BOSTON, MA. - According to a Progressive Railroading report on March 21, 2017, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in mid-March 2017 released a request for proposal (RFP) to three design-build teams selected to be considered for the Green Line light-rail extension project.
One of Boston's (MBTA) 95 AnsaldoBreda Type 8 low floor vehicles in the Subway portion of their Green Line!
One of Boston's (MBTA) 120 KinkiSharyo Type 7/7.5 low floor vehicles on The Boston College or "B"line!
The draft RFP includes an "affordability limit" of $1.3 billion and outlines the base scope of work, MBTA officials said in a press release. The request also details "additive options" if the firms can complete them within the project schedule and budget. Those options include platform canopies, additional elevators at certain stations, public art and an enhanced vehicle maintenance facility in Somerville, MA.
Price proposals for the completing design-build firms are due in September. A final RFP will be issued in May after the MBTA receives feedback from the firms on the draft request.
The estimated cost to build the extension is $2.3 billion. The project involves extending the MBTA's Green Line into Somerville and Medford, Mass.
During February, the MBTA picked the three firms to compete for the project. The three teams are:
• GLX Constructors (Fluor Enterprises Inc., The Middlesex Corp., Herzog Contracting Corp., and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc.);
• Green Line Partners (The Lane Construction Corp., Salini Impregilo S.p.A., Judlau Contracting Inc., and the LMH-C.M.C di Ravenna joint venture); and
• Walsh Barletta Granite JV (Walsh Construction Co. II LLC, Barletta Heavy Division Inc., and Granite Construction Inc.).
The Boston MBTA currently operates three types of Light Rail Vehicles:
• Type 7 vehicles, fabricated by KinkiSharyo in 1986-1988, series 3600-3699;
• Type 7 vehicles, sometimes called Type 7.5, fabricated by KinkiSharyo in 1997, series 3700-3719; and
• Type 8 vehicles, fabricated by AnsaldoBreda between 1998-2007, series 3800-3894.
MBTA Boeing USSLRV on the Cleveland Circle or "C' line in 2005 near the end of its service!
The original Light Rail Vehicles in Boston that replaced the PCC cars were the Boeing United States Standard Light Rail Vehicles (USSLRV) shown above which were almost universally accepted as a less than optimum vehicle. 275 of these vehicles were built for Boston and San Francisco. They operated from 1976 to 2007.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Charlotte, Area Transit System (CATS) has pushed the opening date if the LYNX Blue line Light Rail Extension to March 31, 2018. The Extension was initially slated to open in August of this year. According to a report from Progressive Railroading on March 2nd, the delay is due to construction coordination challenges, remaining testing of system integration and signalization, and safety reviews, as reported by CATS officials in a press release.
The project remains under budget, and any costs incurred due to the new schedule won't increase the original $12.6 billion budget, according to the agency. Further, CATS pledged to work with contractors to find ways to open the extension earlier than March 2018. Under the project's Full Funding Grant Agreement with the Federal Transit Administration, the line must open in March 2018. CATS leaders have pursued "every available option of schedule compression" to deliver the project by August 2017, agency officials said. Ninety-one percent of construction for the project has already been completed.
The 9.3 mile Blue Line extension will run from 7th Street in Charlotte's Center City to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte campus.
CHICAGO, IL - China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC) Sifang America will break ground Thursday on a $100 million rail-car manufacturing facility in southeast Chicago, the company announced on March 14th as reported by Progressive Railroading. The assembly plant will be the first of its kind to be built in Chicago in 35 years, according to a CRRC press release. Slated for completion in 2018, the plant will employ 170 skilled workers to assemble new 7000-series rail cars for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
Artists Rendering of new 7000 series CTA cars to be built by CRRC in new Chicago Facility!
The units will be the latest generation of CTA cars. In March 2016, CTA's board awarded a $1.3 billion contract to the company to build more than 840 rail cars. As part of its proposal, CRRC committed to build the rail cars in Chicago and engage in "innovative workforce development partnerships" to train residents for jobs in the new plant, according to the release. The facility will produce the 7000-series cars over 10 years. Headquartered in Beijing, People's Republic of China, CRRC Corporation Limited has 46 wholly-owned subsidiaries and majority-owned subsidiaries and over 180,000 employees with revenues of 27.8 billion USD in 2015.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL - Brightline, a new private passenger-rail service in Southern Florida, will begin introductory express service between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale in late July, followed by service to Miami in late August, the company announced late last week.
Brightline's BrightPink first train, shown in Indio, CA, during its 3,000 mile initial trip
from Siemens, Sacramento, CA to West Palm Beach, FL.
Company officials anticipate hosting a grand-opening ceremony and official launch of the train service in September, according to a Brightline press release. Additionally, Brightline officials will welcome "BrightPink," the second of five custom-built train sets manufactured by Siemens at its plant in Sacramento, California. The rail service's 60,000-square-foot stations in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale are nearing completion, while the Miami Central station that includes elevated track is expected to be ready for the introductory Miami train service. Rail infrastructure improvements on the corridor between West Palm Beach are 80 percent completed.
The ticket prices, frequent rider passes and Brightline's new mobile application will be announced closer to the service launch, officials said.
Brightline's second phase will extend train service to Orlando. The company is finalizing permitting and will have a better of idea of timing for that route after the introductory service begins this summer, they said.
LOS ANGELES (Palmdale), CA - KinkiSharyo employees rolled out a milestone rail car early in the morning on March 21st Palmdale. This is the 78th one produced by workers in Palmdale. The shells were made in Japan where the company is headquartered but everything else was done here in the Antelope Valley.
Soon-To-Be Metro cars 1079 (left) and 1078 (right) at Palmdale on March 21, 2017!
"We assembled it, tested it, done all the inspections on it. It's now ready for delivery to Metro," said Steve Huckabay, senior manager, KinkiSharyo. Huckabay says workers do all the testing and fabrication. They also install the seats, doors and windows. But starting with the next rail car — the 79th one — it will be built entirely in Palmdale. "What this means for KinkiSharyo and the employees here is a strong workforce, a trained workforce and we're no longer building the car shells in Japan. They're all manufactured from the ground up here in Palm dale,” said Huckaby. A process that can take 10 to 12 weeks. Metro initially purchased 78 light rail vehicles and then opted to buy 157 more which requires KinkiSharyo to expand its Palmdale facility to manufacture them.
Sources tell us that now that the 78th KinkiSharyo vehicle has been delivered, some of the oldest Light Rail Vehicles in Los Angeles, (the NipponSharyo 1989-1990 P865 vehicles that opened the Blue Line to Long Beach in 1990) are going to be slated for retirement with car 105 being the first to enter that category. It will be a source of spare parts for awhile but space considerations will force LACMTA to remove it from the active rails eventually. It is expected that about one car will enter this category each month. Most of them will be cars due major service and that have not been overhauled and are still in the white with gold stripes paint scheme shown in the next photo.
P865 car 121 with two others in 2012 on the Expo Line when the western terminal was La Cienega Blvd.
(Note TransTech pantograph on car 121!)
MIAMI, FL - During the week of March 26-31, Hitachi Rail Italy delivered the first of 68 trains to Miami-Dade Transit (MDT), as reported by Progressive Railroading.
The two-car train, consisting of a married pair with cabs only on the ends, left the company's Medley, Fla., plant to reach the agency's Lehman Center on March 27, Hitachi officials said in a press release.
Before it left the Medley plant, the train went through a series of tests, including the verification of proper assembly and functionality of subsystems. Hitachi also tested the train's heating, ventilation and air conditioning, lighting, and propulsion.
Following the first phase of operator training, the company will initiate a dynamic test phase with the train running first on test track and then on the main line during night shifts and weekends.
That phase of testing will demonstrate the train's performance running and braking at maximum speed and in different weight conditions.
The second and third coupled trains are undergoing pre-qualification tests at the Medley plant. They're expected to arrive at the Lehman Center between June and July to complete dynamic testing.
The 68-train order is worth about $300 million. See photo of new car, below right!
 Current 1982-1986 Budd-built MDT Metrorail Car!
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 New Hitachi MDT Metrorail Car!
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For those of you unfamilar with this system, MDT Metrorail currently uses 136 heavy-rail (68 married pairs) cars built by the Budd Company under the name "Transit America" (see photo above left). They were identical to those used on the Baltimore Metro Subway (until modifications were made to Baltimore's cars during their refurbishment in 2005). The two systems were built at the same time, and the two agencies were able to save money by sharing a single order. The Batimore-Miami order was among the last orders Budd filled before shuttering its railcar manufacturing business. These cars were manufactured in Budd's Red Lion plant in Northeast Philadelphia in 1983. The cars are 75 feet (23 m) long, 10 feet (3.0 m) wide and have a top design speed of over 70 mph (110 km/h). They are semi-permanently attached in married pairs, and joined up to form 4-car trains, which is the normal train length. Each car can hold up to 166 passengers (76 seated, 90 standing), and draw power from an electric 700 volt third rail.
Miami-Dade County Government was working with the Citizens Independent Transportation Trust (CITT) to receive money from the half-penny surtax approved by voters in 2002 in order to purchase new Metrorail cars. MDT had originally planned to refurbish the existing Metrorail cars with the money instead of replacing them as promised. However, it was found that the fleet had never been maintained properly, and in 2008, a cost-benefit analysis found that, based on the current fleet's condition, a refurbishment would cost just as much as it would to buy new cars, if not more so.
So in 2009, Miami-Dade issued an RFP for new cars to replace their existing fleet, at a cost no greater than $2.419 million per car. Proposals from three railcar manufacturers were reviewed, with only two of which meeting the price requirements, these being from Italy-based AnsaldoBreda and Elmira Heights, New York-based CAF USA, an American branch of the Spain-based Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles. In November 2012, MDT approved a $313 million purchase of 136 new Metrorail cars from the company. But by the time the custom rail-car building facility in Medley was completed in early 2016, AnsaldoBreda had been purchased by Hitachi Rail and the full rollout was delayed to 2017.
PHILADELPHIA, PA - The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in mid-March 2017 approved a $137 million contract with CRRC MA Corp. for 45 multilevel commuter-rail coaches. The contract includes an option to buy 10 additional coaches, according to a SEPTA press release. CRRC MA Corp. is a subsidiary of China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC). The new units will be built primarily at the company's main U.S. manufacturing plant in Springfield, Mass. These coaches will also meet "Buy America" requirements, with 60 percent or more of the parts, labor and fabrication originating in the United States, according to SEPTA. The units will be paired with SEPTA's new electric locomotives, which are being built by Siemens. The agency evaluated proposals from CRRC, Bombardier and Hyundai Rotem; CRRC's bid was the lowest of the three.
Bi-level commuter coach built by Bombardier for NJ Transit!
(Models cuurently available from Atlas Model Railroad Co in HO scale!)
The fleet upgrades play a key role in advancing SEPTA's Regional Rail service improvement program, said SEPTA General Manager Jeffrey Knueppel. "SEPTA's Regional Rail ridership has grown by more than 50 percent over the last 15 years," Knueppel said. "The addition of new multilevel coaches and electric locomotives are critical for expanding capacity and meeting the needs of our riders." CRRC also is building rail cars for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Chicago Transit Authority and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (see earlier article).
WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Donald Trump's proposed federal budget blueprint would cut the U.S. Department of Transportation's budget by $2.4 billion, or 13 percent, to $16.2 billion, according to the document.
Regarding rail, the budget calls for terminating federal support for Amtrak's long-distance service; eliminating the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grant program; and limiting funding for the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Program (New Starts) to projects with existing full funding grant agreements only.
The budget request streamlines the department to focus on "vital federal safety oversight functions and investing in nationally and regionally significant transportation infrastructure projects," the document states.
"The budget reduces or eliminates programs that are either inefficient, duplicative of other federal efforts, or that involve activities that are better delivered by states, localities or the private sector," it says.
For Amtrak, the budget would restructure and reduce federal subsidies to the national intercity passenger railroad to focus on services within regions. It eliminates federal support for long-distance Amtrak services, "which long have been inefficient and incur the vast majority of Amtrak's operating losses," according to the document. "This would allow Amtrak to focus on better managing its state-supported and Northeast Corridor train services," it states.
Amtrak's 15 long-distance trains offer the only Amtrak service in 23 of the 46 states the railroad serves. Eliminating funding for long-distance routes could impact many of the 500 communities served by Amtrak, the railroad's President and Chief Executive Officer Wick Moorman said in a prepared statement. "These trains connect our major regions, provide vital transportation to residents in rural communities and generate connecting passengers and revenue for our Northeast Corridor and state-supported services," said Moorman. "Amtrak is very focused on running efficiently — we covered 94 percent of our total network operating costs through ticket sales and other revenues in FY16 — but these services all require federal investment." Moorman said Amtrak officials look forward to ensuring that Trump, U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Congress "understand the value of Amtrak's long-distance trains and what these proposed cuts would mean to this important part of the nation's transportation system."
TEHACHAPI, CA - It was revealed by the Tehachapi News(dbaker@tehachapinews.com) on March 24 (with an update on March 26) that Linda and Ed Gordon will be closing their model train store, Trains Etc., at 114 West Tehachapi Boulvard, Tehachapi, CA 93561 on April 30, 2017. There goes another model train store!. Trolleyville decided to report this due to the suddenness of the announcement and the desire of so many railfans to go up to Tehachapi. The store will close as the end of THIS MONTH so this may be the time to do so!
So it appears another hidden gem in Tehachapi is about to leave the station for the last time as the owners say they have all but given up their search for a new owner. The Gordons say they will shutter the iconic model train store on April 30 and embrace a life of retirement.
The Gordons purchased the store in January 2006 from Doug and Sheryl Pickard, the original owners. The model train, toy and souvenir shop has been a popular stop for tourists from around the world for 18 years. Although the Gordons say they are still willing to sell their business, should a buyer step forward, the deal would not include the property where it currently operates. The building is owned by Kathy Bassler of Kelcy's Cafe, who announced last month her desire to also retire and sell the property which includes the restaurant along with two smaller store spaces located on either side currently rented out to Sheridan's Boutique and Trains Etc.
Linda said she and Ed have been trying to sell Trains Etc. for five years, but the market for model trains is not what it once was. Building model trains is not as popular of a hobby as it was in the past.
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What many consider to be a 3D form of art is not only time-consuming, but also expensive. That means the majority of customers are adults. Said Linda, "A lot of people don't want to take it over because sometimes they feel like the train industry like this is going downhill with the internet, as you can get it on the internet a lot cheaper." With the closure of Trains Etc., Ed said train buffs will have to travel to Burbank as it will be the closest full-line model train store to Tehachapi. Said Ed, "A lot of the problem is that people will come in, and they will 'showroom.' They come in, and they look at stuff, and they stand there, right in front of you, with their phone, and they look it up on the internet. If they can get in 10 cents cheaper on the internet, they walk out the door and buy it on the internet. That doesn't help any." Even though the internet has put a damper on things, Ed said the store is not losing money.
Ed told the local reporter that "This town really needs a train store, because there is the train club, and of course, the nature of Tehachapi is that it was built around the trains." Added Linda, "That's what made me so sad. It was bittersweet because where else could you get a better location for a train store, right across from The Depot and the railroad track?"
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The Gordons have been married for 54 years. Now that they are both in their 70s, they say they are itching to retire. Said Linda, "I love my customers, but it's time before it gets too late that we can't go places." The Gordons say they rarely get to spend time together. Said Ed, "If she has the day off, I have to work. If I have they day off, she has to work. So we can't do anything together." Linda said their two children and five grandchildren have been asking her and Ed to join them on trips for at least the past four years; however, the couple has not taken a vacation in the past 11. Said Linda, "They want grandma and grandpa to come down and watch their ballgames, and so forth." Sad news to everyone Local patrons say they are sad to hear the town will be losing a familiar and favorite store. "I just found out," said Susan Miller of Tehachapi. "When you lose things that are integral to what is Tehachapi, it's sad. A lot of things are shifting here, and you never know what the winds of change are bringing. We have had a lot of restaurants closing, and a lot of it is people are saying the same thing — that it's time to pack it up and go do something else. It's a shame to lose something like this."
The Gordons encourage anyone interested in purchasing the business name and stock to call them at Trains Etc. at (661) 822-7777 through the end of May until such time they vacate, or via their Facebook page.
