BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will spend $33 million to renovate 20 commuter coaches, returning the cars to service to provide additional capacity until new equipment arrives.
In a separate development, the MBTA’s contract commuter operator, Keolis Commuter Services, announced the temporary closure of a station for emergency repairs.
The State House News Service reports work on the out-of-service coaches will include rebuilding the trucks, improving heating and air conditioning, revamping interior lighting, and other improvements. The work, to be paid for with funds from the state’s Safety Investment and Capital Acceleration Plan, could extend the life of the cars by about seven years, an MBTA official told the agency’s Fiscal and Management Control Board at a meeting earlier this week.
Work on the cars will be split between MBTA Rochester maintenance facility and shops of commuter-rail contract operator Keolis, and will begin to be returned to service in 2020. They will help fill the commuter railroad’s equipment needs until new equipment arrives. The agency recently placed an order with Hyundai-Rotem for new cars [see “MBTA orders 80 bilevel coaches,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 30, 2019]; those cars are scheduled to begin arriving in September 2022.
Keolis announced the closure of the Newtonville Station on the Framingham/Worcester line on Tuesday afternoon, saying the closure is a safety precaution while engineers evaluate the condition of the station stairs. WBTS-TV reports a timeline for repairs and reopening the station will be announced once that evaluation is complete. In the meantime, shuttle bus service will operate between Newtonville and the West Newton MBTA station.
New cars are probably $3M or so. The problem is less one of cost then one of delivery time. The ones they have on order are not expected till late 2022 and we all know that they will be later then that.
1 1/2 million per car to rebuild and extend their lifetime a mere 7 years doesn’t sound like a very good investment. What would a new car cost that will operate for 30 years or more?