A Realistic Future for the Rail Runner

By Patrick Martin, Strong Towns ABQ Member, BikeABQ President

With New Mexico undertaking the first update to its State Rail Plan in over a decade, I previously gave significant attention to what new passenger service in the state could—and should—look like. That focus does leave one significant area unexamined, however: our beloved existing commuter rail service, the Rail Runner.

Unlike the State Rail Plan, long-range planning for the Rail Runner has been updated more frequently, including a Double Track Study in 2022 and annual updates to the six-year Capital plan. We have seen significant improvements in Rail Runner service in recent years: increasing the speed through Albuquerque from 20 mph to 50 mph, as well as the completion of various sidings last year. These capital improvements have resulted in real service enhancements: the additional weekday and Sunday roundtrip added in 2023, Friday late night train last year, and limited-time service increases during the legislative session, International Folk Art Market, and the Santa Fe Summer Concert Series. Rio Metro’s focus now appears to be on the train maintenance side, working towards the completion of their new Operations and Maintenance Facility.

That is all to say that Rio Metro has done a respectable job steadily increasing the usefulness of the Rail Runner service, and so to be helpful I’d like to give some more specific recommendations than “run more service faster”. Namely first: what can be done within the existing Rail Runner service paradigm and with the existing rolling stock; and second: what could be done with substantial changes to the service or the rolling stock.

Short-/Mid-Term Improvements

This past summer, the Rail Runner partnered with the Santa Fe Opera to run a post-show return train to Albuquerque. Because this train was not part of regular service, it only stopped at Sandia Pueblo, Montano, and Downtown Albuquerque, giving a perfect real-work example of what would be possible with expanded super-express trains. That night, the Rail Runner completed the Santa Fe Depot to Downtown Albuquerque route in 1:09, when it typically takes 1:32. Currently the Rail Runner offers only a mild express option (one train each direction that skips only four stops); I’d like to make the case here for more ambitious express service.

In 2024, the State Legislative Finance Committee published a Cost Effectiveness analysis of Rail Runner operations, in which they modeled the effects of decreased travel times on ridership as well as what the current ridership of each of the Rail Runner stations is. Put simply, every 1% decrease in travel time is modeled as inducing a 1% increase in ridership. Express service then offers a tradeoff: faster service and hence increased ridership for those who use the express stations, but reduced ridership from the stations that are skipped. A simple estimate shows a sweet spot of 1-3 stops (Downtown Bernalillo, Sandia Pueblo, and Kewa Pueblo, in increasing ridership order) as balancing those tradeoffs:

By themselves, it is not an incredibly enticing argument to rejigger the Rail Runner’s schedule for such minimal projected changes in ridership. But it’s important to recognize that decreased travel time also helps enable increased service. In fact, using limited- and super-express trains, the Rail Runner could operate an additional roundtrip with nearly the same total weekday active time.

While the simple calculation would imply this having only 4% higher ridership than the existing schedule, the additional daily trip induces ridership gains across the entire schedule, as increased frequency results in decreased waiting times for travellers in both directions. 

Now, this opportunity primarily expects that service on the Rail Runner is limited by available time on tracks; if the limitation is more in terms of train-miles (as the focus on the new maintenance facility might imply), this schedule may be less feasible. However, the express-focused schedule does result in fewer accelerations (70 per direction per day, vs 86 currently), which may mitigate the strain on mechanical parts.

The second short-term enhancement to the Rail Runner I’d like to see actually has little to do with the rails themselves: there should be a docked bikeshare system in Santa Fe anchored around the Rail Runner. While the Rail Runner is situated mildly conveniently to the Plaza and Capitol, other attractions like Meow Wolf, the International Museum of Folk Art, and more residential areas are not within convenient walking distance of a Rail Runner station. With the large bulk of Santa Fe being within 6 miles of a Rail Runner station, shared bicycles are a logical choice to enable travellers to Santa Fe to reach their final destination, as well as carry Santa Feans to the Rail Runner (or the extensive regional bus system run by the North Central RTD). Docked bikeshare systems ensure that bicycles are in predictable locations so that travellers can count on their usage throughout their trip, and mitigates the “littering” complaint that is often levied against dockless systems. 

Many other municipalities operate docked bikeshares around their commuter rail systems, with several operated by the train or transit department itself: like Brightline in West Palm Beach, FL; Metro Bikeshare in Los Angeles, CA; or Caltrain Bikes in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. The operation and funding arrangement of a Santa Fe bikeshare would be a negotiation between the various relevant stakeholders, but its existence would be a substantial augmentation to the Rail Runner’s service area, let alone the benefits for Santa Fe itself.

Finally, I would like to see the Rail Runner should work to increase the track speeds between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. While speeds greater than 110 mph would likely be cost prohibitive to install due to FRA requirements around level crossings, an increase to 110 mph—or 90 mph in the meantime (especially if the bilevels cannot be run at higher speeds)—is a valuable goal for the service. The increased track speeds play well with the expanded express service mentioned above: the more often the Rail Runner has to stop the less useful increasing the top speed is. This recommendation is a fairly low priority, though, as increased investments in frequency and cheaper methods of reducing travel times (the above express service, and electrification below) should come first.

Longer Term Improvements

The primary long-term improvement to the Rail Runner is without a doubt electrification via overhead catenary. In many contexts, electrification is valued because of its environmental benefits, and while that remains true for rail transportation, electrification results in real service quality improvements as well. Electric locomotives offer much greater tractive power and stronger deceleration, as well as reduced weight, enabling substantial time savings when approaching and departing from stops; Caltrain’s recent comparison video displays this difference well. I would expect electrification to save about a minute of travel time from each stop—substantial on a route with about 10 stations—and even more if track speeds can be increased above 80 mph.

I would also like to really emphasize the importance of that service quality improvement when discussing electrification. Battery and hydrogen trains have been discussed in other contexts, and while they do offer environmental improvements over diesel-electric trains, you simply are not going to be able to get the power output you can by not bringing the power plant with you.

Electrification would necessarily involve new rolling stock; while switching to electric locomotives would likely be the best option—there are plenty of peer operators to learn from and emulate—I would like to see electrical multiple unit (EMU) trainsets investigated. EMUs theoretically work well in commuter settings due to lower weight and better traction, especially if any of our peer operators find success in using them. In either case, the existing Rail Runner locomotives are reaching their end of life, so we should work towards electrification of the Rail Runner line soon so that the next generation of Rail Runner can be electric.