I know, but I thought we were dreaming and just sharing our ideas, that's all. I hope one day Breslau airport has 4 or so jetways and ~50 jet flights a day. I think that'd be a really good size. Basically, big enough that you could get a reasonable connection through somewhere else to anywhere in the world (I guess we have that already with ORD!).
Lots of cities have 2, 3 or more technologies (Toronto!*), but I see what you're getting at. For an area like ours, you're right that it probably just makes the most sense to stick with what we chose and move forward with that. I just wish it was a different technology. My heart will never change on that one. I guess I should have spoken up more at the planning meetings. I'll be kicking myself for years that I didn't get up and do a presentation on some of the alternative technologies that other cities have had success with to at least be able to say "hey, I tried".
* - Toronto:
-Streetcar (1495 mm non-standard gauge, OCS power supply)
-Subway/Heavy Metro (1495 mm non-standard gauge, third rail power supply)
-ICTS/Light Metro (1435 standard gauge LIM propulsion + 3&4th rail power supply)
-Light Rail, under construction & all future lines (1435 standard gauge, OCS power supply)
None of these systems are interchangeable. When heavy work has to be done on the rt vehicles (ICTS/Light Metro), they have to put them on a special flatbed rail car and haul them using conventional rail lines over to the yard on the East side of Toronto for subway vehicles. Even their streetcars aren't 100% compatible - the new FLEXITY Outlook sets they're taking delivery of are being temporarily supplied with the trolley poles that their CLRV and ALRV fleet currently use, because their pantographs won't work with the existing streetcar OCS. Once each line gets rid of all the CLRV and ALRV's, they're reworking the OCS Catenary so that they can use the Pantographs that the Outlooks have!
Alright, enough about that! In other news, if you ever feel like our project isn't doing so well, just go check out the ion Light Rail thread on UrbanToronto. There are some really kind and positive comments coming our way from the folks from the Big Smoke.
Lots of cities have 2, 3 or more technologies (Toronto!*), but I see what you're getting at. For an area like ours, you're right that it probably just makes the most sense to stick with what we chose and move forward with that. I just wish it was a different technology. My heart will never change on that one. I guess I should have spoken up more at the planning meetings. I'll be kicking myself for years that I didn't get up and do a presentation on some of the alternative technologies that other cities have had success with to at least be able to say "hey, I tried".
* - Toronto:
-Streetcar (1495 mm non-standard gauge, OCS power supply)
-Subway/Heavy Metro (1495 mm non-standard gauge, third rail power supply)
-ICTS/Light Metro (1435 standard gauge LIM propulsion + 3&4th rail power supply)
-Light Rail, under construction & all future lines (1435 standard gauge, OCS power supply)
None of these systems are interchangeable. When heavy work has to be done on the rt vehicles (ICTS/Light Metro), they have to put them on a special flatbed rail car and haul them using conventional rail lines over to the yard on the East side of Toronto for subway vehicles. Even their streetcars aren't 100% compatible - the new FLEXITY Outlook sets they're taking delivery of are being temporarily supplied with the trolley poles that their CLRV and ALRV fleet currently use, because their pantographs won't work with the existing streetcar OCS. Once each line gets rid of all the CLRV and ALRV's, they're reworking the OCS Catenary so that they can use the Pantographs that the Outlooks have!
Alright, enough about that! In other news, if you ever feel like our project isn't doing so well, just go check out the ion Light Rail thread on UrbanToronto. There are some really kind and positive comments coming our way from the folks from the Big Smoke.