The MTA’s finance committee authorized the $2.3 billion buy of 316 new rail vehicles for the Lengthy Island Rail Highway and Metro-North Railroad on Monday.
The vehicles, designated because the M9A, might be designed and manufactured by Alstom Transportation, and are anticipated to enter service in 2030, with 160 trains going to the LIRR and 156 to Metro-North by 2032.
“These cars will replace the M3[A]s for Metro-North and allow Long Island Rail Road to retire the M3s which were replaced by the [2019] M9s but have been extended in their service,” stated MTA automotive czar Tim Mulligan.
The M9A is lengthy overdue. The MTA had initially deliberate to have 160 of the brand new prepare vehicles readily available for the beginning of LIRR service to Grand Central Madison in 2023.
Delays in that procurement, nonetheless, meant the LIRR pulled 100 Nineteen Eighties period M3 vehicles out of retirement to complement the extra service to Grand Central Madison — primarily as shuttles between Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal.
Monday’s contract consists of choices for anyplace between 100 and 242 extra vehicles sooner or later.
Two corporations responded to the MTA’s preliminary solicitation in 2019: Bombardier Transit Company, and China Rail Rolling Inventory Company, Mulligan stated.
The procurement floor to a halt throughout the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Throughout that point, Alstom acquired Bombardier. The 2021 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act then prohibited rolling inventory purchases from corporations owned or managed by China and different overseas nations.
“Despite the fact that we were forced into this negotiation with a single car manufacturer, negotiations produced savings of $395 million,” Mulligan stated.
