As the MTA and LIRR continue to sprint towards the finish line of major projects like East Side Access and the Main Line Grade Crossing Elimination project, its fleet strategy will become of increasing importance as attention shifts from completing the projects to delivering on the service improvements the MTA and LIRR have promised for the better part of several decades.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has taken much of the urgent focus off getting more cars into service to alleviate crowded conditions (with ridership averaging about half of pre-pandemic levels), the last several years have seen continued delays and problems that have plagued many of the MTA's major fleet procurements. The long-awaited M-9 cars are behind schedule, again, and will require Kawasaki and the LIRR to keep an ambitious schedule to get all of those cars ready before East Side Access. The MTA has still yet to even award a contract for the M-9A fleet (which was originally supposed to be built in parallel with the M-9's and ready for East Side Access), and the LIRR is setting themselves up to make a major mistake that will have repercussions for decades. And, as a result of all of these delays, some familiar faces will be returning to the rails sometime soon.
This is the first of a handful of pieces over the next several days on the latest rolling stock updates, so stay tuned for more.
M-9 delays continue
Stop me if you've heard this before, but the LIRR's new M-9 railcars are running late, or in this case, even later. The MTA is now reporting that the full 202 car M-9 fleet order will not be ready for service until October 2022, a delay of a further 6 months.
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| A M-9 train after arriving at NY-Penn Station (Photo: The LIRR Today) |
It took the LIRR nearly 6 years to place the first cars into service, which happened in September 2019. But that wasn't the end of the headaches. Since then, the M-9 fleet has continued to encounter significant delays due to quality issues that have come up during testing, slowing the delivery rate down to a slow trickle and pushing out the completion of the base order cars by almost a further year and a half. These quality issues—several of them major—have been described as ranging from wiring and improper electrical connectors to door tracks and systems, problems with the toilets, and more. The LIRR has also blamed delays on the COVID-19 pandemic (which wouldn't've been a problem if the cars were finished 3 years before the start of the pandemic like planned...)
The MTA and LIRR completed acceptance of the initial 92 base order cars in June 2021, 55 months or about four and a half years late.
The MTA has also exercised a contract option for an additional 110 M-9 cars from Kawasaki, to bring the total order to 202 cars. Kawasaki has been delivering these cars over the course of the last year, and, unsurprisingly, these are also falling behind schedule. The 110 option cars (originally referred to as the M-3 replacement option, as their delivery would enable LIRR to retire the M-3 fleet) were originally expected to be completed around August 2017. They have suffered rolling delays trailing the M-9 base order cars.
When the first M-9's entered passenger service in 2019, the LIRR said that the full complement of 202 cars would be delivered and in service by March 2021, which would've required the LIRR to accept 10 cars per month to keep that schedule. The LIRR has fallen well short of that pace, accepting 10 or more cars in only 3 of the 29 months since the first cars were placed into service.
In order to complete the 202 M-9 car order by the LIRR's new stated completion date, the LIRR will need to accept an average of 9.5 cars per month for the rest of the year, a very ambitious schedule that the LIRR has repeatedly failed to keep to over the last several years. At the current pace of deliveries (about 4.25 cars per month, excluding the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when no cars were accepted), the LIRR wouldn't be complete with the M-9 order until August 2023, leaving LIRR 34 cars short for ESA opening day.
The LIRR has been criticized for being too ambitious with its schedule before—in January 2021, the agency's Independent Engineering Consultant said that "the [April 2022 completion date] requires an average of 8-car-per-month delivery rate... The IEC feels this is an optimistic rate given Kawasaki's past performance and other outstanding issues. The IEC forecasts that acceptance could extend to as late as October 2022. This forecast is based on a more realistic average delivery rate of 6 cars per month." If deliveries continue don't immediately double in speed, the railroad will again miss their stated completion date.
A new audit by NYS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli concluded LIRR's oversight of Kawasaki was inadequate, and its acceptance of cars with defects or deficiencies contributed to the lengthy delays encountered during testing.
The good news is that the MTA and LIRR plan to stop the bleeding after the 202 cars. While the original contract with Kawasaki included an options for a grand total of 676 cars, including 584 option cars, broken down as follows:
- 88 car M-3 replacement option
- 76 car ESA option
- 140 car option for Metro-North
- up to 280 additional car options for either railroad
In 2018, the LIRR restructured the option orders to a 110 car option to finish off the M-3 fleet replacement and provide some additional cars for ESA. The remaining 56 cars as well as all of the other additional options for LIRR and Metro-North were dropped, ending the program at 202 cars. On several occasions over the last two or so years (during the pandemic), the MTA has made several references to potentially reviving that 56 car option due to delays with the procurement of the successor M-9A cars (more below). It appears the idea was continuing the current M-9 program—as torturous as it has been—would get cars here faster than waiting for the M-9A order to get moving.
But that now appears to be officially off the table, with the MTA confirming to The LIRR Today last month that no additional M-9 options have been exercised, or are planned to be exercised.
M-9A order further delayed, too
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| Rendering of the proposed M-9A cars, which will likely be only a minor improvement over the base M-9 fleet (Photo: MTA LIRR) |
Due to the timing for East Side Access—which, as we all know, was supposed to be completed many years ago—the LIRR originally planned to run the M-9 and M-9A procurements simultaneously. In the MTA's 2013 Capital Program amendment, the M-9A cars were set to start in January 2012 and be completed and in service by December 2016.
More than a decade later, the MTA and LIRR have yet to even award a contract for the M-9A fleet. Most recently expected to award in the first quarter of 2020, this effort was held up when the MTA put its Capital Programs on pause at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before and since then, the LIRR has repeatedly pushed out the projected contract award date for the M-9A cars, citing efforts underway to increase competition (code for bids coming in way over budget) but otherwise not publicly elaborating on the repeated delays.
In responses to questions from The LIRR Today last month, the MTA said that the M-9A contract is now expected to be awarded in Q3 2022 (which would be in July or September of this year, as the MTA Board customarily doesn't meet in August). If the MTA actually sticks to that schedule this time around, that would represent the very start of the final design and construction process with the selected vendor—and as we've seen with the M-9 cars, it could be several years before the first passengers set foot on an M-9A.
The MTA says that they have not confirmed the final structure for the M-9A order. Originally, the M-9A order was to be for 160 cars paid for out of the Rolling Stock Liability Reserve, but as part of the M-9 option restructuring mentioned above, funding for additional cars was shifted to the future M-9A order, including additional options for LIRR and Metro-North. The most recent published plan was for 88 base EMU cars for LIRR, 72 option EMU cars for LIRR, 30 option unpowered coaches for LIRR, and 200 option EMU cars for Metro-North.
While the MTA and LIRR have not explained the extreme delays during the procurement process for the M-9A fleet, it has likely been due in no small part due to limited response from the railcar industry, a lack of competition, and the high pricing that invariably results from that. For the last several decades, the MTA has awarded all of its railcar procurements to either Bombardier or Kawasaki. The MTA blacklisted Bombardier on the R211 subway car procurement due to extensive issues with the R179 cars that have been entering service over the last several years, and Kawasaki has been performing extremely poorly and is likely bleeding cash on the LIRR M-9 procurement. The R179's and M-9's have likely been big loss leaders for Bombardier and Kawasaki, and in such an oligopic market, they will invariably be trying to recoup some of those losses by jacking up their prices on future car orders like the M-9A fleet.
The balance of the old FRA-compliant carbuilder market is extremely thin. Last year, Alstom acquired Bombardier, consolidating another competitor out of the market. Today, Siemens is the only other manufacturer still building rail equipment complaint with the old FRA regulations, and they seem to have their hands full with the popular Siemens Charger program, a new dual mode contract from the MTA (which isn't going great), and the Venture coaches currently in production for Amtrak services in the Midwest, California, and VIA Rail in Canada. The oligopic nature of the US railcar market has been the result of the previously very restrictive regulatory framework in place in the Americas, with the FRA's previous crashworthiness standards requiring trains to be custom-designed with much more significant buff strength requirements above and beyond what's safely used elsewhere in the world. This, coupled with the generally thin demand for railcars in the US, Buy America regulations, and local content requirements make it extremely difficult for builders to make money in the US market, so most don't bother—and those that do usually have poor outcomes and rake agencies over the coals every chance they get.
In 2018, the FRA completely overhauled its passenger equipment safety standards, introducing a new alternative compliance pathway that effectively normalized the US's railcar safety standards with what is commonly used in Europe. This was a monumental move for passenger railroading in the US, as it broke down the single largest barrier to better, more affordable passenger rail equipment, blowing open the oligopic US railcar market, allowing agencies to seek out off-the-shelf car designs from Europe, where there is much more competition and there are dozens of proven designs in production and commercially available. The FRA said that by codifying the alternative standards, its rule “helps avert perpetuating...the current unattractiveness of the US passenger equipment market to manufacturers”
The new regulations now allow railroads like the LIRR to effectively shop off-the-shelf designs from Europe, which generally cost about half as much for a considerably higher quality. The alternative compliance standards require some minor modifications, which are effectively incidental (the FRA estimates they would increase the price of a car by only about 0.62%).
Despite this monumental sea change in the regulatory framework allowing cheaper and better railcars, the MTA confirmed to The LIRR Today last month that LIRR has no plans to take advantage of the new alternative compliance standards for the M-9A fleet at this time, and there are no "off the shelf" railcar designs currently in use in other countries under consideration at this time.
This is a massive mistake. As we have seen with the M-9 procurement, custom designing cars to the obsolete FRA standards requires weighing the trains to meet the old requirements only invites problems and delays throughout the entire process. It took 6 years for the first M-9 car to enter into service on the LIRR, roughly triple the amount of time it can take for an off-the-shelf railcar from Europe (which can be manufactured, delivered, and tested within about 2 years).
Aside from roughly doubling the budget, roughly tripling the schedule, and setting up LIRR and us riders for years of headaches and delays, trains built to the obsolete FRA standards are also considerably poorer quality compared to what's become commonplace in Europe. They accelerate far slower (impacting train speeds and extending travel times), weigh about 36% more than modern car designs (exerting far more wear and tear on rail infrastructure and driving up maintenance costs), and generally deliver a far worse environment for passengers.
While the M-9A procurement formally started before the FRA finalized the new alternative compliance standards (the initial RFP for the M-9A cars was issued in December 2017), changing the requirements this drastically would've necessitated restarting the RFP process. But if the MTA made what was obviously the correct decision the day the new regulations were published, they would've lost less than a year out of the procurement process, which could have easily been made up on the backend with much shorter design and manufacturing timelines common for off-the-shelf designs. As the MTA and LIRR have been fussing around with the M-9 RFP process for more than three years now, the current strategy is clearly not paying off. Even the MTA changed course now, and started from scratch with an off-the-shelf M-11 procurement, I bet they would get cars here sooner than if they went through with a repeat of the M-9 fiasco...
M-3 fleet will return to service this year
With the M-9A procurement significantly delayed, there is virtually zero chance that these cars will be ready for service on East Side Access opening day, which is set for December 13. With these cars delayed (and the completion of the M-9 order before ESA opening day very questionable), the LIRR will have far fewer cars ready for ESA opening day than previous projections. And remember, the final 202 car M-9 base order is already 56 cars short of what the LIRR originally planned for its ESA fleet expansion. In this regard, the COVID-19 pandemic is to an extent a saving grace for the railroad—with ridership only about half of pre-pandemic levels and not expected to fully recover for some time, it will not immediately need every car available for ESA opening day. The MTA said in response to questions from The LIRR Today that it believes the LIRR will have sufficient rolling stock and seating capacity to meet current projections and service plans for ESA.
But to help fill in the gaps for the missing M-9 and M-9A cars, the MTA confirmed to The LIRR Today last month that the M-3 fleet will return to service this year, with the LIRR gradually building up their fleet of operating M-3 cars as opening day approaches. The MTA says eventually 100 M-3 cars will be returned to service.
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| A M-3 train bound for Brooklyn arrives at Carle Place (Photo: The LIRR Today) |
The M-3 cars, which are generally greeted with scoffs and frustrated looks as they roll into stations, are far from rider favorites as the LIRR seemingly gave up on everything beyond the most basic level of maintenance several years ago. Each car usually features several yards worth of duct tape adorning seats and sometimes even holding exterior components in place. They do not feature many of the handy systems on the newer cars (like CCTV or technology for real-time passenger counting), and so the LIRR has been itching to get rid of them (unlike Metro-North, which has refurbished their M-3A fleet and continues to use the cars as they continue to ponder a strategy for replacing them).
The MTA previously planned to keep maintaining and operating 80 M-3 cars in revenue service through at least 2024, and those cars were equipped with Positive Train Control. I have heard rumors that the PTC testing process has been very difficult with the M-3 fleet (as might be expected when trying to retrofit new technology onto much older cars), and the M-3 cars have not operated in passenger service since the PTC deadline in December 2020. Hopefully these issues have been sorted out by time the cars start to filter back into service...
With the 100 car figure seemingly settled, the LIRR has started the process of decommissioning and scrapping the remaining cars that will no longer be needed. 20 cars have already been cut off the roster and sent for scrap over the last few months, with another 22 or so of the worst behaving cars expected to follow out over the course of this year. The remaining 100 M-3 cars will likely remain in service until the M-9A fleet begins to come online, which will be at least several years away.
So, while more things change, the more they stay the same. In the end, the COVID-19 pandemic has not really changed all that much—the M-9 cars are again delayed, the M-9A contract has still yet to be awarded, and the M-3 cars will live on for several more years. As I'll discuss more in the next few weeks, all of these fleet delays will put the LIRR in quite a tight position as East Side Access opens and ridership continues to recover. Will the railroad be able to build up its fleet faster than riders return during the pandemic recovery? Or will being short cars hamper LIRR's ability to deliver service improvements and win back riders?
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