I’ve noticed some confusion on Columbus Underground and other web forums about the differences between streetcars and light rail, light rail and heavy rail, and heavy rail and commuter rail. In an effort to get more of us on the same track, I have summarized some common characteristics of each rail mode and provided some domestic examples.
If you disagree with any of my definitions or examples, please comment. I don’t know everything about rail, but as a transportation professional, I feel I can usually classify an urban public transit system when I see it. So if you choose to comment, I’ll either update my list…or disagree with you in the comment section 
Heavy Rail – The term “heavy rail” refers to both the passenger capacity and the weight of the vehicles. According to the American Public Transit Association (APTA), heavy rail is “is high-speed, passenger rail cars operating singly or in trains of two or more cars on fixed rails in separate rights-of-way from which all other vehicular and foot traffic are excluded.” Heavy rail does not typically include inter-city trains or freight trains.
Other Names – Metro, Subway, Rapid Transit
Right-of-Way – Grade-separated from mixed traffic
Power - Typically electrified third rail
Rolling Stock (vehicles) – Multi-car trains
Schedules – Frequent service most of the day every day, possibly with breaks overnight
Cost – Very expensive due to the required tunnels for a subway or structures to elevate the line
Examples - New York City Subway, PATH, Los Angeles Red Line, Chicago Transit Authority “El”, SEPTA Broad and Market Street Lines, Miami-Dade Metrorail, WMATA Metro, Atlanta MARTA, Boston “T” (Red, Orange, and Blue lines), BART, Baltimore MTA, Cleveland Rapid (Red line)
Chicago CTA "El" in the Loop
Washington DC Metro
Commuter Rail - The APTA says commuter rail is “long-haul rail passenger service operating between metropolitan and suburban areas, whether within or across the geographical boundaries of a state, usually characterized by reduced fares for multiple rides, and commutation tickets for regular, recurring riders.” A commuter rail line can be very long; the line I ride every day runs over 50 miles from Chicago to Kenosha, WI. Stations can be spaced relatively infrequently to maintain good travel times. The destination city is usually served by a single central station, like Penn Station or Grand Central Station in New York.
Other Names – Regional rail, Suburban rail
Right-of-Way – Freight rail tracks, usually with at least some at-grade gated crossings
Power - Typically Diesel Powered, although some are electrified with overhead wires
Rolling Stock (vehicles) – Multi-car trains, sometimes double-decker
Schedules – Frequent during peak hours with express options, but can be infrequent during the middle of the day, at night, or on weekends. Coordinating with freight service may be difficult or undesirable, especially for the freight railroad.
Cost – Because right-of-way is typically shared with a freight railroad, commuter rail can be relatively affordable.
Examples - NYC Long Island Railroad, NYC Metro North Commuter Railroad, New Jersey Transit (NJT), LA Metrolink, Chicago Metra, NICTD South Shore Line (arguably “interurban railroad), Dallas-Fort Worth Trinity Railway Express, Philly SEPTA Regional Rail Lines, Miami Tri-Rail, Virginia Railway Express (VRE), MARC, Boston MBTA Commuter Rail, SF Caltrain, San Jose Altamont Commuter Express (ACE), Seattle Sounder, Minneapolis Northstar Commuter Rail (under construction), San Diego Coaster, Tri-Met Washington County Commuter Rail (under construction), Nashville Music City Star, Salt Lake City UTA Frontrunner, New Haven Shore Line East, Albuquerque Rail Runner Express
MTA/NJT Port Jervis Line
Chicago Metra UP-North Line at Davis Street
Light Rail - Light rail carries lighter passenger volumes than heavy rail due to having fewer cars in a train. Short trains are necessary because part of a light rail line is often at grade on city streets and the train cannot be longer than a city block or it would block traffic. The APTA defines light rail as “lightweight passenger rail cars operating singly (or in short, usually two-car, trains) on fixed rails in right-of-way that is not separated from other traffic for much of the way.” In actuality, most light rail lines are separated from auto and pedestrian traffic for most of the way, often operating in the street just in the central business district.
Other Names – Tram (UK)
Right-of-Way – Typically at-grade for at least a small portion of line, but modern systems are not likely to share a lane with mixed traffic
Power - Typically Overhead Electric Catenary Wire
Rolling Stock (vehicles) – Two or Three-Car Trains
Schedules – Frequent service during most of the day every day, but less frequent than heavy rail due to lower ridership demand.
Cost – Varies considerably depending on right-of-way used, but cheaper than heavy rail due to fewer grade separations and more expensive than commuter rail due to independent right-of-way, electrification, and more stations per mile.
Examples - NJT Newark Subway, Hudson-Bergen, and River lines, LA Metro Green, Blue, and Gold lines, Dallas DART, SEPTA Trolleys, Houston Metrorail, Boston MBTA Green Line, SF MUNI Lines and Third Street Light Rail, Phoenix Valley Metro Light Rail, Seattle Sound Transit Link (under construction), Minneapolis Hiawatha Line, San Diego MTS Trolley, St. Louis Metrolink, Baltimore MTA, Denver RTD, Pittsburgh “T”, Portland MAX, Cleveland Rapid (Blue and Green lines), Sacramento RTD, Santa Clara VTA, Charlotte LYNX, Buffalo NFTA Metro Rail, Salt Lake City UTA
Minneapolis Hiawatha Line
Portland MAX
Streetcar - A streetcar is essentially light rail, but with only one car instead of multiple-car trains. Streetcars tend to operate in mixed traffic, stop more often than light rail trains, and mostly serve as a circulator service in a high-demand area, rather than a commuting service for longer distances as they once did.
Other Names – Trolley (especially if historic), Tram
Right-of-Way – Typically on-street mixed traffic, but some lines have own right-of-way or are in medians of boulevards
Power - Typically Overhead Electric Catenary Wire
Rolling Stock (vehicles) - Single cars. Modern streetcars are usually articulated (accordion-style).
Schedules – Frequent service most of the day, every day, with breaks overnight
Cost – Streetcar rails may require less depth of excavation than light rail tracks, and therefore are less costly and quicker to construct. They rarely require their own right-of-way.
Modern Streetcar Examples - Seattle South Lake Union Streetcar, Portland Streetcar, Tacoma Link
Historic or Replica Streetcar Examples – Dallas McKinney Avenue Streetcar, Galveston Island Trolley, San Francisco F Line, Tampa TECO Line, Charlotte Trolley, Memphis Trolley, New Orleans Streetcars, Tucson Old Pueblo Trolley, Little Rock River Rail, Fort Collins Municipal Railway, Kenosha Streetcar
Portland Streetcar
Little Rock River Rail Streetcar
Monorail - No, I don’t feel like writing about monorail.
Thanks a ton for taking the time to write all of this up! Nice work!
Small quibble. For light rail, it is in separate ROW than autos for most of the route. This is what separates it from streetcars in general. However there is a blurred line between light rail and streetcars, but most light rail in this country has mostly its own ROW.
[...] Wirtz has posted a great writeup over on XING Columbus about the differences in different types of rail transit. If you’re confused about the differences between heavy commuter rail, light rail, [...]
Thanks Overhead. I agree and edited the post slightly.
Well done. There is a lot of confusion over rail modes and this puts them all in the proper perspective.
It is particularly useful in and around Columbus, since there has been no rail-based passenger transportation since Amtrak pulled out in the late 1970’s. It’s hard for the public to wrap their brains around anything from streetcars (which last ran in 1947) to high-speed passenger rail, when they have no frame of reference for rail-based transportation….other than long freight trains blocking their cars at a railroad crossing.
Nice work!
[...] So if you find yourself wondering just what all this talk of streetcars and light rail is all about, go check it out. [...]
Doing anything other than light or heavy rail is a complete waste of time and money. In 20-30 years, streetcars will be obsolete and you would have wished you would have built a rail in the first place instead of wasting all that money. You have prepare for the future, not think about what is convenient for the present.
Lack of funding is not an excuse when it comes to gov’t projects such as these. You’ll more than receive your fair share in ROI. Offering municipal bonds is a simple and easy solution. If you’re creative enough, you can even offer naming rights to the lines (e.g. the Wexner line, the Cardinal Health line, the Nationwide line). Not hard people. Boston had a rail in 1897…and the idiots in Columbus can’t do one in 2008?
The 1st line needs to replace the 2 bus from north of campus to the brewery district. …then go from there.
I can’t say that we all haven’t dreamed of a subway system at some point, but let’s examine this concept that municipal bonds could somehow pay for a line from north campus to the brewery district.
The first phase of the new NYC 2nd Avenue subway will cost $1.3 billion for 2.1 miles from 63rd Street to 105th Street. Let’s round that down to about $600 million per mile.
The distance from Sycamore Street (Brewery District) to Hudson Street (north of campus) is a little over 4.5 miles. So, that should cost us roughly $2.7 Billion. Let’s amortize that over 25 years (you’ll see why in a minute) at an interest rate of 5%, which is the coupon rate for the latest maturity date City of Columbus bond (AAA rating) I could find on my Scottrade account. The amortization works out to about $190 Million per year.
How much could naming rights get us? Well, the Cleveland RTA plans to get $6.25 Million over 25 years from the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, and maybe up to $18 Million if they sell the naming rights to ten stations too. But that’s just a lowly BRT line. Should we say a subway could get ten times as much? That would be $180 million over 25 years, or about $7.2 Million per year ignoring the time value of money.
So now we just need $182.8 Million per year. Even if the feds chipped in 50% of the cost, which they wouldn’t do for the much cheaper North Corridor light rail line, and the state put in 25%, the local budget would have to cover $45.7 Million per year. The City of Columbus annual operating budget is $650.3 Million. That $45 Million would mean a 7% increase in the budget. That’s probably not going to happen, but even if it could, you won’t convince the feds and the state to invest that kind of money in a 4.5 mile subway line that won’t move more than 15,000 people per day.
So let’s get practical and stop making crazy claims that only heavy rail or light rail is worth building. Boston, and most other old rail cities, built their systems when transit was still profitable. If that were the case today, I’m sure we’d have a few subway or LRT lines by now, but it’s not and we don’t.
Good comment John. More education on the costs is definitely necessary. Do you know of a rule of thumb cost difference between the various modes of rail transit?
I think COTA’s North Corridor was slated to cost approximately $500 million about 5 years ago. With cost escalation in recent years, it would be safe to at least double that, if not triple it. So if we had our dream system installed (say 5-7 lines radiating out from downtown) you might be looking at $5-7 billion. Charlotte’s LRT system is going to run about $9 billion by 2030, so it looks ballpark. It also makes that $100 million starter streetcar system (which would integrate nicely with LRT in the future) look like peanuts.
I wish Paul’s statement saying that “lack of funding is no excuse when it comes to government projects like these” had any shred of truth to it, but those $4 trillion dollar wars don’t leave much left for projects like these back home.
The last time I heard a figure for a rule of thumb, which was several years ago, elevated lines were considered to be about six times more expensive than light rail at-grade and subways were ten times more expensive. There are so many variables though that it could be hard to rely on rules of thumb.
Generally, any time you either elevate a rail line or put one underground the rule of thumb is that you triple your costs, and that is under ideal conditions. I’ve had that told to me by several professional transportation engineers.
Don’t mean to be rude but accually I live in Australia, a “tram ” is a streetcar NOT light rail
Also, what is the difference between ALL those things & subway, underground rail & metro
please add it in, mate