(The following article by Mark Ginocchio was posted on the Greenwich Time website on November 27.)
GREENWICH, Conn. — The state and Metro-North Railroad may scrap plans to upgrade the New Haven Line’s oldest rail cars to fund the $842 million purchase of new cars.
State Department of Transportation and Metro-North officials have held preliminary discussions to halt its $150 million “Critical Systems Replacement” plan, even though more than half of the fleet’s oldest cars are still in line for major overhauls.
Both sides described the talks as preliminary but acknowledged the money saved by not rehabbing the 30-year-old M2 cars could be used to partially fund the cost of building 340 new cars.
“In our commitment to purchase the M8s, it makes sense to look at the M2 program,” said Eugene Colonese, rail administrator for the DOT’s rail bureau. “Then again, we don’t want to leave ourselves with any car shortages.”
The state signed a contract with Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. earlier this year to build the next generation M8 cars. The first 50 to 100 cars are expected to arrive by the end of 2009.
The rehabilitated M2s have proven reliable, especially during the winter, but it may be more cost effective to save that money for new cars, railroad spokesman Dan Brucker said.
“These are still very old cars,” Brucker said. “The new discussion is whether it pays to keep fixing these cars.”
The renovated trains feature new power inverters that don’t fail when moisture enters the components. Other major power components are also replaced and upgraded.
The fixed cars run nearly double the amount of miles before a system failure compared with the other cars, according to railroad statistics.
The Critical Systems Replacement program was born from the “winter of woe” in February 2004, when nearly two-thirds of the New Haven Line fleet was knocked out of commission because icy weather frazzled the trains’ electrical components.
About 40 percent of 240 M2s have been fully rehabbed, Colonese said.
But rail advocates said it may not be wise to stop the replacement program, especially with about three years to go for new cars to arrive.
“These cars are more reliable in the short run,” said Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council. “We need to make sure the older cars keep running.”