Passenger Trains > Bi-Levels Getting Refurbished?

This morning a CN train arrived in Montreal (from Toronto) with one Go Transit bi-level and about 8 smooth-side Chicago-type bi-level cars. These cars were lettered MDTX (certainly no relation to the old MDT, I imagine), and painted aluminum with red-orange window bands (if my colors are incorrect, it was dark (7 AM) and snowy at the time). I guess they're going to be refurbished in Montreal.

Ray

Of course, a possible explanation indeed could be that these cars could be bound for Alstom's plant in Pointe Saint-Charles for refurbishing, but it was also rumored that AMT (Agence Métropolitaine de Transport) was about to lease a Metra bilevel trainset for use on the Blainville line, on which additionnal rush hours departures are expected to be added soon. AMT is very short on equipment right now. The cars you saw might be destined for AMT.

The demand is so high on this line that AMT is even considering to electrify, buy new MR90 EMUs (like the ones actually in use on the Deux-Montagnes line) and reroute the trains to Central Station through the Mont Royal tunnel (already used by the Deux-Montagnes line trains). Long term thinking indeed! Given the increase on gas price, the low costs of electric power (once the catenary is in place, that is!), the fantastic performances and reliability of the MR90, as well as the decreased travel times which would result, electrification could well be the best solution.

JF

Ray_Murphy wrote:
>
> This morning a CN train arrived in Montreal (from Toronto) with
> one Go Transit bi-level and about 8 smooth-side Chicago-type
> bi-level cars. These cars were lettered MDTX (certainly no
> relation to the old MDT, I imagine), and painted aluminum with
> red-orange window bands (if my colors are incorrect, it was
> dark (7 AM) and snowy at the time). I guess they're going to be
> refurbished in Montreal.
>

> Ray

Metra's symbol is METX, although the only equipment actually marked that way normally is Metra's M-O-W equipment. Could it be that the cars were marked METX and not MDTX?