Current Los Angeles Electric Railway Transit Vehicles!
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Los Angeles, long considered the car capital of the United States has slowly amassed quite a few electric railway vehicles and has more on order. With a major effort begun in 1990, the city now has 104 Subway cars running on two lines and 172 light rail vehicles from three different manufacturers running on four different lines. For details click here.

While the last electric cars to run in Los Angeles in 1963 are resting comfortably at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA., twenty seven years later (1990), the first of 54 Nippon-Sharyo, model P865, articulated Light Rail Vehicles would begin operating on the Blue Line. The Blue line is mostly an reincarnated version of the old Pacific Electric Long Beach line. It was found very quickly that these 87 ft long vehicles would not be sufficient for the Blue Line so while the stations were being lengthened for three-car trains, 15 more vehicles, designated as model P2020, would be acquired and used to open the Green Line in 1995. Shown below are one of those 15 cars, which despite the different model number, are identical to the first 54 vehicles, the major difference being that they were five years newer.

The Green Line opened in August 1995, initially with the Nippon Sharyo cars. Eventually the next group of light rail vehicles, built by Siemens, model P2000, arrived. The Green Line runs east-west from Norwalk to Redondo Beach, mostly in the center of the Interstate 105 freeway. About half of these 53 cars would eventually be assigned to the Green Line, which is the only light rail line that is totally grade separated. In 2001, two of the Nippon Sharyo cars were painted in Pacific Electric livery to celebrate the 40 year anniversary of the death of the Pacific Electric and the Long Beach Line. Shown in the next two photos are cars 109 and 148, respectively.

Authentic Pacific Electric air whistles were installed on both cars for the duration of the paint scheme.

In the next photo is Siemens car 214 at the Marine/Redondo Beach Station of the Green Line.

The remaining half of the Siemens cars would open the Gold Line on July 26, 2003. This line would run from Union station in Los Angeles to Pasadena until extended from Union Station to East Los Angeles in November 2009. When the eastside extension was opened, the Ansaldo Breda cars were used as they were delivered to augment the Siemens cars. One of them, model P2550, is shown at the east terminal, Atlantic Boulevard. At the current time, only two-car trains are used on the Gold Line.

By the time all 50 of the Breda P2550 Light Rail Vehicles were delivered, it was almost time to open the first phase of the Exposition Line, which is currently operated as a part of the Blue Line. The line opened in April 2012, phase one only.

All the Siemens cars formerly on the Gold Line were transferred to District 11 to serve both the Blue and Exposition Lines and augment the 69 Nippon Sharyo cars. The Expo Line will have its own maintenance facility just east of Santa Monica when Phase 2 is completed. Some of the Siemens cars are the only Los Angeles cars to have operated on all four light rail lines of the LACMTA (Blue, Green, Gold and Expo). As of this date about 95 light rail vehicles serve the Blue & Expo lines. Eventually, the Expo Line will reach Santa Monica and this is scheduled for 2015.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has just ordered 235 light rail vehicles from Nippon Sharyo to be delivered in 2014. They have been designated model P3010 This order makes complete sense since of the three manufacturers of cars, the first ones from Nippon Sharyo seems to have been the best ones. But these 69 cars have been run hard since 1990 and they need to be replaced. They are scheduled to be delivered in groups of 78, 28, 39, 21 and 69. Of the first 78, 63 will go to the Blue and Expo lines for both Phase 1 and Phase 2. The remainder will be used on the Crenshaw Line (click here for map) and the second Gold Line extension. As they arrive in sufficient numbers, the current plan is to retire the Nippon Sharyo P865 (1990) vehicles.
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