Edmonton LRT Procurement

[Fenu S]

The City is initiating a procurement order for up to 53 LRT trains. Approximately 37 will replace existing LRT trains that have been in operation for more than 40 years, and currently serve the Capital and Metro Lines. An additional 16 LRT trains will be procured to accommodate service growth. The seating layout of the new trains will be determined in late 2024 when the trains are ordered. It is expected the new LRT trains will start arriving and entering service in the next four-five years.

https://engaged.edmonton.ca/LRTseating

Exciting! There is currently a survey out about seating arrangements, but there appears to be no information on what type of cars. Is it possible Siemens is doing roughly the same thing, but more modern? There is a list of new features that will be available at least.

 

[railiner]

Wow...has it really been 40 years since those cars went into service? Seems almost like "yesterday"
IIRC, that operation should be credited for the resurgence in LRT across the continent.
Kudo's to those behind the selection of those apparently well made cars...

 

[Willbridge]

Wow...has it really been 40 years since those cars went into service? Seems almost like "yesterday"
IIRC, that operation should be credited for the resurgence in LRT across the continent.
Kudo's to those behind the selection of those apparently well made cars...

One of the key people in selecting the original car was Bob Clark, who was active in the Light Railway Transport League in his native Glasgow and had apprenticed with a tramcar builder before migrating to Canada for a job in the steel industry. He was recruited by an emigrant from Surrey, Llew Lawrence, as was I later on. Llew was one of those behind the scenes people who found other people with the needed skills. Don MacDonald was the project manager, and when I cleaned out his office after his retirement, I learned that for over a decade he had been learning about equipment alternatives (he was an electrical engineer).

All of the key people were on city staff, with consultants hired for specific tasks. We were an example of what transit "insultant" Alon Levy recommends -- keeping a small staff busy with incremental projects rather than handing huge projects for a consulting firm to manage.

Of course, I've written here before about how Siemens was reluctantly strong-armed into representing DuWag in Alberta. They pitched in and I felt a lot better standing in front of public meetings telling people that unlike the new American cars in the 1970's, these were going to work. The line opened on-time and on-budget.

Here is one of my favorite photos from 1977 construction. People used to come and stare.


Many of my other Edmonton photos from that era are posted in flickr.com at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135141530@N04/albums/72157657418586911/

The idea that Edmonton would build a rail line on its own was a joke for some, and there was lots of consulting work in the energy sector until oil prices cratered. Suddenly, the consulting and contracting firms wanted control of the action. Here's a clipping mailed to me two months after I left Edmonton. (The "water & san" guys knew where everything in Edmonton was buried, which was a timesaver.)