NEWARK, N.J. — The NJ Transit board of directors on Wednesday approved the purchase of 36 Multilevel III electric multiple-unit railcars from Alstom Transportation, increasing to 174 the number of the new railcars ordered since 2018.
The order is part of an option of an existing contract with Alstom, at a cost not to exceed $170 million plus 5% for contingencies, subject to the availability of funds. The new order joins a group of 138 Multilevel III cars already in production — 113 ordered from Bombardier Transit Corp, now part of Alstom, in 2018, and 25 more ordered in 2022. The first of those cars is scheduled to arrive in New Jersey to begin testing later this year.
“These new cars will substantially reduce the overall age of the rail fleet,” NJ Transit CEO Kevin S. Corbett said in a press release, “improving reliability, capacity, and customer comfort.”
The new cars, which will replace Arrow III cars manufactured more than 40 years ago, will have a top speed of 110 mph, and will feature amenities such as USB charging ports and onboard information displays.
What a sorry state passenger and transit rail car procurement is. Ordered cars in 2018. Ordered additional cars in 2022. Now ordering more cars in 2024.
Still haven’t received first car from first order yet. Maybe later this year they’ll get one for testing (which will take a minimum of a year to accept if NO bugs detected). That will be a minimum of 7 years to get a replacement car into service. When they receive the last car from these orders, they better place orders to replace the replacement cars. By then it will take 15 or 20 years to get them.
Scratching my head. If it takes this long to acquire new rolling stock NOW, how did BUDD, PULLMAN STANDARD, and others produce all those thousands of passenger and transit cars in short order after World War 2.
The world was different then and people wanted to work and took pride in their jobs. Now most companies are lucky to be at full staff and employees love to goof off on their phones or other ways.
As I understand it, they are ordered in sets of three, one powered and two trailers, none with cabs. They then combine with existing bi-level cab cars and trailers, to greatly increase train length and thereby overall capacity. If this is not correct, please jump in!