Comet (passenger car)
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| Comet / Horizon / Shoreliner | |
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 New Jersey Transit Comet III car 5529 |
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| Manufacturer | Alstom Bombardier Budd Company Pullman Standard |
| Constructed | 1970 - present |
| Entered service | Active |
| Operator | Amtrak, Metro North Railroad, New Jersey Transit, SEPTA, MBTA |
| Lines served | Operated as Horizon by Amtrak, Shoreliner, by Metro-North |
| Specifications | |
The Comet passenger car is a railcar that was first designed in the late 1960s by Pullman-Standard as a modern commuter car for North American rail lines. Variations have since been built by Bombardier Transportation and Alstom.
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[edit] History
[edit] Comet I
The Comet I cars were the first of the Comet series, built by Pullman Standard in 1970-73 for the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad's diesel-hauled commuter services. These were considered state of the art at the time, due to their all-aluminum bodyshell construction as well as their use of head-end power (HEP). Their automated entrance doors, designed for use with low platforms only, earned them the nickname "sliders".
In 1987, the Comet I fleet was rebuilt by Bombardier at Barre, Vermont, with the cab cars and a number of trailer cars receiving high doors, for ADA access and future compatibility with high platforms. The red stripe E-L decal was removed from the cars during the rebuild, with the NJ Transit corporate "disco stripes" logo was applied to the body, adjacent to the entrance doors.
The low-door Comet Is were retired from service in 2005. Most of the cars were sold to UTA for the FrontRunner service.
[edit] Comet IA
These cars were built in 1978 from surplus Arrow III shells by Budd Company for Metro-North Railroad, primarily for the Port Jervis Line. These cars were retired in 2004.
[edit] Comet IB
These cars are rebuilds from 30 former Penn Central Arrow I cars originally built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1968-69.
[edit] Comet II
These cars had several variations, such as the MBTA's BTC-1 and CTC-1 cars. In 1982, New Jersey Transit and Metro-North purchased similar cars. These cars feature high doors with traps for use at both low-platform and high-platform stations.[citation needed] Variations exist in the Shoreliner series for Metro-North, the Connecticut Department of Transportation, SEPTA Regional Rail, and Agence métropolitaine de transport (Montreal).
[edit] Horizon Fleet
Amtrak's Horizon Fleet cars are based upon the Comet II design. The cars were built in Coach and Food Service configurations and can be found on Midwest trains in the Chicago division. However, one set resides in California and is used for Surfliner service. One of the main differences between the Horizons and Comets is that the Horizons have outboard bearing trucks, while the Comets have inboard bearing trucks. Additionally, while the Comets have automatic side doors (to speed loading and unloading on busy commuter schedules) and manual end doors (to discourage transit between cars), the Horizons have the reverse arrangement, with manual side doors and automatic end doors, to better suit their longer-distance use.
[edit] Comet III
The Comet III cars, ordered by New Jersey Transit in 1990, feature center doors and long end-doors, permitting end doors to open and close with traps open. The Metro-North Shoreliner II fleet is a variation without long doors.
[edit] Comet IV
The Comet IV cars, ordered in 1996, are similar to the Comet III cars, except with no door by the engineer's cab. Variations were also built for SEPTA, Metro-North, and the Connecticut DOT.
[edit] Comet V
These cars were ordered in the early 2000s by New Jersey Transit and Metro-North Railroad. The major external differences are a stainless-steel exterior and larger windows.
[edit] External links
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