(Bloomberg News circulated the following article by Chris Dolmetsch on November 14.)
NEW YORK — Metro-North Railroad, which carries commuters between Manhattan and the northern suburbs, may consider buying double-decker and self-propelled rail cars to ease congestion, the agency’s president said today.
Metro-North has been working to replace aging units of its 1,000-car fleet, some of which are more than 30 years old, as higher gas prices and crowded highways increase ridership. The railroad had a record 74.5 million passengers in 2005.
The agency will consider double-decker trains or self- propelled cars — also called diesel multiple units, or DMUs — in its next equipment purchase, Metro-North President Peter Cannito said. The railroad is part of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which also operates the Long Island Rail Road and New York City Transit.
“What will come out of that process will be a specification for a vehicle that best suits our needs in a broader sense,” Cannito told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Metro-North committee today in a meeting in Manhattan.
Double-decker cars have been used by North American railroads, including the Long Island Rail Road, since the 1930s. More agencies are using them to ease congestion as ridership rises, according to the National Association of Railroad Passengers. New Jersey Transit Corp. will begin running bilevel cars on its lines next month.
Replacements
Metro-North is now replacing cars on its Harlem and Hudson lines between Manhattan and upstate New York with 336 new M-7 model cars built by Bombardier Inc. The railroad has ordered 300 cars from Kawasaki Rail Car Heavy Industries Ltd. to replace 241 M-2 cars on its New Haven line between northern Connecticut and Manhattan. Those cars are to be delivered in about three years.
“There’s been a loss of seats because of the various changes that have been made to the cars in recent years, and bilevels maybe address a way to skin that cat down the road,” said James Blair, a committee member and Hudson Line user.
Bilevel cars have more seats per car and would allow Metro- North to operate shorter trains with greater capacity, Cannito said. However, they would also require modifications to be able to travel through the Park Avenue tunnel to and from Manhattan.
“The constriction with bilevel cars would require them to be cigar-shaped at each end, so you’d have to have considerable structural modifications,” said Ron Yutko, the railroad’s vice president of capital engineering.
Diesel multiple units the railroad is considering are self- propelled, which would allow the railroad to operate them without a locomotive on areas of its system that don’t have electrical power, including the Danbury and Waterbury branches of the New Haven line and parts of the Harlem and Hudson Lines.
“It’s a game of tradeoffs,” Cannito said.