New Baltimore Metro Subway Railcars

[realtype]

We don't talk about Baltimore's transit system much, since it's so small in comparison to DC (but actually among the largest for a metro area its size), but apparently Hitachi Ansaldo won a competition to build 78 new railcars for the Metro Subway system. Apparently, they would replace the system's 100 existing cars that were built in the 80's by Budd in Philadelphia.

https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/n ... r-new.html

Hitachi makes pretty good products so I look forward to seeing them in service. It wouldn't surprise me if they looked exactly like the new cars being built by Hitachi for Miami's Metro, which is a "twin" of Baltimore's. Both systems were built at around the same time, have identical loading gauges, and use identical rolling stock. Hitachi probably had a leg up in the bidding because of this. It's unknown who the other two bidders were, but one of them failed to even qualify.

http://italy.hitachirail.com/en/train-n ... y_539.html

[STrRedWolf]

Paywalled off, unfortunately. But nice to know it's a known vendor. We'll probably be getting the same build style, just with a different wrap on it.

[tommyboy6181]

So far, the cars for Miami that Hitachi Rail Italy are building are on time and have begun testing. But, I will say at least it's with Hitachi now running the former Breda. If it had been AnsaldoBreda on their own, things could have become very questionable in terms of delivery, quality, etc.

Heck, in Buffalo, AnsaldoBreda has taken over 10 years to rehab 27 LRV's and that project is still not complete.

[realtype]

We'll probably be getting the same build style, just with a different wrap on it.

Yeah, that's probably why they won the bid. The Miami cars do look pretty nice.

So far, the cars for Miami that Hitachi Rail Italy are building are on time and have begun testing. But, I will say at least it's with Hitachi now running the former Breda. If it had been AnsaldoBreda on their own, things could have become very questionable in terms of delivery, quality, etc.

Heck, in Buffalo, AnsaldoBreda has taken over 10 years to rehab 27 LRV's and that project is still not complete.

Apparently, the MBTA's Green Line LRV's, San Francisco's Muni LRV's, and LA''s Gold Line LRV's are pretty unreliable as well. Pretty disappointing since they make the best-looking LRV's imo.

The 2000-3000 series heavy rail cars they built for WMATA seemed to be more reliable though, although the 4000's weren't. That might have been because of the Alstom rehab more than anything though.

[tommyboy6181]

We'll probably be getting the same build style, just with a different wrap on it.

Yeah, that's probably why they won the bid. The Miami cars do look pretty nice.

So far, the cars for Miami that Hitachi Rail Italy are building are on time and have begun testing. But, I will say at least it's with Hitachi now running the former Breda. If it had been AnsaldoBreda on their own, things could have become very questionable in terms of delivery, quality, etc.

Heck, in Buffalo, AnsaldoBreda has taken over 10 years to rehab 27 LRV's and that project is still not complete.

Apparently, the MBTA's Green Line LRV's, San Francisco's Muni LRV's, and LA''s Gold Line LRV's are pretty unreliable as well. Pretty disappointing since they make the best-looking LRV's imo.

The 2000-3000 series heavy rail cars they built for WMATA seemed to be more reliable though, although the 4000's weren't. That might have been because of the Alstom rehab more than anything though.

Alstom definitely improved the 2k and 3k to where they became among the most reliable in the fleet. The interesting thing is that Alstom used mostly identical systems that the CAF 5k cars introduced yet the CAF cars always performed worse. But then it was CAF's first contract and AAI did assembly at the time. Since then, AAI was sold to Alstom.

In any case, Hitachi worldwide is known to build good quality cars. They seemed to have fixed a lot of the problems that AnsaldoBreda was having so I'm approaching it with an open mind with how they'll do in Baltimore. Since they assumed the Buffalo LRV rehab project, even though it's still not done 10 years later, Hitachi sped up the deliveries and seem to be producing a better product than the start of that project.

[STrRedWolf]

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/m ... edrightcol" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; posted a better (more accessible) article.

[tommyboy6181]

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/m ... edrightcol posted a better (more accessible) article.

Looks good and a nice evolution of the current railcar. Interesting thing is that they'll soon have a better signalling system than what their larger brother at WMATA has as part of the project.