Pittsburgh Regional Transit takes first step to replacing all T light rail cars with $750M project

PITTSBURGH — The wheels of progress are turning as Pittsburgh Regional Transit takes the first step toward replacing its entire fleet of T light rail cars.

“We have to start somewhere and this is the first step in a marathon,” said PRT Deputy Chief Communications Officer Adam Brandolph.

Brandolph says the transportation agency’s board signed off on a plan on Friday to begin seeking $390 million in federal grant funding to design and purchase brand new rail cars for the T system.

The project is expected to take around 12 years to complete and cost around $750 million.

“The beauty of this program is that we won’t have to start paying that off until we actually start getting those rail cars in,” Brandolph said.

All 60-plus existing rail cars will be replaced across the entire PRT light rail system.

Brandolph says this is necessary because the average age of each car in the fleet is currently 33 years old.

“By the time we take acceptance of these new rail cars, they’ll be 45 years old. They’re expected last about 30 years, so we are just about approaching the end of their useful life,” Brandolph said.

It will still be some time before the new cars hit the tracks and designs are far from being finalized.

Until then, Brandolph says PRT will be doing the best it can to make its current cars last.

“They don’t make replacement parts for the rail cars that we currently have. A lot of the parts that we have are manufactured in house, so that is basically going to have to happen more frequently over the next dozen or so years,” Brandolph said.

PRT says it expects to begin testing prototype cars in the next four to five years.

A design will then be finalized and the new cars will be custom built and delivered a few at a time to the company over the course of a couple years.

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