Aug

Take a Train at the Airport: Dulles Unveils AeroTrain

Posted by admin Published in Transportation Alternatives

After nearly a decade of planning, officials at Washington’s Dulles worldly Airport unveiled the AeroTrain automated public mover (APM) system, making one more airport feel like Disney World without the singing archetypal ethnic children. Starting in 2009, the AeroTrain will serve the dual purpose of replacing the anachronistic “mobile lounges” that currently transport passengers to their planes and, according to Eric Weiss of the Washington Post, entice federal transit officials to expedite the extension of the Metrorail to Dulles.

While the mobile lounges are certainly space-age retro (even after the removal of the onboard bars) and occasionally efficient, they don’t have the right of way when crossing taxiways and therefore end up delaying passengers. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) engineer Frank Holly told D.C.’s NBC4 that the longest AeroTrain trip would be less than a minute and a half, with waiting times for trains slightly longer than that amount of moment. When the AeroTrain is officially put into service next year, travelers could go from the main terminal to any gate in less than three minutes, albeit without any Mobile Lounge Operators.

The $1.4 billion AeroTrain project is the centerpiece of Dulles Development, or D2, which additionally

involves the building of a new runway and expansion of the B Concourse. The entire public mover system includes 5 miles of track, four stations, a maintenance facility, and a fleet of 29 shiny blue and white cars built by Sumitomo in Japan. The trains themselves seem to have been borrowed from a 1950s sci-fi flick and are anything but “mobile lounges”: To maximize efficiency the trains are designed to carry up to 90 passengers with only eight seats, which will promptly be taken up by one jerk and his eight bags. We hope the automation system ensures smooth stops and starts, as the trains will run up to 45 miles an hour within stations.

According to the Post, the AeroTrain will plus help the Saarinen-designed terminal “regain the airiness and dignity of the original design,” shown above, by eliminating towering defense lines at the main terminal. Airport history buffs need not despair about the loss of the mobile lounges, as they will still service universal flights.

Photo by flickr user zappowbang

Original post by Keith Barry