A Standard Metro Train for America
Learning from around the world to create a better standard.
I recently remade a YouTube video I had produced about Metro train standardization in China —
— and a natural question I’ve been asked is: If I were to devise a standard for other places, what would it look like?
In this article, I want to write about creating a standard for North America, what I think is important for a metro standard, and how some things are already rather standardized!
Now, you might be wondering — what’s the point in instituting a standard when the US, Canada, and Mexico already have so many different ones? We’ve managed to proliferate about as many different rail standards as China if not more, despite being much much smaller. Ultimately, I think having a standard is useful if you’re planning on building a lot. While the three countries are not really in alignment regarding how much will be built, it seems clear to me that there is a lot of metro we should be building and so a standard would be useful. Of course, having a standard also lets you build more, so it’s a bit chicken and egg.
Before diving into what I think the North American standard should be, let’s start with a quick refresher on China’s.
The Chinese Metro standard has five main classes of trains, although the most important classes are probably class A, B, and C, which roughly define metros from the highest capacity in the world — Type A, down to light metro — Type C. The number of doors also tends to go from 5 per side on Type A to 3 per side on Type C. These three types plus two other currently more niche ones (and some derivatives with different specs) make up the vast majority of metros that have been built in China over the past 20 years.
So then, what should the (North) American standard be?
Ironically, I think we’ve come pretty close to creating an unofficial standard already, but for light rail! The majority of light rail systems in the US use low-floor vehicles from Siemens, who in turn has more or less defined the US light rail standard. And similarly in Canada, Bombardier/Alstom has effectively defined a Canadian light rail standard with their own vehicles, which is similar in many ways to that in the US. Mexico, for what it’s worth, doesn’t have a lot of trams!
What’s funny about this is that it isn’t all that different from how the standard came about in China, where the “standard” started informally and was eventually formalized. In China’s case, Hong Kong’s large high capacity trains were adopted as the basis of Type A, whereas Beijing’s historically smaller trains became the basis of type B. North America could benefit a lot by standardizing around stuff we have already built in this way.
Now, let’s talk about a metro standard! Some of the objectives I’d want to meet with such a standard include:
Automation-ready
Compatibility with platform screen doors
Standard platform height (customizable*)
Standard loading gauge (customizable)
Flexible seating layout
Overhead wire- and third rail power-capable
Fully walkthrough
Customizable door positioning
Lightweight design
Low initial cos,t with low maintenance cost taking precedence
High quality digital wayfinding
Wireless connectivity
100 km/h service speed
These requirements give us enough specificity to enable a lot of the changes we should be seeking in our urban rail transit systems in North America (mostly automation and a transition to capacity via frequency), while being broad enough to be met by a large number of solutions.
Ironically though, central to a standard I would suggest is that we probably only need a single loading gauge and car type in our standard! I actually think the perfect thing to model this standard off of is the Canada Line in Vancouver (big surprise if you’ve followed me for a long time!).
Now, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the stations and tunnels on that project — but what’s up with the trains? The Canada Line might not scream out to you with its rolling stock, and that’s kind of the point for me. The Canada Line stock is about as bog standard as it comes for subway trains — 3m wide, 20m long, 750V DC third rail. The trains don’t even have a fancy brand name like “Metropolis” (Alstom) or “Modular Metro” (Siemens) — they are simply known as the Hyundai Rotem EMUs. Essentially, they are incredibly generic, no frills cars. But, why are they sufficient for all our needs?
For one, the top line capacity we need in North America probably does not require the larger car sizes seen in China, which extend close to 23-metres in length and over 3 wide. North America just does not have a lot of mega cities and probably never will, so the cost of adapting a slightly lower capacity standard to high-capacity is probably lower than developing an entirely new, larger standard that we will almost never need.
At the same time, I’m sort of unconvinced that there’s a reason for smaller individual cars than are used on the Canada Line. Those cars manage to handle a number of tight corners and steep grades on the Canada Line route, while filling a niche previously filled by tiny trains like the Hitachi driverless metro used in Copenhagen, while also being large enough that when composed together they could form a serious subway train. I also think that if you’re going to make an argument about the efficiency of size, there are more to be made for wide short trains than longer narrower ones. The size of these cars is also nice because it should allow for slightly shrinking and expanding dimensions for custom orders, for example for the REM in Montreal or the DC Metro respectively.
The other thing that’s nice about the Rotem cars is that they have a very open floor plan, equipment isn’t stored under seats so you can reconfigure for a high capacity metro layout, lots of transverse seating, or the weird mix on the Canada Line of transverse seating and no seating (they realized transverse alone wasn’t going to cut it and just removed some seats to open up more space which works alright).
Now, there are some adjustments that would need to be made to the cars to make them meet all of our requirements, but they are fairly minor. For one, cars would need to be pantograph-capable for operation at 750V or 1500V DC, and they would also need to exist in a four-door variant. The use of power systems has me generally strongly favouring overhead lines for safety and performance benefits, but for highly tunnelled or legacy lines, offering third rail would be useful. I’d also want cars capable of better digital wayfinding and being fitted with wifi, but those are clearly feasible. The final adjustment I would recommend is a top speed of 100kph in service as seen on the Delhi Metro (which Hyundai provided many trains for) as this is better suited to sprawling North American cities.
All in all this would give us nice light performant modern metro cars which could be used on all kinds of services. The Canada Line is rated for 15,000 ppdph (people per direction per hour) with 2.5 cars, but I would probably recommend 3 cars for this application just to provide some breathing room. 6 cars should handle 30,000 ppdph and 9 would handle up to 45,000 ppdph, a 9 car train would be 180 meters long. Higher capacity and more urban lines would use 3-door per side per car train variants.
To be clear, I am not suggesting handing the North American rolling stock market to Hyundai; instead, I am suggesting we standardize around a design similar to the no-frills rolling stock they produced for Vancouver. A customizable front fascia can always be fitted to trains as in Japan to give them a unique look while keeping costs within reason.
Do you have questions about my ideas or ideas of your own on creating a North America metro standard? Drop a comment or reply to this email!
It also makes construction much easier and cheaper!
Standardization is never negligeable when one wants to reduce cost and increase robustness and efficiency.