From: ahk@chinet.com

Stephen Sprunk  wrote:
>On 14-Aug-14 03:37, rcp27g@gmail.com wrote:

>>Terms "heavy rail" and "light rail" are not particularly meaningful
>>anyway as they are marketing, not technical terms.

>They are FRA/FTA regulatory terms, not marketing or technical terms.

FTA is barely a standards-making agency. Anyway, if you're insisting on
pedanticism, "general system of railroad transportation" is a term
defined in transportation law in which the federal government asserts
regulatory authority over railroads meeting its definition. It long
predates FRA. FRA doesn't define its regulatory and standards-making regime
for itself; it has to be defined in law outside FRA.

>"Light rail" is for heavy non-FRA trains on a non-exclusive ROW, and
>"heavy rail" is for light non-FRA trains on an exclusive ROW.

I guess I've seen these terms in reference in regulation but can't say
I've seen a precise regulatory definition. In any event, the bright-line
distinction you claim is there based on use of exclusive right of way
ain't there at all. St. Louis, obviously, is almost entirely former
railroad right of way, except for portions on structure on a new,
exclusive, alignment on the Lambert Field airport campus.  St. Louis IS
NOT heavy rail.

Pittsburgh? I can't think of any non-exclusive segment since downtown
street running was eliminated except the Mount Washington tunnel, shared
with buses.

San Francisco and Boston are older systems in which street running is
combined with extensive tunnelling.

Patronage doesn't work as a distinction either. In a modern system like
Baltimore, for years, light rail routes had higher passenger density
than heavy rail routes. In Boston, when I looked up entering ridership
at Government Center station, because I was appalled that MBTA would shut
down a station with such high ridership for two years, it appeared to be
among the nation's top dozen boarding locations.

Is weight of the rolling stock a distinction? Historically, Chicago
"L" cars, based on PCCs, were lighter than modern light rail vehicles,
particularly Pittsburgh's. Even today, there is no shortage of examples
in which light rail vehicles have larger dimensions than Chicago "L" cars.

You can't even use train length as a distinguishing feature, again, with
too many Chicago exceptions given historic single-car train operation in
Chicago and still operating two-car trains on shuttles in Skokie and
Evanston for the bulk of service.

Your heavy-rail-versus-light-rail distinction is as much hand waiving as
that of anyone else assigning routes and systems to categories. In any
event, when referring to older systems like Chicago and New York, it's
rapid transit, not heavy rail. No regular passenger says "heavy rail".

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