeshore lines and ironic due to pre pandemic it was weekdays 15 mins. Alas with GO expansion a lot of these lines and segments will get better all day service except Richmond Hill
@@EDMLyfe What you're basically is, LaGuardia (example) is a very nice regional airport and connects many surrounding cities on the greater east coast and beyond. And just because there are renovated terminals it means that the airport is super nice. However, according to many, that's not true is it?
@@johncrest-r6n In my experience, GO transit is absolutely one of the best commuter rail in North America. Decent service level on all GO Transit owned lines, free parking with large garage at most of the stations. Also easy ticketing as you can use contactless payment as your fare so no need to buy a ticket.
the useful rating pissed me off the most, like tf you mean it’s average at best when it has the most stations by far and he ignored the bnsf like sending a train out like every 10 minutes
My rant on Metra (i live in chicagoland so heres my bias) Metras SD70MACH are brand new basically, they are using an older chassis but is still less than 20 years old, with the tech they built into it and well as matching the current emission standards, its better than alot in use across the states, they have ordered a few dozen of them to replace older F40PHs from the 70s. Metra also operates MP36PH which is also somewhat new. Another thing i dont understand is how Metra got a very low usefulness rating when its one of the busiest commuter rail systems in the US(4th place). Its barely 2nd place for rail mileage, twice as many stations as any other system in the US. You stated that Metras northern lines suck, which in reality only 1 sucks, the other is moderately popular and the UP-NW line the 2nd most used line in the system. The state said they have plans to expand the MD-W to 2 new towns, Huntley and Rockford, with Rockford being the 2nd largest non chicagoland city in Illinois in the next handful of years, Rockford has 150k pop and doesnt even have amtrak access to Rockford to Chicago would be super useful. Theres other line extensions being talked about such as a line extension leading to DeKalb which has one of Illinois largest Unis. This all might be foamer bias but i feel Metra belongs in the A, if not bigh B tier. Alot of what you said seems hypocritical compared to system that have 1 line and 8 trains a day getting the same usefulness score.
I think Metra has followed a substantial pattern akin to the Chicago and North Western. The funding(or lack there of) has Metra using motive power longer than necessary and is exemplified by these words, “Cheap and Nothing Wasted”
As someone who grew up buffing Tri-Rail, I think they could've earned a bit more in the frequency, usefulness and railfan categories. Peak rush hour frequencies is every 20 mins, new express train service just started and we also have our GP49H-3's, which are one of a kind. To each his own though, as these are just my own opinions.
Northstar does not go to Saint Cloud, it ends at Big Lake. It was supposed to go to Rice, just west of Saint Cloud, but a lack of cash ended it at Big Lake.
Can’t agree more with this! TRE is definitely not in the same level with GO. Also remember TRE does not have any Sunday service except during the state fair weeks and GO have Sunday service on majority of the lines except Milton and Richmond Hills
I don't know how you possibly ranked Metra's usefulness as "4". Metra runs trains in almost every directions from downtown Chicago, most of which run 7 days a week, and yet some others in this list with only one line that serves a narrow strip of their respective metro area and operate only weekdays ranked higher. I don't know if it's because east coast people just love to hate on Chicago, but that's quite a BS rank.
I'm from Tennessee. I agree with WeGo"s score. But, they are 1 of the 4 operators in the country to use the gallery cars. And, there are talks about expanding service on it. And, the Donelson station is planning to get some TOD, I think. Plus, WeGo does have more service than Northstar, so thats a plus! 😂
As a Torontonian, GO Transit should absolutely be higher. I think the railfan score here robs it and generally should be omitted from this list. Not only does GO Transit have all day frequent service on most lines, but also has a vast long-distance bus system that supports it. I use it all the time and should have gotten it a higher usefulness score. GO Transit should be at the very least a B tier if not an A tier.
I think GO deserves higher points - the huge trains are also a result of the success of the network and frequencies can be as low as 5 minutes in the peak direction on the Lakeshore lines. And I believe 80% of services are two-way, with the major ones being said services
Regarding Northstar, there’s a super easy transfer to the Metro Green Line to Saint Paul, so it’s easier to just terminate it at the largest rail hub in the city.
I'd like to point out that the Worcester line run by the T is technically an inter-urban line since it connects the two largest cities in MA, with plans to connect to Springfield, another city in the state.
Metro Transit should invest some money in making the Northstar’s frequency better and transforming the bus lines in the area into feeder buses that bring passengers to the Northstar.
"ideally, you want to see trains every 20 minutes at peak times and every 40 minutes or so during off-peak times" Everywhere except New York: you get once an hour if you've been good
"GO Transit has poor frequency because of long trains", mate really? A quick look at the network will show you that A) Most trains don't actually run full 12 car consists outside of specific times (usually rush hours), and B) the reason why frequencies are often bad are due to limited infrastructure (single tracking, single platform stations, etc). We are building tons of upgrade and improvements to fix this, many stations have been double tracking over the past several years in order to allow for improvements, but the last thing you can accuse GO of doing is sacrificing frequency in favour of longer trains, because that's just completely wrong.
@@TheRandCrews Especially considering vast majority of commuter rails outside US and Canada offer frequent, all day service and are electrified, even in poor countries
Trust me, if I lived in Florida instead of Washington and I happened to see 2008 lead and hear its atrocious horn, just believe me, I would literally CUT aka stop recording the video BEFORE the train would even pass me
Good episode, but i once again feel a railfan category score should be increased. Specifically, Tri Rail should be bunped to an 8 since they also roster rare EMD variants known as the GP49, and at some point a MK cowl rebuild of GP38s/F45s, and even colorado railcar bilevel DMUs. All of this in addition to being the first of many brand new commuter rail systems to use the bombardier bulevel outside of GO Transit, I feel the railroad should get some sort of props.
I don’t think you understand why so little commuter railroads are electrified in this country. It’s not because we enjoy being “old-fashioned” and avoid trying newer things-it’s because the high cost of electrifying a commuter rail system is almost never justified here. Heck, the only reason so many eastern US commuter lines are electrified is because the electrification pre-dates the modern era of commuter rail (by which I mean all commuter operations are subsidized and/or operated by their respective state and local governments)
Great video series but I have some suggestions for scoring before you upload your "West" video and tally the final rankings: 1. Railfan score: reduce the weight to 5/40. As a railfan I appreciate this category but function should far outweigh any "cool" or "historical" factor. 2. Usefulness score: Factor in the number of transfer points and the number of available connections (especially heavy rail, light rail, intercity, and other commuter rail connections) in your score. Connection availability dramatically increases the appeal of commuter rail lines (especially for single-line systems). Maybe also look at the practicality of major stations, like the concentrations of nearby employers, residences, etc. (Walkscore is a good metric) 3. Frequency: You may already factor this in but weekend and late-evening/night service should be considered I would also review the scores for consistency. As others have said a 4/10 for Metra's usefulness is kind of mind-boggling, especially given all the transit connections available. You should look at the each system holistically and not let uniquely low-scoring or high-scoring individual lines weigh down or boost the score too much. That said I mostly agree with your overall ranking although I would move Metro-North in A tier, and Metra GO Train and MBTA to B-tier
Your ranking is questionable. GO transit needs to be higher as they are running 12 car trains because they are being used by people who actually commute!
I always wanted to ride GO Train, it has a good frequency on some lines. They did some epic things like do a Test train to the city of London, ON. The test train is like striking diamonds in the railfan world. It has a good history and was ahead of it's time. GO train works well with both tourists and locals. One train station is near this really cool mall in Markham. I like the color it's trains and buses are in.
To be fair to Northstar, in years past service WAS indeed provided daily. However due to ridership declines over the past few years, that led to significant service cutbacks
That horn that sounds like an elephant is meant as an attention grabber, so people will look before stepping into the path of the train, many avoidable incidents occur with trains, about a month ago a pedestrian was struck fatally by a train in my area. Or it's meant to be funny in a way to get people to ride the train that sounds like an elephant.
Railfan score should get a bump from having completely unique rolling stock. Otherwise it's not a very useful service, on top of the generally not great Tri-Met light rail system.
10:34 no need, ill say it for you. These battery train wont do Metra any favors because as Sam himself said for all eternity, battery trains aint as efficient, reliable OR practical as overhead electrification. Sorry for breaking the 4th wall 8:28
I think the battery trains are only gonna run on the Beverly branch on the Rock island line which is only 6 miles. so they're kind of perfect for that line cause it wouldn't be worth electrifying for such a short line
the battery powered trains are only going on the rock island beverly branch, they 1000% should’ve done over head electrification however the battery powered trains good for this line because most of it runs in a very dense residential area so they’re quieter and better for the constant stop and go that happens on that line in specific
@@Clerkenwell I don't think so. IMO, it makes very much sense for it to be electrified, especially with the amount of stops on that line. The only problem is that it's a branch of an unelectrified line so in order for electrification to make sense in this situation, the trunk has to be electrified as well.
How come you give WeGo that low of a rating? You realize nashville traffic gets REALLY, REALLY bad. Yet metra which basically uses THE SAME equipment gets a C? REALLY?
Just saying, there's something wrong with your audio. No idea if it's your mic, or you're accidentally bumping into your mic, but there's this really distinct bass boom that keeps occurring. It makes it really hard to listen to your videos. It should be pretty easy to fix in an audio or video editing software through using a high pass filter.
The South Shore Line is not the last interurban. The Norristown High Speed Line and the River Line, both in the Philly area, are also interurbans. Some light rail lines are so long that they can be classified as interurbans too, but that's just my opinion.
You may start seeing interurban lines being revived in the near future though. The RTD B-line would've been an interurban between Denver and Boulder had it been built out at the same time as the rest of the RTD commuter lines. Amtrak will be picking up that corridor as part of the Front Range Regional Rail project, and the state of Colorado would eventually like to electrifiy the corridor, though it will start out as a diesel corridor. Also technically CalTrain will become an interurban in September when the Stadler KISS trains enter service.
Living in Tennessee, I still think you were being kind about the WeGo Star. Those 6 trains at peak hours are more like five since two don't run the full length. Those F40's are barely hanging on and we're poorly rebuilt in the late 2010s/early 2020s.
I feel like land use around stations and future plans should also be categories in this series. The land use category would hqve brought up SunRail a little bit since they HAVE built transit-oriented apartment blocks near some of their stations.
i dont think that electric trains should count for only high score in modernity. Electric trains existed before diesels and electric doesnt necessarily mean its more eco friendly. a Coal powered electric train is far worse than even a super inefficient diesel. Modernity should just be how old the engines are, the overall railroad tech and how much of the fleet follows current emission standards
That is completely wrong. An electric train is dramatically cleaner than any diesel, even if 100% of the electricity is coming from coal. Power plants have much lower emissions relative to the energy generated than any internal combustion engine in a vehicle. The volumetric efficiency of an EV (with electric trains being probably the most efficient of all EVs due to getting their power directly) being powered by a fossil fuel power plant is dramatically better than an internal combustion engine as well, a power plant can simply extract much more energy from a fossil fuel source than an ICE in a vehicle can. And few power grids in the US are 100% fossil fuel and basically none are 100% coal anymore.
@@mrvwbug4423 But a Electric Train powered by a Coal Power Plant defeats the Entire Purpose of Electification, You might as well continue running Diesels
@@maas1208 No it doesn't. A power plant is dramatically more efficient and has dramatically lower emissions than an internal combustion engine for the same amount of energy produced, and there's very little transmission loss between the power plant and the catenary cable or 3rd rail for the train (or EV charger for a battery EV). your overall emissions are still lower powering an electric train with a fossil fuel power plant vs a diesel engine, and the mix of power sources for electric can be changed at a later date and there's basically zero 100% coal power grids out there.
I'm surprised Sunrail scored so high because it is almost totally useless without a direct connection to Orlando International Airport. The tracks are there but politicians keep sitting on their butts while Sunrail struggles to survive.
Tri Rail has absolutely Downgraded over the years due to its absolute Dog*** leadership and crappy SFRTA board of directors, those BL36s have been an expensive mess to fix and they bet too much on their aging UTDCs to survive this long, and downtown miami FEC line extension has been an absolute mess, that being said, hoping David Dech takes it in a new direction, great video, hoping my favorite commuter rail has better days ahead
I keep saying this time and time again but South Shore is NOT the LAST interurban. The Norristown Hi-Speed Line still exists in Pennsylvania and operates almost the same way it did as the Philadelphia & Western Interurban Railway. Also South Shore canned their street-running. It was replaced with an at-grade private right-of-way. :( Killed the one unique thing about the line however it now allows for faster operation through Michigan City.
I am in South Florida and I do use Tri-Rail from time to time. I have to say the usefulness should be higher because for so many people it is a lifeline. Not in the way that the northeastern commuter railroads are but it serves an important corridor in South Florida. Sure it would be better if it had another line down the FEC Railway right of way which is being worked on but its taking forever. Anywho the current setup is good but of course there needs to be improvements. Weekday service is top notch much more impressive than Sunrail has at the current moment, I know Sunrail will increase it working with Brightline. The weekend service for Tri-Rail is alright, I wish it was better. Second is that I think with the current administration there was funding for brand new Rail cars and locomotives. Third I think you forgot that Tri Rail uses Hyundai Rotem cars and I got to say I do like them. Sure they are not the classic bombardier but the Bombardier cars are becoming way too tired and rundown. I hope they get the new rail cars soon and that Tri-Rail initially started out as mostly single tracked it wasn't till the Mid to late 2000s in which it was double tracked which brought in expansions and all. I still remember that time when the double track project was underway along with the Fort Lauderdale bridge that was under construction. It changed Tri-Rail for the better.
Im sure “caltrain” will make the west video. Be sure to note their modernization/electrification project. Wondering if BART will make the list. Its only a partial subway system and has a DLO service now
CalTrain and ACE? Both should be very high on the modernity score, with CalTrain putting new Stadler KISS trains into service in September and ACE is running shiny new Chargers.
@mrvwbug4423 ace is more about the awful frequency and usefulness, and seimens chargers itself doesnt make it modern when the cars are still old. Caltrain will be fully electric, and already has way more frequency (100 trains per day vs 8)
I feel like coaster will fare well, with high frequency, a relatively well designed route with speeds of up to 90 mph and connections to multiple downtowns, and a new modern fleet and track upgrades. It will lose on the railfan category heavily, as it lost it's F59's and F40's.
@@Adumzzinthehouse coaster is good, but nothing will beat Caltrain once the electric fleet comes in september. Caltrain is on par with many european systems. Railfanners dont like it, so it may lose points, but really railfanning should not be an aspect lol
@@lalakerspro Coaster has future plans for electrification and a 15 minute rush hour spread for each train as density and population increases on the route
IMHO they should invest in electrifying their whole system and then order some modern double decker EMUs. Chicago is one of the biggest cities in the US, it should have a commuter rail system on a par with the likes of LIRR, MNR and SEPTA.
@@maas1208 so buy the ROW from BNSF and UPRR. or subsidize electrification so the class 1s don't have to pay for electrification they're not going to use.
@@mrvwbug4423 Metra owns the MD-W line but can't really electrify because of CPKC the same would apply if Metra owned the BNSF and UP lines specifically the UP-West line
There is already a light rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul which has much better service hours and service frequency than the Northstar Line. And I’d rather have that than a low-frequency terrible service commuter rail.
Sun rail's horn is by far the worst sounding horn. I have ever heard I've been on the railroad. A very long time i've heard a lot of horns in my life.That's horrible
Was in DFW in 2015 not a fan of TRE because a lot of DFW is still car and bus dependent. Had a hard time figuring out where to park my rental car. However Amtrak has agreed to operate high speed rail in TX from HTX to DFW which I think could qualify TRE for a score revision. For railfan rating: If you are the laid back railfan it might be for you. If you are the "I want to create quality train content railfan" then it's not for you. For content creators like me, the railfan appeal is not as catching on as Caltrain, Coaster and Metrolink.
I live in Salt Lake City Utah. I would love to see if the UTA Utah Transit Authority would rate? As a disabled person I have no choice but to ride public transit and I would love to see a video rating public transit systems where they meet up with other public transit systems. Most of the trains in videos 1 and 2 looked dark and not bright and unique. It's almost like the cars were cookie-cutter cutter and the cars and locomotives that had bright designs looked better than most of the other trains that you mentioned. If you could not only rate each train in the different letters but within each letter rating rate them from top to bottom and do this for all three videos?
Great video! It would be more subjective if you have two different scores for functionality and rail-fanning, as these commuter rail lines aren't made for railfanners, they are made for moving people around.
So when you rate RTD are you only going to rate the 4 commuter lines or will you also add in the light rail lines that operate as if they were commuter lines (Denver loves tram-trains haha). RTD is weird because of that, they have the A, B, G and N commuter lines that are ultra-modern and less than a decade old, but most of the "commuter rail" in Denver is supplied by the light rail lines that operate in a commuter service pattern (8 car LRT trains are a common sight on these lines), the D, E, H, R and W lines are all tram-train commuter lines that serve the extended metro area, while the rest of the light rail lines are rapid transit in the center of Denver. If anything more of Denver's commuter rail is handled by light rail pretending to be commuter rail than actual commuter rail.
Go Transit needs a higher score it is the best commuter in north America it has buses and trains probably the only on this list ( not because i am go transit fan)
I'm not necessarily opposed to including the railfan score, but it shouldn't be weighted the same as actual operations categories, especially since it's entirely subjective and old equipment that gives a system "railfan appeal" actively harms operations by being less reliable and more expensive to maintain and giving the system a public image of being outdated and unappealing that discourages ridership even if the service is good.
I feel like it should be worth up to 5 points rather than 10.
Yeah the railfan score is odd
GO Transit needs a higher score! They have both two-way all day service on almost every single line (except 2) and have frequencies of up to 15mins on weekends for three of the lines! How is it in the same tier as rail lines like exo who don’t have two way all day service :(
Also the longer trains aren’t causing less frequency, we need those long trains since it’s still so so packed sometimes
I agree with you. GO transit might use the same locomotives with a few F59PH units but the trains are actually being used which explains why they are using 12 car trains
I Agree all the way I went to aldershot ON and saw 11 trains in an hour I've riden on smoothest ride ever so quiet And the railfan score there are hundreds of people that love these maybe thousands and the engineers are so nice they honk they wave they give me stuff frequency to Niagara Falls ON and back Is at least a 4 they could do better that's the only problem I have! I really should have been a 36
I think the only thing I disagree is Metra's usefulness score.
Chicago's traffic has been worse than ever, and with this shift to cars happening as metra ridership is still below pre-2020 levels shows how vital the commuter lines are, and having Metra be less useful than SunRail even though there are 12 lines that radiate out from the city core, some of which nearly parallel said freeways, seems a little off.
Came here to say exactly that. Even without the heritage corridor and the north central service line. There's still 9 other lines with better service then 90% of commuter rails across the country. Metra runs almost 700 trains a day...how can you not call the useful
@@Clerkenwell If the Heritage Corridor could have more frequent weekday and weekend service, the SouthWest Service restored weekend service, weekend service was added to the North Central Service (along with half-hourly trains every day from downtown to O'Hare Transfer), we'd be better off.
@@TheLewistownTrainspotter8102 100% agree, I would use the heritage every weekend to go hiking if it ran and I would use the nsc if it ran weekends too
The low frequency for some GO transit line is not due to the longer train but due to the class I owned tracks for those routes. Take Milton line as an example, CPKC only allow GO transit operates rush hour commuter services, that is trains for Union Station during the morning rush hours and Leaving Union Station during the evening rush hours on weekday. On the GO transit owned lines service is fairly frequent with lakeshore lines has a train at least every 30 minutes which is excellent by North American standard.
The Lakeshore East & West Lines even have 15min frequency on weekends! (Only afternoon and evenings tho but still it’s amazing!)
@@awesomeman116a Kitchener Line between Union Station and Bramalea also have 15 min frequency service during the week. The score for GO transit is definitely too low for all category except "Railfan" category. In my experience, GO transit is probably one of the best commuter rail in the North America
Yeah this. Length does not matter here as the locomotives are powerful enough for it not to be a problem. imo not enough research was done into the frequency of GO.
@@tiernanstrains especially GO transit increased service frequency not too long ago
@@szm-qf4lp Exactly. For it to be "in a class of its own" and then land in C tier doesn't make sense to me.
Sun rail horns are actually elephants
Hell no man, more like someone screaming like 5 year olds
How dare you insult my local commuter railroad😡
I’d never heard that shit before and I almost burst out laughing.
@@orlandorailfanproductions2010 chill
No, it's puberty
Putting GO in the same tier as trirail is insane
The GO and Metra low scoring on this channel is comical
Literally it is a crime
That GO Transit score is criminal! How on earth is North America's third most used commuter rail system with one of the biggest networks on the same tier as EXO, TRE, or Tri Rail? Sure the Milton and Richmond Hill lines suck compared to the other five lines, and they all have their issues, but it is way better than C tier. High B tier I feel is WAY more appropriate
Low A teir with 15 min weekend headways on Lakeshore lines and ironic due to pre pandemic it was weekdays 15 mins. Alas with GO expansion a lot of these lines and segments will get better all day service except Richmond Hill
Bigger doesn't always mean better.
@@johncrest-r6nuhhhhh in the case of commuter rail? Yeah it does especially when the two most populated lines run every thirty minutes
@@EDMLyfe What you're basically is, LaGuardia (example) is a very nice regional airport and connects many surrounding cities on the greater east coast and beyond. And just because there are renovated terminals it means that the airport is super nice. However, according to many, that's not true is it?
@@johncrest-r6n In my experience, GO transit is absolutely one of the best commuter rail in North America. Decent service level on all GO Transit owned lines, free parking with large garage at most of the stations. Also easy ticketing as you can use contactless payment as your fare so no need to buy a ticket.
Metra’s score is pure nonsense, it’s certainly a better railroad than MARC.
the useful rating pissed me off the most, like tf you mean it’s average at best when it has the most stations by far and he ignored the bnsf like sending a train out like every 10 minutes
@@Carolina_railbro77 my brother in christ metra literally has a line called the “metra electric”
I don’t think south shore does street running anymore, someone correct me if I am wrong
They don’t anymore.
They double tracked it and took it off the street
they don’t, they modernize it by double tracking it and building the a brand new station
how are you gonna give northstar and metra the same usefullness score? 8 trains a day vs 700 that metra runs??
My rant on Metra (i live in chicagoland so heres my bias)
Metras SD70MACH are brand new basically, they are using an older chassis but is still less than 20 years old, with the tech they built into it and well as matching the current emission standards, its better than alot in use across the states, they have ordered a few dozen of them to replace older F40PHs from the 70s. Metra also operates MP36PH which is also somewhat new.
Another thing i dont understand is how Metra got a very low usefulness rating when its one of the busiest commuter rail systems in the US(4th place). Its barely 2nd place for rail mileage, twice as many stations as any other system in the US. You stated that Metras northern lines suck, which in reality only 1 sucks, the other is moderately popular and the UP-NW line the 2nd most used line in the system. The state said they have plans to expand the MD-W to 2 new towns, Huntley and Rockford, with Rockford being the 2nd largest non chicagoland city in Illinois in the next handful of years, Rockford has 150k pop and doesnt even have amtrak access to Rockford to Chicago would be super useful. Theres other line extensions being talked about such as a line extension leading to DeKalb which has one of Illinois largest Unis.
This all might be foamer bias but i feel Metra belongs in the A, if not bigh B tier. Alot of what you said seems hypocritical compared to system that have 1 line and 8 trains a day getting the same usefulness score.
I think Metra has followed a substantial pattern akin to the Chicago and North Western. The funding(or lack there of) has Metra using motive power longer than necessary and is exemplified by these words, “Cheap and Nothing Wasted”
the F40PH does its job and well, if it aint broken, dont fix it
As someone who grew up buffing Tri-Rail, I think they could've earned a bit more in the frequency, usefulness and railfan categories. Peak rush hour frequencies is every 20 mins, new express train service just started and we also have our GP49H-3's, which are one of a kind. To each his own though, as these are just my own opinions.
The South Shore Line no longer street runs
was just about to comment this. its sad they no longer street run. seeing the south shore street run was my favorite part of going to Michigan City.
Northstar does not go to Saint Cloud, it ends at Big Lake. It was supposed to go to Rice, just west of Saint Cloud, but a lack of cash ended it at Big Lake.
you screwed over metra and go transit pretty god damn hard bro
Putting GO and TRE in the same tier is a crime
Can’t agree more with this! TRE is definitely not in the same level with GO. Also remember TRE does not have any Sunday service except during the state fair weeks and GO have Sunday service on majority of the lines except Milton and Richmond Hills
I live near Hudson Lake Indiana and I hear and see south shore go by every hour or 2
I don't know how you possibly ranked Metra's usefulness as "4". Metra runs trains in almost every directions from downtown Chicago, most of which run 7 days a week, and yet some others in this list with only one line that serves a narrow strip of their respective metro area and operate only weekdays ranked higher. I don't know if it's because east coast people just love to hate on Chicago, but that's quite a BS rank.
I'm from Tennessee. I agree with WeGo"s score. But, they are 1 of the 4 operators in the country to use the gallery cars. And, there are talks about expanding service on it. And, the Donelson station is planning to get some TOD, I think. Plus, WeGo does have more service than Northstar, so thats a plus! 😂
For South Shore Line the highliners are kind of desirable to catch because they don't run them quite often.
As a Torontonian, GO Transit should absolutely be higher. I think the railfan score here robs it and generally should be omitted from this list. Not only does GO Transit have all day frequent service on most lines, but also has a vast long-distance bus system that supports it. I use it all the time and should have gotten it a higher usefulness score. GO Transit should be at the very least a B tier if not an A tier.
The sunrail horn is awful. My god, they gotta change that 💯
Lucky for you they did
Haha, it sounds like someone strangling an Alligator haha
@@mrvwbug4423 fr
@@mrvwbug4423 lol
I kinda like it
I think GO deserves higher points - the huge trains are also a result of the success of the network and frequencies can be as low as 5 minutes in the peak direction on the Lakeshore lines. And I believe 80% of services are two-way, with the major ones being said services
Regarding Northstar, there’s a super easy transfer to the Metro Green Line to Saint Paul, so it’s easier to just terminate it at the largest rail hub in the city.
I'd like to point out that the Worcester line run by the T is technically an inter-urban line since it connects the two largest cities in MA, with plans to connect to Springfield, another city in the state.
That's not what an interurban is.
Metro Transit should invest some money in making the Northstar’s frequency better and transforming the bus lines in the area into feeder buses that bring passengers to the Northstar.
"ideally, you want to see trains every 20 minutes at peak times and every 40 minutes or so during off-peak times"
Everywhere except New York: you get once an hour if you've been good
Did you forget that TriRail also runs Hyundai Rotem Guardians?
"GO Transit has poor frequency because of long trains", mate really?
A quick look at the network will show you that A) Most trains don't actually run full 12 car consists outside of specific times (usually rush hours), and B) the reason why frequencies are often bad are due to limited infrastructure (single tracking, single platform stations, etc). We are building tons of upgrade and improvements to fix this, many stations have been double tracking over the past several years in order to allow for improvements, but the last thing you can accuse GO of doing is sacrificing frequency in favour of longer trains, because that's just completely wrong.
Why not just replace U.S. with N.A.?
Well if replaced with NA as a continent, then he would have to review commuter rails in Mexico, Caribbean and Central America as well
@@thomasgrabkowski8283which would be way better than some of these agencies. But being a Worldwide Railfan he should have more non US content
@@TheRandCrews Especially considering vast majority of commuter rails outside US and Canada offer frequent, all day service and are electrified, even in poor countries
@@thomasgrabkowski8283Where‘s that the case in North America, except in Mexico City?
4:07 Yep and here’s that better example for terrible horns 😂😂😂
Trust me, if I lived in Florida instead of Washington and I happened to see 2008 lead and hear its atrocious horn, just believe me, I would literally CUT aka stop recording the video BEFORE the train would even pass me
Ooh the Sunrail horn sounds like an elephant yelling. Then again I think it's okay because there are elephants in Orlando's Animal Kingdom
Thank GOD SunRail fixed that elephant horn. But, I still kinda respect your overall opinion on SunRail.
Hey, at least it's not in F Tier 😂😂
While it is mostly EMD powered, Metra does operate MP36s, which I would say elevates its modernity ranking a little.
I live in Dallas and I'd be happy to host you if you'd like to come to ride TRE!
Good episode, but i once again feel a railfan category score should be increased. Specifically, Tri Rail should be bunped to an 8 since they also roster rare EMD variants known as the GP49, and at some point a MK cowl rebuild of GP38s/F45s, and even colorado railcar bilevel DMUs. All of this in addition to being the first of many brand new commuter rail systems to use the bombardier bulevel outside of GO Transit, I feel the railroad should get some sort of props.
SunRail is expanding up to DeLand next month.
I don’t think you understand why so little commuter railroads are electrified in this country. It’s not because we enjoy being “old-fashioned” and avoid trying newer things-it’s because the high cost of electrifying a commuter rail system is almost never justified here. Heck, the only reason so many eastern US commuter lines are electrified is because the electrification pre-dates the modern era of commuter rail (by which I mean all commuter operations are subsidized and/or operated by their respective state and local governments)
Great video series but I have some suggestions for scoring before you upload your "West" video and tally the final rankings:
1. Railfan score: reduce the weight to 5/40. As a railfan I appreciate this category but function should far outweigh any "cool" or "historical" factor.
2. Usefulness score: Factor in the number of transfer points and the number of available connections (especially heavy rail, light rail, intercity, and other commuter rail connections) in your score. Connection availability dramatically increases the appeal of commuter rail lines (especially for single-line systems). Maybe also look at the practicality of major stations, like the concentrations of nearby employers, residences, etc. (Walkscore is a good metric)
3. Frequency: You may already factor this in but weekend and late-evening/night service should be considered
I would also review the scores for consistency. As others have said a 4/10 for Metra's usefulness is kind of mind-boggling, especially given all the transit connections available. You should look at the each system holistically and not let uniquely low-scoring or high-scoring individual lines weigh down or boost the score too much.
That said I mostly agree with your overall ranking although I would move Metro-North in A tier, and Metra GO Train and MBTA to B-tier
Your ranking is questionable. GO transit needs to be higher as they are running 12 car trains because they are being used by people who actually commute!
Sunrail's horns sound like giraffes in heat.
Glad you were able to get them fix. I think I'll stay with Athearn for now.
Me: Mom, can we have Tri-Rail?
Mom: No, we have Tri-Rail at home.
Tri-Rail at home: 4:07
That’s sunrail
The SunRail horn scared my cat
I always wanted to ride GO Train, it has a good frequency on some lines. They did some epic things like do a Test train to the city of London, ON. The test train is like striking diamonds in the railfan world. It has a good history and was ahead of it's time. GO train works well with both tourists and locals. One train station is near this really cool mall in Markham. I like the color it's trains and buses are in.
The sunrail horn scared the daylights out of me
To be fair to Northstar, in years past service WAS indeed provided daily. However due to ridership declines over the past few years, that led to significant service cutbacks
That horn that sounds like an elephant is meant as an attention grabber, so people will look before stepping into the path of the train, many avoidable incidents occur with trains, about a month ago a pedestrian was struck fatally by a train in my area. Or it's meant to be funny in a way to get people to ride the train that sounds like an elephant.
That tier list was brutal
I now fear for WES commuter rail after seeing this video.
Railfan score should get a bump from having completely unique rolling stock. Otherwise it's not a very useful service, on top of the generally not great Tri-Met light rail system.
10:34 no need, ill say it for you. These battery train wont do Metra any favors because as Sam himself said for all eternity, battery trains aint as efficient, reliable OR practical as overhead electrification.
Sorry for breaking the 4th wall 8:28
I think the battery trains are only gonna run on the Beverly branch on the Rock island line which is only 6 miles. so they're kind of perfect for that line cause it wouldn't be worth electrifying for such a short line
the battery powered trains are only going on the rock island beverly branch, they 1000% should’ve done over head electrification however the battery powered trains good for this line because most of it runs in a very dense residential area so they’re quieter and better for the constant stop and go that happens on that line in specific
@@youwereprettylasttimeisawy1227 I know that
@@Clerkenwell I don't think so. IMO, it makes very much sense for it to be electrified, especially with the amount of stops on that line. The only problem is that it's a branch of an unelectrified line so in order for electrification to make sense in this situation, the trunk has to be electrified as well.
@MarioFanGamer659 that's exactly the point I'm trying to make here. Battery trains are/will be nothing but a great deal of trouble
Sad fact: The south shore line doesn’t street run anymore
How come you give WeGo that low of a rating? You realize nashville traffic gets REALLY, REALLY bad. Yet metra which basically uses THE SAME equipment gets a C? REALLY?
Just saying, there's something wrong with your audio. No idea if it's your mic, or you're accidentally bumping into your mic, but there's this really distinct bass boom that keeps occurring. It makes it really hard to listen to your videos. It should be pretty easy to fix in an audio or video editing software through using a high pass filter.
There is a new MBTA Heritage Unit GP40MC 1129. It’s now testing on Rochester before going to the MBTA Lines.
The South Shore Line is not the last interurban. The Norristown High Speed Line and the River Line, both in the Philly area, are also interurbans. Some light rail lines are so long that they can be classified as interurbans too, but that's just my opinion.
You may start seeing interurban lines being revived in the near future though. The RTD B-line would've been an interurban between Denver and Boulder had it been built out at the same time as the rest of the RTD commuter lines. Amtrak will be picking up that corridor as part of the Front Range Regional Rail project, and the state of Colorado would eventually like to electrifiy the corridor, though it will start out as a diesel corridor. Also technically CalTrain will become an interurban in September when the Stadler KISS trains enter service.
@@mrvwbug4423 what is your definition of interurban?
The elephant horns sound funny
Living in Tennessee, I still think you were being kind about the WeGo Star. Those 6 trains at peak hours are more like five since two don't run the full length. Those F40's are barely hanging on and we're poorly rebuilt in the late 2010s/early 2020s.
I feel like land use around stations and future plans should also be categories in this series. The land use category would hqve brought up SunRail a little bit since they HAVE built transit-oriented apartment blocks near some of their stations.
i dont think that electric trains should count for only high score in modernity. Electric trains existed before diesels and electric doesnt necessarily mean its more eco friendly. a Coal powered electric train is far worse than even a super inefficient diesel. Modernity should just be how old the engines are, the overall railroad tech and how much of the fleet follows current emission standards
That is completely wrong. An electric train is dramatically cleaner than any diesel, even if 100% of the electricity is coming from coal. Power plants have much lower emissions relative to the energy generated than any internal combustion engine in a vehicle. The volumetric efficiency of an EV (with electric trains being probably the most efficient of all EVs due to getting their power directly) being powered by a fossil fuel power plant is dramatically better than an internal combustion engine as well, a power plant can simply extract much more energy from a fossil fuel source than an ICE in a vehicle can. And few power grids in the US are 100% fossil fuel and basically none are 100% coal anymore.
@@mrvwbug4423 But a Electric Train powered by a Coal Power Plant defeats the Entire Purpose of Electification, You might as well continue running Diesels
@@maas1208 No it doesn't. A power plant is dramatically more efficient and has dramatically lower emissions than an internal combustion engine for the same amount of energy produced, and there's very little transmission loss between the power plant and the catenary cable or 3rd rail for the train (or EV charger for a battery EV). your overall emissions are still lower powering an electric train with a fossil fuel power plant vs a diesel engine, and the mix of power sources for electric can be changed at a later date and there's basically zero 100% coal power grids out there.
4:07 that's so fouled it's hilarious. It sounds like a goose being thrown into a woodchipper
i'm guesing caltrain will be in S tier
Bro did go transit dirty 😭
The South shore line. America's last interurban. Give it an A. Give Metra an A.
Those sunrail horns sound like they're being strangled
I'm surprised Sunrail scored so high because it is almost totally useless without a direct connection to Orlando International Airport. The tracks are there but politicians keep sitting on their butts while Sunrail struggles to survive.
The last thing I expected in a video was to see one of my photos at 10:28
Never knew someone would use it
You should do Ranking Amtrak services
Tri Rail has absolutely Downgraded over the years due to its absolute Dog*** leadership and crappy SFRTA board of directors, those BL36s have been an expensive mess to fix and they bet too much on their aging UTDCs to survive this long, and downtown miami FEC line extension has been an absolute mess, that being said, hoping David Dech takes it in a new direction, great video, hoping my favorite commuter rail has better days ahead
All operators of bi levels should get the new cabs
I keep saying this time and time again but South Shore is NOT the LAST interurban. The Norristown Hi-Speed Line still exists in Pennsylvania and operates almost the same way it did as the Philadelphia & Western Interurban Railway. Also South Shore canned their street-running. It was replaced with an at-grade private right-of-way. :( Killed the one unique thing about the line however it now allows for faster operation through Michigan City.
I am in South Florida and I do use Tri-Rail from time to time. I have to say the usefulness should be higher because for so many people it is a lifeline. Not in the way that the northeastern commuter railroads are but it serves an important corridor in South Florida. Sure it would be better if it had another line down the FEC Railway right of way which is being worked on but its taking forever. Anywho the current setup is good but of course there needs to be improvements. Weekday service is top notch much more impressive than Sunrail has at the current moment, I know Sunrail will increase it working with Brightline. The weekend service for Tri-Rail is alright, I wish it was better. Second is that I think with the current administration there was funding for brand new Rail cars and locomotives.
Third I think you forgot that Tri Rail uses Hyundai Rotem cars and I got to say I do like them. Sure they are not the classic bombardier but the Bombardier cars are becoming way too tired and rundown. I hope they get the new rail cars soon and that Tri-Rail initially started out as mostly single tracked it wasn't till the Mid to late 2000s in which it was double tracked which brought in expansions and all. I still remember that time when the double track project was underway along with the Fort Lauderdale bridge that was under construction. It changed Tri-Rail for the better.
Brightline should buy Sunrail and get them new trains
Im sure “caltrain” will make the west video. Be sure to note their modernization/electrification project. Wondering if BART will make the list. Its only a partial subway system and has a DLO service now
You should do a series where you rank light rail systems.
When you do west coast rankings, you'll see that the bay area has one of the best, as well as one of the worst
CalTrain and ACE? Both should be very high on the modernity score, with CalTrain putting new Stadler KISS trains into service in September and ACE is running shiny new Chargers.
@mrvwbug4423 ace is more about the awful frequency and usefulness, and seimens chargers itself doesnt make it modern when the cars are still old. Caltrain will be fully electric, and already has way more frequency (100 trains per day vs 8)
I feel like coaster will fare well, with high frequency, a relatively well designed route with speeds of up to 90 mph and connections to multiple downtowns, and a new modern fleet and track upgrades. It will lose on the railfan category heavily, as it lost it's F59's and F40's.
@@Adumzzinthehouse coaster is good, but nothing will beat Caltrain once the electric fleet comes in september. Caltrain is on par with many european systems. Railfanners dont like it, so it may lose points, but really railfanning should not be an aspect lol
@@lalakerspro Coaster has future plans for electrification and a 15 minute rush hour spread for each train as density and population increases on the route
can't believe the south shore line has better frequencies than half of metra's lines
i can, it serves a crucial part of the chicago metro
I wonder how insane it would be for metra to buy F125s with P5s lol
IMHO they should invest in electrifying their whole system and then order some modern double decker EMUs. Chicago is one of the biggest cities in the US, it should have a commuter rail system on a par with the likes of LIRR, MNR and SEPTA.
@@mrvwbug4423 The Class 1s won't allow that
@@maas1208 so buy the ROW from BNSF and UPRR. or subsidize electrification so the class 1s don't have to pay for electrification they're not going to use.
@@mrvwbug4423 Metra owns the MD-W line but can't really electrify because of CPKC the same would apply if Metra owned the BNSF and UP lines specifically the UP-West line
There is already a light rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul which has much better service hours and service frequency than the Northstar Line. And I’d rather have that than a low-frequency terrible service commuter rail.
When will you make part 3. Its been 2 weeks and i'm getting impatient.
now lol
Sun rail's horn is by far the worst sounding horn. I have ever heard I've been on the railroad. A very long time i've heard a lot of horns in my life.That's horrible
Northstar doesn't run to st cloud, either. it runs to big lake where there's a bus transfer to st cloud
Was in DFW in 2015 not a fan of TRE because a lot of DFW is still car and bus dependent. Had a hard time figuring out where to park my rental car. However Amtrak has agreed to operate high speed rail in TX from HTX to DFW which I think could qualify TRE for a score revision. For railfan rating: If you are the laid back railfan it might be for you. If you are the "I want to create quality train content railfan" then it's not for you. For content creators like me, the railfan appeal is not as catching on as Caltrain, Coaster and Metrolink.
I live in Salt Lake City Utah. I would love to see if the UTA Utah Transit Authority would rate? As a disabled person I have no choice but to ride public transit and I would love to see a video rating public transit systems where they meet up with other public transit systems. Most of the trains in videos 1 and 2 looked dark and not bright and unique. It's almost like the cars were cookie-cutter cutter and the cars and locomotives that had bright designs looked better than most of the other trains that you mentioned. If you could not only rate each train in the different letters but within each letter rating rate them from top to bottom and do this for all three videos?
TRE is only replacing the F59s i think, not the F40s
wtf, Sun Rail horn sounds an elephant LOL 😂😂😂
Great video! It would be more subjective if you have two different scores for functionality and rail-fanning, as these commuter rail lines aren't made for railfanners, they are made for moving people around.
What im tryna say is if you wanna to reach an EVEN wider audience, have these two scores sorted out would be great too.
4:07 What an elephant! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Doesn't new mexico rail runner use MP32s...not just sunrail?
4:08 🐘🐘🐘
4:07: I think that horn just hit puberty……
So when you rate RTD are you only going to rate the 4 commuter lines or will you also add in the light rail lines that operate as if they were commuter lines (Denver loves tram-trains haha). RTD is weird because of that, they have the A, B, G and N commuter lines that are ultra-modern and less than a decade old, but most of the "commuter rail" in Denver is supplied by the light rail lines that operate in a commuter service pattern (8 car LRT trains are a common sight on these lines), the D, E, H, R and W lines are all tram-train commuter lines that serve the extended metro area, while the rest of the light rail lines are rapid transit in the center of Denver. If anything more of Denver's commuter rail is handled by light rail pretending to be commuter rail than actual commuter rail.
I still think you need to consider network extent as a factor.
Go transit has 6 and 10 car trains too. Please don't be lazy.
tri-rail should be a 40/40 trust (pls make it 40/40 ill give u 10 bucks if u do)
Does septa get a score update for their new contract with hitachi for new rolling stock for the market-Frankford line?
He’s doing commuter rails only not the rapid transit systems.
Go Transit needs a higher score it is the best commuter in north America it has buses and trains probably the only on this list ( not because i am go transit fan)
Did he forget about the Piedmont?
GO Train start Double Decker for other commuter System.