TLDR: Don't say "Compliant" when you mean "Accessible". Spell it anyway you please.

Portnoy has a 1901 railroad flat with 3 apartments. They have no hope of a wheelchair ever rolling up there. Portnoy's COMPLIANT with ADA. He is 'grandfathered'.

Because the law allows the residential flats to be non-ACCESSIBLE. So Portnoy complies with the law.

The difference matters as you'll see.

Suppose Portnoy morally decides to make the apartments accessible. Well, the rest of the place does not fully comply with the dozens of fit-and-finish details absolutely required by ADA on new construction or remodel. Unfortunately, he's doing it as part of other work, and his budget is fairly high, and it's high enough to qualify as a "remodel" under ADA.

By making it accessible, he became non-compliant!

Now, what would happen if somebody loaned your tourist line a wheelchair car for a season? And then took it back.

What if you have a wheelchair lift, but it breaks?

If your train has a wheelchair lift... and your speeders or railbus or PCC car do not... does that mean you can't use those other ones anymore?

You better ask someone who knows!

But for starters, PLEASE, beg on my knees please, stop saying "ADA compliant" when you mean "wheelchair accessible".

They are totally different things.

P.S. JR sorry, I'm not meaning to pick on you personally... everybody does this.

Edit: To make a better example. JR called out problems with the original (about a caboose turned into residence).

Rob:
Not to get into a pissing match, but I have had some experience in this area. The State of NJ took issue with using a piece of railroad equipment in a stationary application as display space. Since it was not being used for its original intended purpose (the key issue), it had to comply with what every you want to call it (I really don’t care at this point). That meant changing the doors on the car which killed the projct.

Geez, I’ll tell you. Why bother with RyPN at all any more? It is simply not worth the grief.

J.R.

Makes perfect sense given the underlying doctrines of ADA.

ADA construction rules don't apply to railroad cars -> "The car stopped being a railroad car and became a building"

ADA should not be burdensome to property owners therefore old work is grandfathered, and only required on remodel when it can be folded into the cost of other work -> "This is an adaptation hence remodel".

In the case of Victoria's Station restaurants, trolley diner etc., then yeah I would agree with the above reasoning. If the car is still a functional car, maybe not.

But it just goes to show that the devil is in the details. If you had taken that same railcar, restored it immaculately, spotted it somewhere it could come out of again, and put some displays in it, then the restoration would not count toward "remodeling", and the car would stay a railcar and remain exempt. Michigan Artrain.



Sorry man, it was totally not my intent to give you any grief, and I'm sorry I made you feel that way.

Working in the construction industry, this is an ongoing issue. I believe most people want to try to do the right thing as far as accommodating everyone, but are scared of the potential for litigation.

I've had to chip out concrete floors to move a water closet 1/2". Apparently being 17-1/2 away from the wall prohibits anyone from using it, while at 18" you can. Oh yeah, the reason it was 1/2" too close was another inspector required an additional 1/2" layer of drywall on the wall for a fire barrier.

Now what gets interesting is certain states (and I live in Florida, where, according to an old market slogan"the rules are different here") has an "Accessibility Code" that is different than the Federal ADA requirements.

Key issue is to check with your local AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction). Since we are all getting Permits to do any work (Right??) this goes a long way to avoiding problems down the road.