They aren't fancy with their limited legroom and lack of power outlets for laptops, but at least they can still roll. Salt Lake City has decided to put New Jersey Transit's old rail cars on UTA's tracks in response to crowding on some of the city's FrontRunner commuter trains.
The Comet cars, built for NJ Transit in the early 70s, will still feature the wood-panel wall papers, the aluminum bar luggage racks and the seating arrangement of two on one side of the aisle and three on the other. A few rows of seats will be taken out in order to accommodate bicycles. Wireless internet will still be available, but users must use their laptop battery for the whole trip. The exterior NJ Transit livery will be replaced with one that will fit in with the other FrontRunner trains.
UTA has bought 25 of these cars. Each NJ Transit car cost $35,000 each and are being fixed for $400,000. This is much cheaper than paying $2.2 million per new rail car.
Photo: Flickr/Christopher & AmyCate.
