Someone told me that light rail and streetcars run on different tracks. Is that true?
Almost every modern railway in the world uses the same width of track, 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches, measured between the inside surfaces of the two rails. This is called “Standard Gauge.” In the photograph on the right, you are seeing two sets of standard gauge tracks crossing. One of them is for Portland’s east/west Max light rail line, and the other serves the Portland Streetcar. Because two- and three-car trains are heavier, light rail track has deeper foundations and takes longer to build because all the pipes and other utilities beneath the trackbed need to be moved out of the way. Streetcar tracks are embedded in a 12-inch concrete slab, and the utilities are usually left in place. Building a block of streetcar track takes about a month, blocks only one lane of traffic for during that period, and is probably less disruptive to businessess than a sidewalk-building project. Streetcars can run on light rail tracks, but light rail trains are too heavy to run on streetcar tracks.
Related Questions
- Since the Light Rail on Howard Street seems to run slowly, how will the Red Line alternatives running on surface streets differ?
- Many other cities have light rail running on abandoned railroad tracks or in the center of freeways. Why not here?
- What is the difference between heavy rail, light rail, and streetcars?
