Skip to main content

Virginia Railway Express orders bi-level passenger rail cars

Sumitomo Corporation of America, in conjunction with its car builder partner Nippon Sharyo, has received a contract award from Virginia Railway Express (VRE) for 50 Gallery-type Bi-level passenger cars. The base order is to supply eight cars at a contract price of $21 million and is scheduled to be delivered in 2014. This contract includes an option for VRE to purchase up to an additional 42 cars. If the option is exercised, the total contract would amount to $119 million. VRE will use the cars procured thr
March 22, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Sumitomo Corporation of America, in conjunction with its car builder partner Nippon Sharyo, has received a contract award from 4179 Virginia Railway Express (VRE) for 50 Gallery-type Bi-level passenger cars. The base order is to supply eight cars at a contract price of $21 million and is scheduled to be delivered in 2014. This contract includes an option for VRE to purchase up to an additional 42 cars. If the option is exercised, the total contract would amount to $119 million. VRE will use the cars procured through this contract to update its fleet by replacing some of their older cars and adding more cars to handle their increase in ridership.

The gallery-type bi-level passenger car is a unique type of bi-level car which has open space between the two sides of the upper deck and allows ticket collectors to check tickets on both levels from the bottom level. Sumitomo Corporation of America with Nippon Sharyo has already delivered a total of 71 passenger cars to VRE. Moreover, a total of 643 gallery-type bi-level passenger cars has already been supplied by Sumitomo Corporation of America and Nippon Sharyo in the US.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Making the case for ALPR in enforcement
    February 2, 2012
    Federal Signal's Brian Shockley uses examples from around the world to make the case for the greater use of automatic license plate recognition technology in the US. It is time, he says, to consider the possibilities of a national network and the use of average speed enforcement
  • C/AVs could mean cheaper roads
    October 28, 2019
    The safety benefits of C/AVs have long been promoted – but research suggests they should also contribute to cheaper roads. David Crawford investigates the potential benefits in infrastructure costs Building narrower freeway lanes to accommodate the enhanced route-tracking capabilities of connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs), running in platoon conditions, could result in cost savings of £0.5 million (€0.56 million or US$6.5 million) for every km of road length built. Such benefits could be secur
  • Business intelligence improves bus fleet management
    April 24, 2013
    Innovative use of fleet management-generated data has optimised passenger service running times and achieved full payback in its first quarter Metro Vancouver’s South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority (TransLink) has gained substantial benefits in bus idle time savings from a business intelligence (BI) solution, built from data captured in its ITS-based fleet management system. Delivered by public transport ITS specialist Init under a contract awarded in 2006, this includes on-board computers,
  • Shift2Rail launches first calls for projects worth €170 million
    December 18, 2015
    Shift2Rail, the joint undertaking backed by the European Commission and the rail industry, has published its first calls for proposals, with funding of US$184 million to support innovation in railways. The Commission will contribute US$97 million, with the other US$86 million provided by the members of Shift2Rail. In order to receive funding, projects will have to demonstrate their ability to increase the quality, reliability and punctuality of rail services while cutting its costs and facilitating cros