WES parts to harvest from trains made in 1953.

From Portland Tribune, "TriMet adds ‘new’ rail cars to backup WES"

When mechanical problems knocked out TriMet’s WES commuter rail service Wednesday morning, the transit agency had no place to turn for a replacement train. That all changes at the end of this year.

TriMet has purchased two rail diesel cars from the Alaska Railroad that will be in service by summer 2010 on the westside commuter line as replacement cars when something goes wrong with the new Colorado Railcar trains.

TriMet spent $150,000 for the two cars that were built in 1953 by the Budd Co. of Troy, Mich. Budd Co. built stainless steel streamlined passenger railroad cars for nearly 40 years beginning in the 1930s.

Transit agency spokeswoman Bekki Witt said the rail cars will be delivered by the end of this year and should be ready for WES service next summer. The Alaska Railroad cars were used for passenger service until March, she said.

The new Colorado Railcar trains purchased last year by TriMet were modeled after the 1953 Budd Co. cars, Witt said.

For the third time in about a month, morning WES commuters had to take shuttle buses Wednesday between Wilsonville and Beaverton because of an electrical component failure on one of the rail cars. The component was replaced but the programming wasn’t complete in time for Wednesday morning’s commute.

Four of the 16 morning WES trips were on shuttle buses. The problems were corrected in time for Wednesday afternoon’s commute.

Mechanical troubles seem more glaring on WES because right now TriMet doesn’t have backup rail cars, Witt said. The WES system has bugs just like buses and light-rail trains, she said, but equipment problems have a larger impact on the commuter rail line.

“It is just more noticeable with WES because we do not have spare vehicles and must supplement train service with shuttle buses when a WES vehicle is out for repair,” Witt said.

The 14.7-mile $166 million westside commuter system opened in February as one of the nation’s first suburb-to-suburb rail lines.