MARTA News (Atlanta: appointed, gated, car)

[MattCW]

I'm curious why MARTA ever owned that lot in the first place. It's not near...anything remotely MARTA related.

[bryantm3]

This is really cool. There are signs about the Flint River headwaters, but the area through there is kind of industrial. It'll be nice to have a park there.

I also want to see signs put up on streets when you cross from one watershed into another.

I don't think it's common enough knowledge that Decatur, Atlanta, and East Point straddle the Eastern Continental Divide, which is the dividing line between the Atlantic watershed and the Gulf.

That line also served as the Proclamation Line of 1763, and the rail line going up the east coast generally follows it. Where the rail line splits in East Point, it marks the headwaters of both the Flint and South River.

The topography of this region, its rail history, and the development of the city are intertwined along the same lines. The fact that metro Atlanta residents now define their location by the interstates is kind of a weird aberration if you think about it.

[LynnHarris1]

In an agreement described as “historic” at the time, MARTA entered a contract in November 2019 to purchase $646 million worth of new rail cars from longtime manufacturer Stadler.

The deal marked the largest procurement for either organization and what MARTA officials called a milestone of their capital improvement campaign, an effort to boost customer satisfaction and slash delays.

As such, MARTA's now seeking public input to help determine exactly what Atlantans want from their future heavy-rail transit system..."

https://urbanize.city/atlanta/post/m...stem-expansion

SOURCE: Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

[arjay57]

Sweet!

I do wish they'd carved about 12% of that money and bought 100 sleek new American-made electric buses.

There would still be many hundreds of millions left for rail cars.

[JMatl]

They look great! I love that we'll be able to move between cars.

[ShenardL]

https://twitter.com/martarider/statu...19302130671620

All the trains will be replaced in 2023.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0fVkW9X...g&name=900x900

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0fVm7YX...g&name=900x900

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0fV2BMW...g&name=900x900

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Sweet!

I do wish they'd carved about 12% of that money and bought 100 sleek new American-made electric buses.

There would still be many hundreds of millions left for rail cars.

MARTA buys buses fairly regularly, and it was in dire need to replace the entire railcar fleet.

[Chevalier de Saint-George]

Nice looking cars.

[Chevalier de Saint-George]

What do they sound like? The sound the current cars make as they depart is what a railcar should sound like.

[evannole]

Originally Posted by Gulch

MARTA buys buses fairly regularly, and it was in dire need to replace the entire railcar fleet.

This is a bit puzzling. I'll grant you that the old Société Franco-Belge cars are probably worn out, but about a third of the rail car fleet is from the mid-2000s, less than 20 years old.

The Paris Métro, which has ridership 19 times that of MARTA (even without counting the RER), manages to make rail cars last over twice as long. The second-busiest line, Ligne 4 (out of 16), which carries more than twice as many the passengers as the entire MARTA rail system annually, had rail cars that were over 50 years old when they were replaced. (And they were replaced with used cars from Ligne 1, which was being automated.)

I'll buy that the MARTA cars may need replacement, but the comparison does kind of beg the question as to why, if much more heavily-used (and better-functioning) systems can squeeze many more years of life out of their own cars.