The future of Valley transportation is rolling in on a rail.

The public will get its first chance to see, sit and stand in the new Metro light-rail train next month, although they won’t be traveling anywhere on it for another three years.

A full-scale model of the sleek, silver, streamlined car is being shipped by train here for a Nov. 10 unveiling, giving future riders a glimpse of the electric trains that will be eventually cruise from north Phoenix to Mesa.

The model, which has no engine or wheels, will be on display in three Valley locations through Jan. 15, the first tangible evidence of a $1.3 billion project that supporters say will help modernize the area’s transportation system.

“It is intended to be timeless and sophisticated. . . . The exterior is metallic silver and metallic green with bronze tinted windows throughout,” said Daina Mann, Valley Metro Rail communications manager. “Its interior is supposed to be a cool, spa-like atmosphere. It is supposed to instantly convey coolness.”

The model was not originally intended for public display, rather as an engineering vehicle so Valley Metro designers could review the $2.9 million train car before it was put into production.

“This is not a public-relations model. It is a working model,” Mann said. “When our engineers were done with it, they asked what we wanted to do with it.”

While the actual rail car will be 93 feet long, the model is about half its length, since the front and the rear of the car mirror each other in every detail.

Mann said engineers have found minor problems with the design of the rail car, including a privacy panel that was built too close to the seats, handrails that needed moving and small adjustments inside the cab of the train.

“They were all little things,” she said.

The train is being manufactured by Kinkisharyo in Osaka, Japan, one of a handful of companies that build light-rail cars. There is no U.S. manufacturer.

The model of the Valley Metro car was first displayed last month in Dallas at the American Public Transportation Association Expo. It is being shipped to Phoenix this week.

When up and running, Mann said the light-rail system will have the capacity of a major highway. She stressed that the system is not supposed to a replace buses, but serve as an addition to them.

But the differences are stark.

While a bus has the capacity to carry 76 people, one train car can hold as many as 200. With each train able to link three cars, 600 riders can travel to their destination in one trip.

And the same trip that might take 90 minutes on a bus will take an hour on a train.

The initial 20-mile train line, which started construction in March, will run from 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, south along Central Avenue through downtown Phoenix, east through Tempe and stop in downtown Mesa.

“We are putting in the equivalent capacity of a six-lane freeway down Central Avenue,” Mann said. “But it is all in a very small amount of space.”

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Robert Anglen
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 26, 2005 12:00 AM