Lewisville Lake
TRE (RI)
DART
DCTA (MKT)
Denton A-Train DENTON
AMTK- Amtrak DART- Dallas Area Rapid Transit DCTA- Denton County Transp. Auth. MKT- Missouri-Kansas-Texas RI- Rock Island TRE- Trinity Rail Express UP- Union Pacific
MedPark
Highland Village- Lewisville Lake
Old Town Hebron North Carrollton TRINITY MILLS
DCTA A-Train opened June 2011
DALLAS TEXAS
DART Green Line to North Carollton opened 2010
to Fort Worth Irving Medical/Market Victory 0 MILES
Map illustration by Otto M. Vondrak ©2012 Carstens Publications, Inc. Not an official map. Not all routes and stations shown.
TOP: A northbound DCTA train passes the line of stored Trinity Railway Express RDC cars at the shops south of Lewisville, Texas, on Oct. 1, 2012. ABOVE: DCTA No. 108 is southbound along the former Missouri-Kansas-Tecas line, approaching the Heborn station on Oct. 1, 2012.
The A-Train line begins at the new Downtown Denton Transit Center, where connections can be made to local bus routes. MedPark Station is also lo- cated in Denton, serving the Regional Medical Center. Highland Village sta- tion also serves the community border- ing Lewisville Lake, a popular recre- ational area (as well as primary water source for Dallas). Old Town station serves downtown Lewisville, while He- bron station serves several nearby apartment complexes and retail cen- ters. The southern end of the line ter- minates at DART’s Trinity Mills sta- tion located in Carollton, where an across-the-platform transfer is avail- able to the Green Line.
In 1993, Trinity Railway Express purchased 13 RDC cars from VIA Rail Canada. Originally built by the Budd Co. in Philadelphia in the 1950s, the cars were completely stripped down to the stainless steel side panels and
frames and rebuilt with new seats, win- dows, walls and lighting. They were painted in an attractive and stylized adaptation of the Texas state flag. TRE began service on 10 miles of track in 1996, and now runs a full slate of trains on 34 miles between Dallas Union Sta- tion and the Texas & Pacific Station in Fort Worth, carrying about 2.5 million riders a year (and growing).
TRE bought new and used locomo- tives – F59PH and F59PHI models – along with new bi-level coaches in the years that followed. For several years, the Budd cars saw service only during the morning and evening rush, and were eventually rendered surplus. But it just so happened that another com- muter line nearby was in start-up mode, and needed vehicles as a stop- gap until its new Stadler Rail AG self- propelled diesel multiple units (DMUs) were delivered.
While DCTA’s 11 Stadler vehicles
that would become the backbone of the fleet were under construction and test- ing, ten of the Trinity Railway Express RDC cars were leased for initial service when the line opened on June 20, 2011. Stadler diesel multiple units have found homes on several other lines in the United States. Six are in use in Austin’s, and New Jersey Transit has a fleet of 20 that are in service on the RiverLINE between Camden and Trenton. By the end of October 2012, Stadler vehicles held down all sched- ules for Denton A-Train runs, with on- ly four of the Budd cars still on the property and stored at the DCTA shops.
Will the former TRE Budd RDC cars find another home or is this the end of the line? Only time will tell. Mean- while, as ridership grows and new routes are planned, the future looks promising for the growth of rail transit in the Lone Star State.
41
UNION STATION 10
Market Center DALLAS
to Bruckner
UP/AMTK
UP/AMTK
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