LA Metro LRV loading gauge

[bulk88]

Why has LA Metro never bought off the shelf LRVs like Siemens SD/U2/S200/Boeings or PCC-like cars? Does LA Metro just have the $ for customized vehicles and wants to burn it (LACMTA owns the blueprint IP) or is it a unique loading gauge that no other LR system in the USA uses and requires custom LRV bodies?

I want to ask, is LA Metro a NYC IRT subway car with a skirt and a pantograph size wise?

[lensovet]

the cynic in me wants to say it's because we live in california where everything is more expensive because it can be.

but perhaps smarter people can chime in here with the real reasons.

[electricron]

Why has LA Metro never bought off the shelf LRVs like Siemens SD/U2/S200/Boeings or PCC-like cars? Does LA Metro just have the $ for customized vehicles and wants to burn it (LACMTA owns the blueprint IP) or is it a unique loading gauge that no other LR system in the USA uses and requires custom LRV bodies?

I want to ask, is LA Metro a NYC IRT subway car with a skirt and a pantograph size wise?

Actually, it's the other way around. Those one-off light rail vehicles were not only cheaper to buy, they should also be cheaper to maintain because they didn't use proprietary parts only made by Siemens, or Bombardier, or ABB.

[BandA]

the cynic in me wants to say it's because we live in california where everything is more expensive because it can be.

but perhaps smarter people can chime in here with the real reasons.

We say the same thing in Massachusetts; Everything MBTA orders has to be custom - trolleys, subway cars, passenger diesel locomotives, even the mostly-standard passenger coaches have to be from an unproven vendor (Hyundai-Rotem). I believe the MBTA bus system has the highest or second highest hourly operating cost in the country, and [OT] highway maintenance is 3X the national average and 4X what our neighbor NH pays.

[R36 Combine Coach]

At least the Red Line cars are off the shelf, in a sense, being more or less based on the Budd/TransitAmerica cars on Baltimore Metro. [I once thought the Baltimore Metro cars were built by Breda, not Budd/TransitAmerica.]