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| PHOTOS & REPORT: Jerusalem Light Rail Opening Day (Part 1) (1096495) | |||
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PHOTOS & REPORT: Jerusalem Light Rail Opening Day (Part 1) |
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Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Mon Aug 22 15:18:16 2011, in response to PHOTOS: Jerusalem Light Rail Opening Day (Teasers), posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Fri Aug 19 10:58:21 2011. As I've posted several times now, the Jerusalem Light Rail finally opened to the general public last Friday. Although I was up until 3 AM on Friday morning, I decided to pass on trying to ride the first train (I had no idea where it would enter service and no reasonable way to get to it), I opted for a later afternoon run after some pre-Shabbat shopping in the morning.NB: Feel free to refer to my unofficial Jerusalem Bus Map (that includes the light rail line) to get a sense of distances, places, etc. in the report that follows. I took the bus from my apartment to the start of the line at Har Herzl. The bus parallels the light rail from the Central Bus Station to Har Herzl, and we left the CBS at about the same time as a light rail train, close enough that a "race" was fair game. I was particularly interested in seeing who would win because of the signal priority system for the train not being fully activated. As of now, only a few signals have it (it would be nice to know which ones, you'll see why as you keep reading). Had it not been for a backup extending out of the military cemetery, the bus would have beaten the train to the end of the line; it was a tie instead. Also of note, the train had quite a bit of a lead about halfway there, large enough that I thought it would win fairly easily, but was slowed by station stops and lights. I also noted we didn't pass many trains going in the other direction. The large crowd waiting for the train once I got to Har Herzl confirmed what I had surmised, there was a large gap between this train and the one in front of it, wherever it was.   Mashiach (aka the Jerusalem Light Rail) arrives:  Once on board, I got a place at the RFW with plenty of others, intending to take photos out the front for as much of the trip as I could (I figure the opportunity to do this without pissing off the operators will last as long as the train is a novelty, eventually it won't be looked upon so favorably). We started out a few minutes before 1 PM for the approximately 8 mile trip to Pisgat Ze'ev. Looking ahead as the train passes the Har Herzl Military Cemetery:  Many people came out to ride the train on its first day, the train was so crowded the attendants on board my train wouldn't let passengers on board after the first stop and told them to wait for the next train, a few minutes behind:  Entering Denya Square station:  Some of the company I had at the RFW window:  View of the Strings Bridge from the Kiryat Moshe Station:  Crossing the Strings Bridge:  Entering the stop in front of the Central Bus Station, passing a train going the other way:  A look in to the operator's cab. As you can see the controller is on the left side of the console. There is a button on top of the controller for the bell, a convenient place if you ask me. The door controls are where the driver's right hand is, and the button for the horn is on the panel of buttons facing the operator himself, near the emergency brake. The large screen in the center of the console is like the fault display on the NTTs in New York (however the display seems to only be in English). The two smaller screens show views from the 4 cameras (two on each individual LRV) of the side of the train and allow the operator to ensure that the doors are clear before closing them.  At the next station, HaTurim, we experienced the first traffic light related delay as far as I can remember. The station is bounded by a crosswalk on each end, each one is governed by a light. In an ideal situation, the signals would be green for pedestrians except when a train comes through, yet we must have spent a good 3 to 5 minutes waiting for this light to change after the doors had closed, and it was one of numerous times the operator had to call into the control center to try getting them to change the light (based on what I could understand of the transmission). We eventually got underway and reached the Mahane Yehuda Market, where some pedestrians didn't really seem to care that a train was coming down the tracks:  Passing another train near the market:  A bus that hadn't been able to pull all the way through the intersection at Kikar HaDavidka blocked us from going forward until he was able to move along, and the pedestrians walking around the bus didn't help either. Naturally, since this is Israel, the operator just layed on the horn and rang the bell as much as he could even though there was nowhere for him to go and nothing that he could do about it.  Waiting to enter the Jaffa-Center station, having traveled just under 3 miles in about 37 minutes, including station stops and red lights. Nearly all of the Jaffa Road pedestrian mall is visible in this photo:  Going along the pedestrian mall:   Along this stretch, I had overheard a woman asking the attendant standing nearby in English where to get off for the Old City and also could tell the attendant's English was not up to the task. I told her where to go. Turns out she was a Delta flight attendant on a long layover and had no idea that she had put herself into the chaos of the the light rail on its first day. View from the Kikar Safra station, the Old City wall is in the distance:  More to come in Part 2... |
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