| | URBAN TRANSIT NEWS |
San Francisco trams for Manchester:
As previously indicated on our Manchester pages Serco Metrolink, operators of Manchester's light rail network, has purchased four withdrawn Boeing LRVs from San Francisco's Municipal Railway (Muni Metro) system, and is shipping two of them to the UK to see if they could offer a short-term solution to expanding the capacity of the system. The other two cars will supply spare parts. There are many hurdles to overcome before the Boeing LRVs can ran on the Metrolink network, and no guarantee of success, but Serco clearly think the prospect is worthy of serious investigation. Second-hand cars could be a quicker alternative to buying new centre sections to the existing cars, a proposal which has been given a Government grant of GBP7 million, but also has drawbacks in terms of timescale and performance. Metrolink is keen to get some extra capacity in place before the influx of visitors expected for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
To return to News Index - click here
To return to the LRTA homepage - click here
19 November 2001
To be well informed about light rail & urban transit developments you need to read Tramways & Urban Transit every month - the world's leading light rail, tramways and urban transit journal
To return to the top of this news page - click here