METRORail will ring in the New Year again January 7, with bells on
a new family of light-rail cars. Houston's third generation (H3) cars will
begin revenue service that day. Media outlets are invited
to the Downtown Transit Center Southbound platform (1900 Main St.) at 6:30
a.m.for a brief ribbon-cutting event, as these new vehicles roll into
the morning commute.
Six CAF light-rail cars will go into service on January
7. Other CAF vehicles will be put into service over the next several weeks
leading up to the opening of two new rails lines. The East/Green
Line and Southeast/Purple
Line are scheduled to open
in April of 2015.
The new units will take the
strain off the current fleet and give METRO more rail cars to provide more
service. The H3 (CAF) cars join 19 H2 and 18 H1 (Siemens S70) cars now
providing service on the North and Main St.(Red) Lines and will bring the total to 76 METRORail cars once the CAF
car delivery (39 H3 vehicles) is complete. The units are all electrically powered from an overhead wire (catenary) system and, fully loaded, carry about 200 passengers per car. In FY 2014 12.8 million boardings were recorded on METRORail and 122 million boardings have been recorded since the system's inception in 2004.
CAF USA, a subsidiary
of Spain's Construcciones y Auxilliar de
Ferrocarriles, is contracted to provide the new H3 cars for light rail expansion. The vehicles will serve throughout the METRORail system.
EDITORS NOTE: For high resolution photos of the new H3 cars click here Media outlets planning to attend the ribbon cutting are asked to contact the METRO Press Office at 713.739.4040.
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