BayRail Alliance

Railcars have a maximum 60-year life, which can be reached with good maintenance and significant overhauls at regular intervals.

	Gallery car. Source: Nippon Sharyo, LTD

The gallery car (also called "galley" cars by railroaders) is a bi-level design with lower level seating and upper level seating on "galleries" suspended from the car sidewalks. All seats can be viewed for safety and fare collection from a central aisle on the lower level main floor. The first gallery cars were introduced on the Burlington Route (Chicago) in the early 1950's. The gallery car is used in Chicago, Montreal, and on Caltrain. Including 165 electric MU gallery cars on the former Illinois Central in Chicago, nearly 1000 cars of this design are in service. Former Chicago gallery cars were acquired by Virginia Railway Express to expand their service.

Trains are vehicles that operate on tracks.

In transit/railroad terms, a '''car''' means a single rail vehicle. A train means multiple rail cars connected together (2-car trains, 5-car trains).

Passenger trains vary in speed and distance. Some trains in the East Coast and abroad can operate faster than 125 mph connecting major cities. Some rail lines in the Bay Area function like a local bus with stops every few city blocks.

Below are the basic passenger train types. These categories, however, are shades of gray because a train system may have more than one function (Amtrak inter-city trains serving commuters). Also, train systems that have similar functions can have major differences in underlying technologies and legal requirements.

Trains are more energy-efficient and better for the environment

Building a high-speed passenger train between Los Angeles and San Francisco would result in saving the equivalent of 2 million barrels of oil in 2020.[1]

We have many different types of public transit, including buses, paratransit, shuttles, trolleys, light rail, subways and heavy rail, regional rail, and hopefully someday in California, a true high-speed rail service.