Port Authority ponders light rail replacements
As part of its long- range NEXTransit plans, Port Authority is talking about costly projects such as extending the light rail system and Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway over the next 25 years.
But what could be the agency’s most expensive looming project isn’t part of that process: replacing 35-year-old light rail vehicles that come with a total price tag of $400 million to $500 million.
In most cases, light rail cars have a life expectancy of about 35 years. Many of the agency’s 53 cars manufactured by Siemens AG date back to the opening of the light rail system in the mid-1980s and and already have had midlife overhauls.
The 28 newer cars manufactured by CAF in the early 2000s are ready for their midlife updates.
Since it can take five to eight years from the time new cars are ordered until they are delivered, the agency is reviewing how it should proceed.
“We’re at the point where we’re having that discussion,” authority spokesman Adam Brandolph said. “First, we have to make a decision on rehab or replace.
“It’s not necessarily to the point where they’re going to kick the bucket. It’s going to reach the point where it doesn’t make fiscal
sense to [rehabilitate].”
The decision has to be made relatively soon because it takes six to nine months to prepare specifications and five to eight years for manufacturers to produce light rail vehicles.
Mr. Brandolph noted that’s a huge difference from the bus fleet, where it takes about a year to receive new vehicles. The agency replaces about 40 buses a year, which means the fleet is turned over about every eight years.
CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman told the Pittsburgh Technology Council during a lunchtime virtual appearance last week that replacing the light rail cars is on her radar. Those would come with a huge price tag, although since only about 60 are in service at any one time the agency likely would buy about 75.
“If you can plan for it, you can pay for it,” Ms. Kelleman told the council.
Mr. Brandolph said that if the agency goes that route, it likely will set aside funds for several years in advance of the purchase.
“It’s a significant amount of money,” he said. “The upside is railcars tend to last 30 years or more.”
In the interim, the agency is going through the slow process of rebuilding what are known as railcar trucks, similar to a car chassis that sits under the body, at its South Hills Village maintenance facility. Crews have completed 110 of the 250 overhauls, which can add about eight years to the vehicle’s life span.
Some of the cars have two smaller trucks, one at each end, that take a total of about 400 hours to rebuild at a cost of about $24,000.
Others have a larger center truck that takes about 200 hours to upgrade for $22,000.
“Obviously, we take really good care of them,” Mr. Brandolph said. “Replacing the trucks is a major part of that and it certainly has extended their life. You’d probably be hard-pressed to find cars as old as they are in as good shape as these are.
“That’s allowing us to take time with this important decision. We’re going to eke out as much as we can from them for as long as we can. But the window certainly is closing.”