Bar Cars Still on Tap for Metro-North's New Haven Line

A New York Times story Wednesday casting doubt on the likelihood Connecticut will order new bar cars for the New Haven Line led to a discussion at a meeting of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Wednesday night.

Meeting in Metro-North Railroad's headquarters in the Graybar building on Lexington Avenue, the Connecticut Department of Transportation's bureau chief for public transportation said drawings for a bar car have been sent to Kawasaki Rail Car Inc.

"The Japanese company is looking over the drawings and we're waiting for a price (to build them)," said James P. Redeker.

Redeker said bar cars are not part of the $750 million order for 300 M-8 model cars from Kawasaki, so building them would require the state to place a supplemental order.

The 300 cars are being bought by Connecticut and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the parent company of Metro-North. Under the contract with Kawasaki, the state has the option to order 80 additional cars.

The first 300 cars will be paid for under the formula for capital purchases agreed to in the basic rail service agreement between Connecticut and the MTA, with the state paying 65 percent and the MTA 35 percent.

The New Haven Line has eight bar cars in service.

Connecticut Dept. of Transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick said Thursday all eight have been refurbished and are expected to last another 10 to 15 years. Nursick said the cars operate on about 20 trains a day.

Criticizing the Times story, the council's chairman, James Cameron, said reporter Michael M. Grynbaum "deliberately ignored several facts I gave him."

Grynbaum did not reply to an e-mail asking if he wanted to respond to Cameron's criticism.

Meantime, Redeker said the last pair of M-8 "pilot" cars have been attached to a CSX railroad freight train in Baltimore and are in transit to New Haven.

The M-8s are built and coupled together as "married pairs," and Metro-North has been waiting for the fourth pair of "pilot" cars to arrive to create an eight-car test train.

ConnDOT has said Kawasaki will not build additional cars until the ones delivered undergo rigorous testing.

The state has announced the first 38 M-8 cars will be built in Japan, with the remainder coming from Kawasaki's factory in Nebraska.

ConnDOT has said the new cars may begin carrying passengers before the end of the year.

The new cars will replace ones in service 30 or more years. ConnDOT has said the M-8s will provide an 18-to-20 percent increase in seating capacity on the New Haven Line.

The cars will also be used on the state's Shore Line East route between New Haven and New London.