Yea! Capital Metro resumes testing of the Red Line today; however, there's going to be some changes. Do you want to hear all about them? ;D
Sure....
They've had a lot of complaints and those complaints is one of the reasons why they stopped testing the commuter rail last month. One source said the testing planned to stop all along as the manufacture was going on holiday and so the testing had to stop because the manufacture has to be on site for the testing. The cars need to log 1,000 miles to complete the testing. Two of the cars have 400 miles on them. The cars are built by the manufacturer and then broken down and ship to Capital Metro. Capital Metro then reassembles them. Currently Cap Metro has 4 cars two are being tested and the other two are being reassembled. In all, Capital Metro will have six cars.
The testing will resume this evening. The diesel electric train will run from the maintenance facialty to Gracy Farms. Before, the testing continued to Howard Avenue station which is through a more residential area. The testing will now be done primarily in an industrial area.
Testing resumes at 7:00 PM. The testing will run to 5:00 AM. Where’s my sleeping pill.
The 6 cars added $30 million to Capital Metro's budget for this rail project. This means each DMU costs $5 million. Has a date been set for the rail system's grand opening?
What does DMU mean? I see the Red Line cars all the time and they are very sleek looking and can't wait for service to begin. I thought they already had 4 cars but they don't they only have 2. I guess each car consists of 2 campartments with the engine in the middle. So, each "car" is huge.
They are suppose to start "in the fall of 2008". Seems far off but not really, fall in Austin is in like August.
Diesel Multiple Unit. Austin's Metro, as well as San Diego's Sprinter, are using Light Diesel Multiple Unit cars . These Stadler cars can run on the same track as freight trains, but not at the same time. Normally, freight service is scheduled to run at night, when the passenger rail service is not.
I think this type of service would be great for Jax, but the CSX "A" line will still have Amtrak trains running down it during the day, so something more traditional will have to be used locally.