The P3010 is an

articulated An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent coupling in its construction. This coupling works as a large pivot joint, allowing it to bend and turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buse ...

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

car used on the

Los Angeles Metro Rail The Los Angeles Metro Rail is an urban rail transit system serving Los Angeles County, California, United States, consisting of six lines: four light rail lines (the A, C, E and K lines) and two rapid transit lines (the B and D lines), ...

system manufactured by

Kinki Sharyo is a Japanese manufacturer of railroad vehicles based in Osaka. It is an affiliate company of Kintetsu Corporation. In business since 1920 as Tanaka Rolling Stock Works, and renamed The Kinki Sharyo Co., Ltd in 1945, they produce rolling stock f ...

, operated on all of the Metro Rail light rail lines. Ordered by Metro in 2012, the first train entered service in 2016. A total of 235 trains were built, making it Metro's largest rail fleet.

History

AnsaldoBreda Hitachi Rail Italy S.p.A. is a multinational rolling stock manufacturer company based in Pistoia, Italy. Formerly AnsaldoBreda S.p.A., a subsidiary of state-owned Finmeccanica, the company was sold in 2015 to Hitachi Rail of Japan. After the dea ...

delivered 50 P2550 Light Rail Vehicles (LRV) to Metro between 2006 and 2011 for use on the newly expanded Gold Line. Delivery of the vehicles was approximately three years behind schedule, and Metro claimed they were overweight; thus, the agency chose not to exercise their option to purchase more beyond this initially contracted order. However, with multiple light rail lines under construction or in planning and the P865 trains approaching their end of life, Metro anticipated a substantial need for LRVs and thus requested bids for a new contract, for vehicles which were dubbed the P3010 series. The base P3010 contract order was for 78 cars: 63 cars for the Expo and Blue lines, and 15 cars for the Gold Line Foothill Extension. (Phase 1 of the Expo Line used P865 cars from the existing fleet.) Metro completed a contract on April 30, 2012, with delivery of the first LRV projected for 30 months later, in 2014. The contract included options for an additional 157 cars.

Contract award

Metro awarded the contract for the first 78 cars to

for $299 million. The remaining cars were split into four options with 28, 39, 21 and 69, respectively. If all the options were exercised, the number of LRVs would total 235, valued at a total $890 million. On July 25, 2013, Metro exercised two options (69 + 28) totaling 97 additional cars for $396.7 million. This brought the total of ordered cars to 175. As part of the option, Kinki Sharyo, the El Segundo-based U.S. arm of Kinki Sharyo Co. Ltd. of Osaka, announced in December 2014 that they would retrofit an existing space in

Palmdale Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city lies in the Antelope Valley of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south. On August 24, 1962 ...

to build the vehicles. Final assembly work was being performed in

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

space the company leased in Palmdale from

Los Angeles World Airports Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) is the airport authority that owns and operates Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Van Nuys Airport (VNY) for the city of Los Angeles, California. LAWA also owns and manages aviation-related property n ...

. The first car was delivered to Metro in October 2014 for testing before series production begins.

Entry into service

The cars began entering service in early 2016, though many were still in the testing stage when the Expo Line and Gold Line extensions opened that year, resulting in longer-than-expected headways and some crush loads. By October 2016, four LRVs were being delivered per month. In June 2017, P3010s began to be rolled out on the Blue Line, allowing Metro to begin phasing out the P865s. At the end of 2017, some of the P3010s from the Blue Line were routed for Green Line service using the Willowbrook spur and

pocket track A pocket track, tail track, or reversing siding (UK: centre siding, turnback siding) is a rail track layout which allows trains to park off the main line. This type of track layout differs from a passing loop in that the pocket track is usually ...

to transfer between the two lines. In January 2021, the final train of the contract was delivered by Kinki Sharyo, with the $1.02 billion project completed on time and on budget.

References

{{Los Angeles Metro Rail rolling stock Light rail in California Los Angeles Metro Rail Electric multiple units of the United States 750 V DC multiple units Train-related introductions in 2016 Light rail vehicles Articulated passenger trains Kinki Sharyo multiple units

History

Contract award

Entry into service

See also

References