Duke hospital trams make last runs

The Personal Rapid Transit system has provided many 175-second trips

DURHAM -- On Oct. 15, most Duke Medicine employees will say goodbye to a convenience. Jimmy Mathews and Gary Burke will bid adieu to an old friend.

As young electricians with Duke back in the late 1970s, Mathews and Burke spent 18 months at an Otis Transportation Technology plant in Denver and returned to campus to install the Personal Rapid Transit system, a series of trams that carries doctors, patients and visitors from Duke's hospital -- known as Duke North -- to Duke Medicine's outpatient clinics -- known as Duke South.

The transit system debuted in 1980 under the pair's watchful eyes. Burke is a PRT specialist; Mathews is the supervisor.

The trams' days are numbered. Duke is shutting the service down to make way for a new medical facility, though one leg, which carries visitors from the hospital lobby under Erwin Road to an adjacent parking garage, will remain.

The tram system has been Mathews' life for three decades. When he describes how the system works -- by electric current and a magnetic field he likens to a "magic carpet ride," his voice swells with the sort of pride usually reserved for a proud parent on a child's graduation day. He expects a bit of melancholy to set in next month, because he and Burke have seen the system through from cradle to grave.

"This has been a lot of fun," Mathews said. "This system was the challenge of my life."

Added Burke: "It's our baby. We started from the ground up. We did not know what in the world we were getting into."

For most, the PRT is unremarkable. It has two parallel tracks bringing people from Duke South to Duke North, and on to the parking garage. Each of the three identical units have that 1970s feel; small, boxy mini-subway cars with two brown seats, an orange ledge, and plenty of handrails. Officially, 32 people can fit in each, though that would make for a cozy ride. Each vehicle can accommodate two patient beds or four wheelchairs.

They make the quarter-mile trip from Duke North to Duke South in about 175 seconds. The ride starts in the darkness and breaks into the outdoors briefly before docking again inside each terminal.

There's no snack car on this train.

To Mathews and Burke, there is beauty in the tram's technology, which they say remains on the cutting edge even as the system is being phased out. The goal was a smooth ride. Since the trams would transport patients, they couldn't bump and sway like a subway car. When the doors close, the unit rises three-eighths of an inch on a cushion of air and is propelled down the track by an electric current that creates a magnetic field. Mathews likens it to two positive-charged magnets that push apart when thrust together. The force of the magnets pushing apart propels the unit.

"It's a wonderful system," Burke said.

A covered walkway that follows roughly the same route between the Duke's north and south facilities will remain open and will likely be more heavily traveled, as Duke Medicine is encouraging employees to walk once the tram is gone.

But there will be other ways around as well. Patients will be transported via ambulance. Shuttles will whisk people from one facility to the other, and electric cars similar to golf carts also will be used.

The tram's impending demise already has frequent riders fretting.

Dan Bohnaker rides it about five times each day, bopping in and out of the various clinics and other hospital facilities in his role as a clinical engineer who repairs ultrasound equipment.

"Since I heard they were shutting it down, I've been weaning myself off of it," he said. "It's by no means [fancy], but it serves its purpose."