Passenger Trains > Whatever became of Santa Clara VTA's original LRV cars?

Whatever became of the original UTDC cars used by VTA? Stored, scrapped, sold to another system elsewhere in the world?

I've been a regular visitor to San Jose, CA at least once each year since 2005, and have only seen the boxier, uglier Kinki-Sharyo cars operating.

Here's a few pics from the NYC Subway site for comparison.

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?52707

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?40802

Rich

I saw a bunch of them parked up in Sacramento for use on their light rail line. I think they bought several (they were still in VTA colors).

Half to Sacramento (not sure if/how many may have gone into service yet), and half to Salt Lake City, which is using them.

The ones in Sacramento have not yet been placed into service.
They probably will be used when rush-hour express service is added to the Gold Line from Folsom.

These were taken from the California Zephyr March 02 2008. I didn't see any out on the line when I was there the week before.

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sactobob Wrote:
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> The ones in Sacramento have not yet been placed
> into service.
> They probably will be used when rush-hour express
> service is added to the Gold Line from Folsom.


When is that service expected to begin? And I hope they put more comfortable seats in those LRV's--when I rode them, it was like sitting on a flat, hard wooden bench. Ouch!

It looks as if not much has changed since I took this photo of VTA cars in Sacramento from the window of the Zephyr almost three years earlier on 6 March 2005.

tq-07fan Wrote:
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> These were taken from the California Zephyr March
> 02 2008.

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29 of the 50 Urban Transportation Development Corp. (UTDC) cars were sublet to the Utah Transit Authority(UTA). Some of them have been rehabbed and are in service. The remaining 21 were sublet to the Sacramento Regional Transit District (RT) and will be rehabbed for use on the South Line extension as well as additional service on the Folsom and Northeast Lines.

The odd numbers are due to the way the cars were originally financed through a sale/leaseback process.

meh Wrote:
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> It looks as if not much has changed since I took
> this photo of VTA cars in Sacramento from the
> window of the Zephyr almost three years earlier on
> 6 March 2005.
>
> tq-07fan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > These were taken from the California Zephyr
> March
> > 02 2008.

What's also amazing is that Sacramento has left the pantographs up for at least three years. I liked Sacramento because they had several different high floor light rail cars, part of them they got used. It's a throwback to streetcars days.

Another "throwback" on the Sacramento RT Metro cars is the lettering style of the "road numbers"--same font as the Pacific Electric used. Also, the last few miles to Folsom look quite "interurbanly".

In this day of astronomical costs of light rail construction and just as astronimical cost of equipment acquisition, the fact that neither VTA or RT really have that much light rail ridership begs the question: Why did VTA replace these cars anyway?

Yes, yes, I know that riderhsip is far higher on both systems than was forecast during planning and construction, but neither system is old enough to be retiring or replacing equipment that was purchased new only a few years ago.

And from my own experience in the light rail planning process, I know that ridership projections are almost always conservative. The result is that the transit systems can brag that "ridership has exceeded expectations," when in reality ridership still does not always justify the cost of building the system in the first place.

This is the sort of bad planning and bad spending that makes it difficult for other cities to get approval for rail initiatives of their own.

timecruncher

Sacramento's VTA cars will not be used on the F line. They cannot enter the Historic Folsom Station due to clearance problems with the outbound E/H ramp. The curve it too tight and the out-swing of the VTA cars foul the ramp. There have been two runs of VTA cars out to Folsom before revenue service started, but probably won't see revenue service anytime soon out there. S, N and A line service are very possible, and there has been some time allocations given to start the rebuild process and the shops have been extended to accept the VTA cars.

Two side notes about these cars. Signal testing was done with these cars on the south line as there were not enough CAF and Siemens/Duewag cars on property yet as the CAF cars were still being delivered. Also, back around 1989-1990, Sacramento was talking very seriously about leasing some of these cars to help with rush hour service. RT only had enough cars for three car trains (with one 4-car train that ran on the N line). Voltages and clearances were all checked (it was discovered that there was 920 real volts in the downtown area). It was

There is one car that is half painted as car 314 with smaller blue and gold stripes, but it is not a final paint scheme in any way as colors have changes twice since this was done. The Railroad Roman numbers were the result of Cam Beach. It was his decision to use railroad numbers instead of the standard Arial-type fonts used by most systems.

timecruncher Wrote:
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> In this day of astronomical costs of light rail
> construction and just as astronimical cost of
> equipment acquisition, the fact that neither VTA
> or RT really have that much light rail ridership
> begs the question: Why did VTA replace these cars
> anyway?

RT runs four-car trains at 15 minute intervals with standing loads during the rush hour. I would call that quite impressive ridership. That is why planning is underway to add rush hour trains to the Folsom line.

VTA replaced their cars in order to go to low-floor operation. The wayside wheelchair lifts were very slow and cumbersome to operate. Stopping for one wheelchair could cause a five minute delay.

> Yes, yes, I know that riderhsip is far higher on
> both systems than was forecast during planning and
> construction, but neither system is old enough to
> be retiring or replacing equipment that was
> purchased new only a few years ago.

RT is not retiring or replacing any equipment. The VTA cars were acquired to enlarge the fleet.
>
> And from my own experience in the light rail
> planning process, I know that ridership
> projections are almost always conservative. The
> result is that the transit systems can brag that
> "ridership has exceeded expectations," when in
> reality ridership still does not always justify
> the cost of building the system in the first
> place.
>
> This is the sort of bad planning and bad spending
> that makes it difficult for other cities to get
> approval for rail initiatives of their own.
>
> timecruncher