Thank you for posting this. Believe it or not, It was within one of these cars that I fell in love with aviation and decided I had to become a pilot. March 1997, spring break family vacation. We were passing through. When the tram reached its maximum height on the track, I got a full panoramic view of DFW with its enormous variety of planes. That was the moment, at 9yrs old, I knew. Great memories.
My family would fly from Oakland, California to Pensacola, Florida, where my paternal grandmother lived, on Delta almost every summer in the '90s, and we would invariably change planes at DFW. I was always fascinated by watching these trains moving along. One year, our plane was delayed, so I talked my dad into riding the train around with me and my brother. I'm glad I got to ride those old trains.
Spent many hours riding around on these during the 1993-1995 school years. A great place to hang out when skipping school... plenty to see and plenty of restaurants to grab lunch at.
Man, this takes me back. When I was a little kid my parents took me on one of the main Airtrans lines, can't remember which one. We also rode the TRAAIN all the time after it opened, we lived in Austin so we connected at DFW. I always would ask "Dad, can we go on the train?" And he'd sigh and say "If our gate isn't within walking distance". Airtrans was totally utilitarian as far as he was concerned, but it was much more to me...it was fun. Skylink's more convenient but Airtrans stood out for its sheer size and complexity...it was larger than Austin's actual metropolitan light rail system is today.
When DFW first opened, I was in high school. We used to go to the airport late at night and ride the "Air Trans" (that's what it was called back then). It was kind of surreal, riding around an airport that was basically empty at that hour.
Thank you for posting this video, my memories of passing through DFW in the early 1990's, having to change planes (connection), have been haunted by having to use this transit mechanism. I avoided connecting through DFW for years because of it and in 2010 found myself assigned to a project in Dallas, flying in/out of DFW every week for a few years - that's the first I knew of the Skylink and have always wondered about APM's history (I still would like to learn more). I'm certain APM was much valued for many riders, and it could very well be useful today instead of buses, but as an airport passenger-people-mover connecting from/to other terminals, it was NOT a good design. For example, APM stops were announced as the location NOT as the servicing gates - if the connecting passenger was not familiar with DFW gates per APM stop, a major disadvantage occurred. And if a stop was missed, a train going back to the gate missed was NOT an option - one had to ride the circuit all over again. Moving people working at or familiar with an airport is a lot different than moving passengers to a connecting terminal and gate in the safest, fastest, and most forgiving (if you miss your stop you can go back with very little time lost) method possible. Again, APM could still be very helpful, but implementing Skylink was a much needed DFW improvement for moving passengers. And as a result (Skylink is truly very helpful), DFW has become my favorite hub for business travel.
You have no idea how long I have been looking for a video like this. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! This is a great video. You don't have one from the other side of the gate, do you? I haven't been to DFW airport since 1996, when I was in 4th grade (I'm now a college grad!) It was dark, and I think the lights in the cab were off, and I remember it twisted on the "road". I wish I could still ride this! Again, thank you SO MUCH for posting this video!
I remember these old trains. Pretty remarkable things for being built in 1974. I used to work at the airport and had to learn all three routes. By the way, the buses that replaced the trains were natural gas buses, no pollution. I know cuz I drove them. Great video, glad you were able to record this wonderful piece of history.
Would love to see what some of the original routes were. How innovative it was to take this. As an employee you could take this from the employee lot the downstairs of each terminal, never having to see the public. Sadly, after 9/11 they got rid of that and made employees take the "regular" train routes to the terminals from the parking lots. The transit geek in me wishes they had just remodeled this old system into what Skylink is today. Routes the parking lots and the rental car center is what's needed now.
Howdy.. incidentally, the original setup had five routes (red, yellow, orange, green, blue), where each extreme end's remote parking had its own loop that connected it just to the nearest one terminal (north end parking + Terminal 2W, and south end parking + Terminal 4E) .. then there were three in the middle. :)
my dad took me on it when i was little i sadly dont remmember it . its kind sad to see the few tracks and staitons just sitin there gathering dust.also thanks for posting this now i kno wat it looked like to ride it other than my dad telling me and seeing those sad leftover tracks
At one point this was super high-tech. Yes it was slow, but the system was massive and if I remember correctly it served multiple purposes. There were cars for passengers, cars for employees, and some were even used to transport garbage out of the terminals. All in all quite amazing for the time.
yes, it was a fantastic and complex system with different passenger routes, plus different services for airport staff (these had their doors on the opposite side of the train and called at different stations) and even freight trains
I wish this was still in operation. I'm sure an alternative use could be found for it. Enough people travel through DFW we need all the transit we can get.
I have seen them at KDFW all the time before. From 2001-the end. Sadly, I never got the chance to ride in them. Even more so, I haven't been able to try out KDFW's new Skylink yet.
+norman gates Thank you for filming this! I was reminiscing about my Dad who designed the guideways for the Airtrans. This video brought a smile to my face to see his handiwork on film! :)
Also, if you lifted up the bench pillow on the forward right side, there was a wired handheld control box you could pick up, and it had a speed knob , door switch, and digital speedometer on it.. the announcement voice was provided by Texas Instruments, as it's the same "guy" you'd hear on their Speak N' Spell toy. Good times.
Although I like Skylink, I sort of wish they had just done a total reconstruct of this system. Perhaps run in two directions, and get faster cars to run around the airport. I miss parking at the employee lot and taking this to work. It's kinda sad to see some of the old stations and track just collecting dust now.
They served both landside and airside, with some also dedicated to aircrew. To make this possible there were different stations and some trains ran with doors on the left and others had their doors on the right.
Had we invested in organizing cities around transport systems like this, we would not find ourselves stranded in suburbia. Better to live in the sterile conformity of a Logan's Run type world, suggested by people movers, than no world at all. A NYT Magazine article published this week called Losing Earth explains. Much data on Wikipedia about this system including a bizarre incident in which a man thought the guideway was a jogging path.
Powerful people wanted us all using cars and buying petrol... the oil industry and stock market did very well financially from private motoring. I assume you know about how National City Lines bought out most urban electric streetcar systems and replaced them with diesel buses.
Realy cool system but I don't understand why airports are always afraid of using rails. Why did they use this, sorry, ugly concrete guideways? Is there any chance the new Skylink will be extended to the old size of this system? I'm allways sad to hear of trainsystems being replaced by busses even if they are ugly like this one. ;)
