New Look for LA's Light Rail Vehicles

[rickycourtney]

Nearly a decade after LA Metro rolled out a new livery to all its buses, it appears the Rail fleet will finally be getting the new livery. The prototype Nippon Sharyo P865 pictured below was put into service today on the Blue/Expo line.

For years the Metro has tried to paint all its trains in a grey livery that matches the newer stainless steel trains, but as I understand it, there's been several hurdles to making this happen. The biggest issue was visibility. The Blue Line has a nasty reputation for being involved accidents with cars and pedestrians... and many said all grey and all white test trains were not visible enough. The yellow "sunburst" on the front appears to be an attempt to solve that problem. The other big problem has been finding decals strong enough to stand up to the acid washes given to the stainless steel cars to keep them clean and shiny.

If this prototype livery performs as expected, the rest of the fleet will be painted grey. The exception is the stainless steel Breda LRV's will just get new decals and the yellow "sunburst". I also attached the concept design for the Kinkisharyo P3010 LRV's that are currently being built for LA Metro in Palmdale.

At this point it's unknown if the Breda A650 subway cars will just get new decals or will get the full "sunburst" livery (there's fewer cars to hit on a system that's almost entirely underground.)

Nippon Sharyo P865/P2020:

(IMHO... these 23+ year old railcars look really sharp in the new livery.)

Kinkisharyo P3010:

(All photos aren't my own and courtesy of LACMTA.)

 

[MikefromCrete]

Painting trains to look like they're invisible doesn't seem like a good idea with all the Metrorail grade crossings. Somebody actually gets paid to make decisions like this?

 

[rickycourtney]

Painting trains to look like they're invisible doesn't seem like a good idea with all the Metrorail grade crossings. Somebody actually gets paid to make decisions like this?

Well that's the point of having the the reflective, bright yellow front of the train (see second image). Hopefully they'll be even more visible than the mostly white livery that's currently on the trains.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Painting trains to look like they're invisible doesn't seem like a good idea with all the Metrorail grade crossings. Somebody actually gets paid to make decisions like this?

It's LALA Land!!!