"Vans May Replace Aging Electric Train System at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport"

Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Vans May Replace Aging Electric Train System at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport
The Dallas (TX) Morning News


The days are numbered for the 30-year-old electric train that shuttles
travelers between terminals and remote parking lots at Dallas/Fort Worth
International Airport.

Airport officials are expected to approve funds Thursday for shuttle vans
that would gradually replace the train beginning in November. The vans, in
turn, would supplement the $800 million SkyLink train that is scheduled to
start service in April 2005.

The old train's demise isn't soon enough for Jason Crickmer, who was
transferring between terminals A and C Tuesday afternoon. The Austin
resident got stuck on a broken down train two months ago.

"It was standing room only, and everything went dark and we just sat there
for a few minutes with no A/C," he said. "It's usually faster to walk."

The train's performance - a problem from the airport's beginning - remains
among passengers' most common complaints, D/FW officials say. Its top speed
is 17 mph, and the single track means cars only go in one direction.

Officials jokingly call it the "little train that could," referring to the
way it barely seems to have enough momentum to complete its winding route.

A round trip on the system's shortest route - the Red Line - takes 17 1/2
minutes. A trip on the Yellow Line, the only route that circles each of the
airport's four terminals, takes 26 minutes.

"That's why no one likes it," said Byford Treanor, the airport's vice
president of customer service. "It takes too long."

Mr. Treanor, who spent 17 years overseeing transportation at Walt Disney
World before coming to D/FW, said such train systems were expected to last
just 15 years.

"It has taken Herculean efforts to keep it running this long," Mr. Treanor
said.

The computer-guided system was intended to move passengers, mail, baggage,
trash and supplies throughout the airport, using 68 rubber-tired vehicles
moving over 13 miles of concrete pathways.

Airport officials boasted the trains would carry 9,000 people an hour. It
now carries about 1,600 a day.

The $34 million computerized system, then called Airtrans, got off to an
unfortunate start when D/FW opened in January 1974.

Trial operations found numerous problems. Cars would stop unexpectedly,
stranding passengers between terminals, with no way to retrieve them.
Sometimes the cars would bunch up at a single station, causing a traffic
jam, or would wander off intended routes. The system often had to be shut
down to fix the problems.

And last-minute tests a few days before the opening found the cars couldn't
navigate the narrow concrete passages during icy weather.

For the first four months of D/FW's operation, airport officials used buses
to ship passengers from remote parking lots and the airport's hotel to its
four terminals. The train itself was reserved for service among the four
terminals.

Passengers also complained that it cost 25 cents to board the trains, a fee
long since dropped. And there was outrage - including Johnny Carson jokes on
the Tonight show - that the dollar changers at the stations returned only 95
cents.

Airport officials said they were assessing a 5-cent service charge for
making change.

"This just seems like the worst kind of public relations for the new
airport," Dallas Mayor Wes Wise said at the time. "Is there a little gremlin
in each of those machines making change?"

Airtrans also led to problems at LTV, the company that designed and built
it.

The company, then based in Dallas, paid for the bus-based backup system
while it worked on ironing out the train's kinks.

Airtrans lost $8 million for LTV during the airport's first six months,
forcing the company to dissolve the division that created the train, LTV
Aerospace Corp.

LTV said it took the action because Airtrans' widely publicized troubles had
made it "obvious ... there are not going to be very many transit contracts
soon."

American Airlines Inc. built a second train system in the early 1990s that
links Terminals A, B and C inside the security checkpoints. It carries about
22,000 people daily.

The new SkyLink inter-terminal train, which also will run inside security,
is under construction and expected to open in April 2005.

With a top speed of 35 mph, the longest trip between stations on the new
system will take nine minutes. The system will go around all of the
airport's terminals.

SkyLink will have two tracks that will allow cars to run in both directions.

With the existing train, travelers who need to go from Terminals A to C must
circle around Terminal B first.

The van-based system - called Terminal Link - will be able to take
passengers directly from one terminal to another without stops at other
terminals in between. The 15-vehicle fleet is set to begin service in
November.

Airport officials hope the vans also will boost parking revenue. Travelers
who park in Terminal parking - the airport's most profitable lots at $16 a
day - run the risk of returning to D/FW at a different terminal and having
to take a long train ride back.

"A lot of people have shifted to the [less expensive]Express lots or
off-property lots because you never know what terminal you're coming back
to," Mr. Treanor said.


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