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The California Car is the first generation of Superliner derived bi-level intercity railcars owned by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and operated by Amtrak under the Amtrak California brand on intercity corridor routes in Northern and Central California. The cars were built in the mid-1990s for the Caltrans Division of Rail by Morrison-Knudsen. Amtrak's Superliner was used as the design baseline for the California Car, but several changes were made to the design to make the car more suitable for corridor services with frequent stops. All cars were overhauled by Alstom at its Mare Island facility between 2009 and 2012.〔(Alstom to Overhaul MK Caltrans California Car Fleet )〕 == History == In 1990, California residents passed Propositions 108, 111 and 116. Combined, the three measures authorized the sale of nearly $3 billion in bonds for the creation of rail services across the state including commuter rail and intercity rail. With this new source of money, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) set out to specify a standardized railcar for the state that would be suitable for rail operations across the state. The result of this effort were designs for both intercity and commuter rail cars based on the Superliner. While the commuter rail version was never built, the intercity version has become very successful. Several changes were made to the Superliner design to make it more suitable for corridor services with frequent stops. The major changes include two large entry vestibules for high-volume passenger loading and unloading, two automatically controlled door pairs per side, two straight staircases, large workstation tables and a control cab to allow for push-pull operation. The first generation of these Bi-Level intercity cars, were dubbed the "California Cars". When delivered these cars were plagued with problems and Caltrans actually refused the first attempted delivery due to cracks in the frame. That forced Morrison-Knudsen to ship the cars back to the manufacturing plant for repair. After Caltrans accepted delivery, these trains were first put in service on the ''San Diegan'' line (the predecessor to the ''Pacific Surfliner'') and crews immediately encountered automatic doors that failed to function properly, causing delays in service. Attempted repairs failed to fix the problematic doors and failures continued for years with doors between train cars later failing to operate properly as well. Around 2000 the California Cars were removed from the frequent, congested and heavily used ''San Diegan'' route and reassigned to the less demanding ''Capitol Corridor'' and ''San Joaquin'' routes. Around the same time the upper-level floor of the California Cars began to sag which required costly repair.〔 All 66 California Cars were overhauled by Alstom, the builder of the second generation "Surfliner" California Cars, at its Mare Island facility between 2009 and 2012 to extend their service life.〔 Reliability has significantly improved on these cars in recent years, which still see heavy use on the ''Capitol Corridor'' and ''San Joaquin'' routes. After the success of these cars, Amtrak and Caltrans ordered 62 second generation Surfliner cars from Alstom in 1998 and 1999,〔(Alstom - The Pacific Surfliner, Riding the California Coast )〕 which were delivered between 2000 and 2002.〔 Caltrans, along with a coalition of midwest states, ordered 130 third generation cars from Nippon Sharyo in 2012, with delivery expected to begin in 2015, of which 42 will go to California.〔(Nippon Sharyo and Sumitomo Corporation receive the Contract Award for 130 Bi-Level Passenger Cars from Caltrans and IDOT )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「California Car (railcar)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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