LA POCATIÈRE, Quebec — The door to the maintenance barn lifted and on the track sat the future of the Long Island Rail Road – two new train cars silently singing the body electric in skins of shining stainless steel, reports Newsday.
As the tandem inched forward, their flat-sided, boxcar lines revealed a gentle inward curve. “A little je ne sais quoi,” LIRR general manager Dave Elliott said. “A little style, you know?”
The new trains are not scheduled to make their first appearance on Long Island until March, when the railroad begins “qualification testing” in anticipation of taking its first deliveries in August. This week, Newsday was given a tour of the new cars, now under construction at Bombardier Transportation, the world-renowned train builder whose plant is not far from the St. Lawrence River in the French-Canadian countryside.
Known as the M-7, the trains have a bland, industrial name. But the railroad believes commuters will find the trains a delightful marriage of form and function, technological advances and style that will rescue them from the recurrent woes of the current aging fleet – and deliver the railroad, finally, into the 21st century.
“What this will allow us to do,” LIRR President Ken Bauer said, “is change the face of the Long Island Rail Road. Seventy-five percent of my fleet is at the end of its useful life. What this will do is take us from the oldest fleet in the Northeast to the newest.”
During the three-hour tour with officials from the railroad and Bombardier, a Newsday reporter was allowed to tour the assembly line, walk through a finished car and ride trains Nos. 7003 and 7004 on a two-mile test track at speeds up to 40 mph. Even with plywood flooring, no seats and 55-gallon, water-filled drums spread throughout to simulate passenger load, the ride was surprisingly quiet.
But no doubt what commuters will like most is the new interior.
That became obvious during a tour of car No. 7008 – the first completed train car in the line.
“It’s a big difference, isn’t it?” said Luc Fontaine, Bombardier director of project management, North America, smiling like a proud father.
Gone is the brown, simulated wood decor and maroon-and-blue seats of the current M-1 and M-3 fleet, which first went into service in 1968. Gone are the double doors that tend to jam.
The new cars have a larger, single-door unit similar to those on the new diesel-electric fleet. Passengers entering those doors step onto a blue, raised, non-stick floor designed to reduce slippage.
Once inside, the first notable difference is the lighting. Though No. 7008 was entombed in a concrete-walled finish area, it was bright inside, thanks to longitudinal fluorescent lighting that parallels each side of the aisle, bathing the interior in an even, white light.
The vinyl seats, dyed in blue and trimmed in teal, are high-backed and angled with built-in, padded headrests. The higher headrests make the aisles appear narrower than in the current cars. Actually, the aisles are the same width, Elliott said.
Seats are configured with two on one side of the car and three on the other. There has been a reduction in face-to-face seating, making the cars safer, Elliott said. Each pair of cars will seat 211 to 213 passengers, compared with 238 in the current fleet.
The seats have molded backs with recessed panels, allowing for greater legroom. Lumbar support and firmer cushions also make for a more comfortable seat.
“A lot of what we did in the interior came out of focus groups,” said Elliott, who noted that railroad officials hired an ergonomics specialist and then interviewed 10 different groups of riders before the cars were designed, asking them: “What bugs you? What do you want to see in the new trains?”
Elliot said: “There were very few suggestions that weren’t incorporated in these cars.”
That means larger windows, with no mullions in the individual panes to block views.
It means dark gray flooring, with blue, teal and white speckles that accent the seating and wall trims. It means a digital message board over the entrance-exit vestibule area to inform riders of station stops.
And it means a full-length, door-mounted mirror in the oversized bathroom, located in one of the two cars in each “married pair” of cars delivered. Those bathrooms are all wheelchair accessible, designed to meet all requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The technical advances are just as impressive, the railroad says. Traction motors run on AC instead of DC to reduce the threat of “flashover” – or engine failures – that have often stalled the current fleet in the snow, ice and rain of winter storms.
New shoe-beam construction figures to reduce the threat of “arcing” and shoe-beam fires that plagued the new diesel-electric fleet. (The shoe-beam units are red – not black, like the current ones – so excess dirt and grime, which causes fires, is easier to see.)
Better air-conditioning units – there are two in each car instead of one, as well as in-cab climate controls – mean train crews will no longer tell passengers: “Sorry, we can’t do anything about the temperature in here,” Elliott said.
The railroad is under contract to acquire 326 of the new electric train cars for a total of $700 million. It has options for another 372 cars.
Starting in the fall, it will receive between 16 and 20 per month, according to Elliott.
“I know I can’t wait to ride them,” said Bauer, the LIRR president, himself a daily railroad commuter. “I’ve been riding the current equipment since its infancy. I’ll be happy to see it go.”