Modeling US DMUs Part 3: NCTD Sprinter

Los Angeles, despite its incredibly shameful amounts of car dependency, does have a humongous and sprawling rail system.

You have Metrolink, which runs all the way from Oceanside to Los Angeles, and then also up to Ventura, Lancaster, San Bernardino, and a bunch of intermediate stations.

You have Coaster, which runs from Oceanside to San Diego, so they have an end-to-end transfer there in Oceanside.

And then also you have Amtrak, which runs the whole length all the way from San Diego to Los Angeles, about, I think six trains a day continue north to Santa Barbara and Goleta, and then three of those continue all the way up to San Luis Obispo.

But we are going to be talking about this one corner of it, which sees Metrolink, Coaster, Amtrak, and then also another system, the Sprinter.

It opened in March 2008 as the second DMU transit system in the US.

It is operated by the North County Transit District between Oceanside and Escondido, California, using the old Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Escondido Subdivision.

It meets, again, both Metrolink and Coaster at Oceanside, but then heads inland for 35 kilometers and 15 stations worth of track.

It sees 1.7 million riders a year, or approximately 5,000 riders a day, which is fairly strong ridership.

That translates to 133 daily riders per kilometer of track, or 330 daily riders per station.

It is very well known for its urbanism.

It has robust integration with local transit.

Many of the bus routes are actually timed to meet the train at its station, and then also has a very strong commitment to TOD, which you can actually see on this map specifically of development projects.

So for those who don't know, TOD is transit-oriented development, and it's a way that you can transform dilapidated and crime-ridden single family home suburbs into safe and thriving dense urban communities with multi-story buildings collected around and within walking distance of train stations.

The Sprinter has a fleet of 12 Siemens Desiros, although they are very old and only five of them are actively running at the moment.

These are 42 meters long and weigh 70 metric tons, so they're actually significantly heavier than the GTW discussed last time, despite being approximately the same length.

They produce 850 horsepower, can go up to 160 kilometers per hour, and have 120 seats.

These are extremely common in Europe for rural mainline services, primarily in the Dutch countries, but also oddly enough in London.

They are used in 12 car electric multiple units on Thameslink, and admittedly they do look very different, but they are actually part of the same platform.

Those can be seen here on the bottom left.

They also have another more modern variant compared to the classic Desiro running in Escondido, the one on the bottom right, the Desiro HC or high capacity, and you can barely just see around the corner that the front and end cars are single level, but the middle cars in between are actually two stories or Doppelstocks.

Another notable difference from the previously discussed Stadler is that they do not have a power pack.

The prime movers and traction motors are actually integrated with the chassis underneath the end trucks, and despite its looks, this actually makes it a fairly large vehicle with extremely tall windows in the middle.

It is very tall and airy on the inside.

In part due to its shortage of vehicles, the Sprinter operates only one Desiro at a time, but they did use to operate in pairs primarily during peak hour travel.