Some stuff on WES

From DJCoregon.com, "TriMet adds backup train to boost commuter-rail reliability"

Delays caused by out-of-service trains aren’t necessarily the biggest reason more people don’t ride TriMet’s Westside Express Service, spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said. They’re just one the transit agency has the power to change.

TriMet is in the process of buying two railcars – $75,000 apiece – from the Alaska Railroad. The cars, which will run as a single train, would let TriMet take another train out of service without disrupting its schedule.

That will add reliability, but won’t change the economy, which Fetsch said is the biggest drag on ridership. WES, which runs only during weekday rush hours, targets a shrinking population: people with stable jobs.

“It’s a commuter rail system, and so it’s targeted to commuters and workers,” Fetsch said. “And with double-digit unemployment, the jobs piece is affecting it more than anything else.”

WES probably won’t reach its end-of-first-year goal of 2,400 average daily boardings by February 2010, Fetsch said. Fewer than half that number of people used WES, according to TriMet’s most recent data.

“That projection was made when we were not in such a deep recession,” Fetsch said. “It will take longer to get to that (2,400) number.”

The metro area’s employment situation is as bad as the numbers suggest, said Jill Cuyler, state workforce analyst for Washington County, which contains most of the WES route. Seasonally adjusted unemployment nearly doubled in the year that ended September 2009, from 5.4 percent to 10.1 percent. Clackamas County, which includes Wilsonville, fared no better.

“The trend, especially in Washington County, has been rapid employment declines,” Cuyler said.

TriMet will use the new railcars starting next summer to back up its existing fleet, not as part of the regular three-train rotation, Fetsch said. The two cars were built in 1953 by the Budd Co. and ran on a remote stretch between Talkeetna and Hurricane, Alaska, until March.

Despite their age, TriMet expects the railcars to have a long service life, Fetsch said. “For now, they’re a permanent spare,” she said. “It’s a long-term solution.”

The railcars – older versions of the type of rail diesel car, or RDC, currently used on WES – could feasibly last for decades, said Jim Howell, a planner with the Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates. Howell and a partner once owned two similar RDCs.

The Budd Co. railcars are “very well built,” Howell said. “They can last forever as long as they keep upgrading them.”

They’ll also bring reliability to a line disrupted 15 times by mechanical problems since opening in February, he said. “It’s definitely an improvement, because then they don’t have to rely on bus service.”

When TriMet takes an existing WES train out of service, shuttle buses serve the stations, causing delays. Having a backup ready will increase reliability, Fetsch said, but that won’t guarantee ridership will as well. As a suburb-to-suburb commuter line, WES will see its use grow as the local economies grow, she said.

“People would like more service, longer service other than limited to commute hours. Others say to run it on weekends.

“But at this point, it’s targeted to commuters.”