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As fast as passenger rail-car manufacturers are receiving orders, transit agencies are taking delivery of cars.



Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Aug. 17 and 19 took delivery of the first two P2000 light-rail trains of a total 26 ordered from Siemens Transportation Systems Inc., for use on the Gold Line extension.



Los Angeles to Pasadena Construction Authority, a joint powers authority, is building the line. MTA will operate it upon its completion sometime next summer. And MTA anticipates strong initial ridership.



"This isn’t [the area’s] first rail line; a lot of people already are converts to the system," says MTA spokesman Ed Scannell, adding that the line will run almost exactly parallel to the very congested Pasadena Freeway.



Meanwhile, Sound Transit plans Sept. 3 to receive the first three light-rail trains that Inekon and Skoda Dopravni Technica manufactured at Skoda’s facility in the Czech Republic.



The cars were trucked via the Autobahn to the port at Antwerp, where they were loaded onto a ship owned by Star Shipping AS, of Bergen, Norway.



Upon the ship’s arrival, port workers plan to lift the vehicles individually from the ship’s hold using the ship’s crane. They would then be lowered onto over-sized flatbed trucks, which would transport them to Sound Transit’s Maintenance and Operations Base near Tacoma Dome Station.



Service on the 1.6-mile Tacoma Link is scheduled to launch in 2003.



— Kathi Kube