First Rebuilt MBTA Light Rail Vehicle Arrives in Boston MA

(SOURCE:  Trains.com NewsWire)

BOSTON – The first rebuilt Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Type 7 trolley used on the agency’s Green Line is set to arrive in Boston this week. The car will arrive from Alstom Transportation in Hornell, N. Y. that won a $104 million contract with the MBTA in 2012 to conduct a “complete systems overhaul” of 86 of the transit agency’s Type 7 trolleys.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo tells Boston Magazine that the car will be subjected to two months of performance testing. Then, it will go into passenger service sometime between late January and early February of 2015.

Pesaturo says that, besides the updates to the trains’ systems and “full modernization” of the light-rail vehicles, the cars are also being outfitted with new interior surfaces and new propulsion and climate control systems.

The other 85 light-rail vehicles, most of which are still in service, will be sent to Alstom, refurbished, and return to Boston by January 2017, according to the MBTA, but Alstom says it expects to have the project completed by October 2016.

The cars were originally built in 1986, 1987, and 1997 by Kinki-Sharyo of Osaka, Japan, and assembled at the former Westinghouse Plant in Readville.

In May, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation board of directors, the state entity that oversees MBTA’s operations, awarded a $118 million contract to CAF USA Inc. to construct 24 new “Type 9” Light Rail vehicles for use on the Green Line. They will arrive between 2017 and 2019.