Houston Metro launches new light rail car
Published: Mon, 2015-01-12 16:00The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) has launched new light rail cars in downtown Houston, US.
Other CAF vehicles will enter service over the weeks that lead to the April 2015 opening of two new METRORail East/Green and Southeast/Purple Lines.
The new units will give METRO enough rail cars to stage double-car service most of the day Monday through Friday. The H3 (CAF) cars join 19 H2 and 18 H1 (Siemens S70) cars already serving the North and Main St.(Red) Lines. METRORail will have 76 cars to operate with once the 39 CAF H3 vehicle delivery is complete. In FY 2014 12.8 million boardings were recorded on METRORail and 122 million boardings have been recorded since service began in 2004.
CAF USA, a subsidiary of Spain's Construcciones y Auxilliar de Ferrocarriles, is contracted to provide the new H3 cars to serve throughout the METRORail system.