The DMUs are coming—finally

Railway Age, Feb, 2004

Proponents of diesel multiple-units are beginning to see more and more examples of DMU technology entering revenue service ha North America. This month, New Jersey Transit starts up its Camden-Trenton diesel light rail River Line. Two more DMU projects--a new light rail-type system in California and a commuter rail add-on service in Florida--will soon follow.

In Florida, Colorado Railcar's FRA Tier I-compliant DMU has been operating in demonstration service between the Miami International Airport Station and the Mangonia Park Station on the South Florida Regional Transportation Author@ (SFRTA) Tri-Rail commuter system since Dec. 31, 2003. Last month, SFRTA entered into a contract with Colorado Railcar to purchase a three-unit trainset consisting of one single-level powered unit, one unpowered bilevel car (possibly with low-level boarding), and one powered bilevel cab car.

The two-year, $11.9 million project will be funded by the FRA ($3.9 million), Florida DOT ($5.6 million), and SFRTA ($2.4 million). It will assess the DMU's maintenance, fuel efficiency, and emission levels as it operates on six weekday trains per day. Service is expected to begin in December.

Colorado Railcar's DMU can carry approximately 18% more riders than Tri-Rail's existing bilevels (185 vs. 157), extra capacity the system will need once SFRTA completes its Double Tracking Corridor Improvement Program and begins operating trains on 20-minute headways.

On the West Coast, the North County Transit District awarded a $50.6 million contract to Siemens Transportation Systems for 12 Desiro diesel-mechanical LRVs for the Sprinter, a 22mile east-west commuter rail line linking Oceanside with Escondido along the fast-growing Highway 78 corridor in north San Diego County.

The 140-foot-long cars, which are based on the Siemens VT-642 (used widely in Germany), are of a single-articulated, double-ended design with a 60% low floor and two twin-leaf plug doors on each side. Empty weight is 67 tons. Each of the outer trucks will be powered by a turbocharged, intercooled six-cylinder engine coupled to a mechanical five-speed automatic transmission. Maximum speed of the Sprinter will be 55 mph, though the cars are capable of 80 mph. The vehicles are not required to be FRA Tier I-compliant.

NCTD plans to operate two-car trains with a total of 272 scats on 30-minute headways from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. The line is slated to open in 2006. Initial weekday ridership is projected at 10,300, increasing to 19,000 in 2020. NCTD buses currently carry about 10,000 daily riders in the corridor.

While DMUs are not new to the North American passenger rail market (rebuilt, updated examples of the Budd Company's RDC, introduced in the early 1950s, are in revenue service at several locations), modern DMU technology has been slow to gain acceptance in North America. There have been numerous demonstrations--tours by the Colorado Railcar DMU, Bombardier's Flexliner, and lightweight Siemens RegioSprinter, for example. Other DMU designs have been proposed but prototypes were never built--one based upon Bombardier's electric mutiple-unit for Montreal's Deux Montages commuter rail fine, and Sumitomo's version of its EMU operating on the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District.

The first modern DMU to enter regular revenue service in North America is OCTranspo's (Ottawa) O-Train, which uses Bombardier's low-floor VR643 "Talent" vehicle (RA, Feb. 2003, p. 30). NJ Transit's River Line, which uses a low-floor double-articulated Bombardier diesel LRV with a powered center section, is the first system of its kind in the U.S. (RA, Dec. 2003, p. 42).