The Importance of Good Single-Level Trains

NJ Transit just released its capital project draft, and while some good projects made it into there, like increased circulation space and added stairwells at New York Penn Station and high-level platforms at several stations, the company is proposing to waste money on subpar trains that if purchased will reduce capacity.

Contained within the plan is an ask of $3.52 billion to purchase 720 Bombardier Multilevel cars and 25 dual-mode locomotives, presumably ALP45DMs, which run about $9 million apiece. Therefore, $3.30 billion is estimated for the 720 cars, giving $4.5 million apiece. Depending on configuration each Multilevel contains 127 — 142 seats; figure perhaps 180 with standees. In contrast, BR Class 700 electric multiple unit (EMU) cars used on the Thameslink system carrying around 145 people each—many as standees, to be fair—cost about $2 million apiece. Each one of those cars measures 66’ long by 9’2” wide; a North American-sized counterpart that measures 85’ long by 10’4” wide should cost around $2.5 million. The cost per passenger is not the only place that Multilevels lag EMUs.

In procuring Multilevels, NJ Transit is treating the problem of trans-Hudson capacity as a 3-D problem when it is really a 4-D one. Moving lots of passengers requires trains that accelerate and brake nimbly and allow rapid boarding and alighting. The Class 700 power-to-weight ratio is about 11 kW/metric ton. An ALP46 straight electric furnishing 5,600 kW plus 9 Multilevels weighs about 700 metric tons, giving 8 kW/t. Worse still, an ALP45DM plus 8 Multilevels, the maximum such engines haul, weighs 627 metric tons. The ALP45DM puts out 4,400 kW, for a power-to-weight ratio of 7 kW/t. Plus, the Class 700 can accelerate at 2 mi/h/sec vs half that for an ALP46/ML set. That all works out to a difference of about 45 seconds in the time it takes to decelerate from 100 mi/h to a stop and get back to 100 mi/h or about 30 seconds if the speed is 80 mi/h. Once one factors in the slower boarding of Multilevels vs. single levels, a Multilevel train adds around a minute to the time needed for each stop. That plus additional slowdown incurred from reduced acceleration and braking around speed restrictions adds 15—20 minutes to the time an EMU needs for a 40-to-50-mile regional rail journey.

Take the New York-Long Branch journey of about 50 miles. It is timetabled at 1:40 today. A few days ago, I timed train 7265 composed of eight Multilevels hauled by an ALP46 from Penn Station to Little Silver, the second to last stop, at 1:22 making every intermediate stop but North Elizabeth. It is reasonable to expect that tightening up dispatching would permit a reliable 1:30 Long Branch-New York run with Multilevels. In contrast, Alon Levy estimates a standard European EMU would make that trip in just over 1:00—making every intermediate stop.

Costs to a transit agency depend on the length of trips. Over a 1:30 trip from New York City to Long Branch, an eight-car Multilevel-ALP train delivers twelve car-hours of service. Let’s be conservative and say an eight-car EMU shaves 1/4 that travel time; the trip would then take nine car-hours of service to furnish. A Bombardier Multilevel has 127 — 142 seats and should be expected to accommodate around 180 total passengers. Let’s say a 85’ EMU with 100 — 110 seats (like NJ Transit’s current single-level fleet) holds 140 total passengers. Although the bilevel accommodates 22% more riders, it requires 33% more time, and therefore operating cost, to carry them, canceling out any advantage in capacity per car.

Unlike NJ Transit’s current fleet, trains like the Thameslink EMUs that use both third rail and overhead wire can through-run via Penn Station between New Jersey and Long Island. Today, many NJT and LIRR trains still turn back at Penn Station; Amtrak finds that converting those to through trains would boost each track's capacity from 3 — 4 trains per hour to 5. The report notes that passenger flow is the limiting factor, but ignores the stairwells that are being built under the Moynihan Station project. This omission is understandable since the report predates the Moynihan project, but it almost certainly causes the analysis to underestimate capacity. Crucially, a single-level car has no stairwells where passengers bottleneck and thus will turn passengers over faster than a bilevel. For the same reason, squeezing more passengers into Multilevels by replacing seats with handholds is unlikely to help since the bottlenecks at the train stairwells would remain.

Finally, bad regional trains negatively affect intercity operations. To keep trip times in check with sluggish equipment, trains run zone local services that involve crossovers between express and local tracks. These moves gum up express tracks that intercity trains would otherwise have to themselves. Conversely, the combination of nimble EMUs and good dispatching will allow NJ Transit to convert express trains to locals and still cut travel times. Fully local trains would be able to stay entirely on the outer tracks on multi-track segments like the Northeast Corridor, which should improve reliability by cutting merges. Plus, additional stops increase the utility of a train, especially for inner-ring suburbs that tend to have large nonwhite populations and which today’s highly zoned service currently underserves.

NJ Transit should spend the savings from buying single-level third rail/wire EMUs versus Multilevels on electrification of its entire system. Amtrak electrified the northern Northeast Corridor for $6 million per route mile in today’s dollars. Although that is at the high end of the scale worldwide, America seems to pay a smaller premium for electrification than it does for other types of rail work, another reason to heavily favor it. Including the Port Jervis Line, there are around 200 route miles on the NJ Transit network left to wire, which should cost around $1.2 billion. In contrast to the $4.5 million per car it is prepared to pay for Multilevels, single-level 85’ EMUs should cost around $2.5 million each. Even after tacking on a 25% premium for Buy America requirements, the threshold beyond which the law permits waivers, the change to Thameslink-style EMUs should save $1 billion. Whatever track can’t be electrified for that amount—the Newark Division should take priority over the Hoboken Division—can be served with Multilevel-ALP trains in the medium term until more money becomes available. At least ALP45s can draw from the wire that’s already in place, which should hasten today’s Hoboken Division run times at least somewhat.

NJ Transit put some good things into its capital plan ask, but some harmful projects also passed through. First to be chopped should be the Multilevels, which reflect a woefully poor understanding of what makes a high-capacity rail system. The current bleak financial picture presents an opportunity to revise the plan for the better. I hope that continued engagement raises awareness of what the bad projects are and why they are bad so that they are ultimately scrapped.