VRE's New Gallery Cars

The shells of the 11 VRE Cab Cars, built by Nippon Sharyo/Sumitomo, await transport to the US for final assembly in Wisconsin. These 11 cars are expected to begin operation in early 2007.

VRE is currently working on purchasing 50 more railcars, of which 10 more would be cab cars, 20 would be regular coaches, and 20 coaches with restrooms. These would all be in service at the end of 2007.

What else needs to be done to them prior to delivery?

More need to have restrooms.

According to the vre newsletter they just awarded the contract to Sumitomo Corporation, and Nippon Sharyo, Ltd to purchase 50 new gallery cars.


40 coaches (20 with/20 without) restrooms.
10 cab cars with restrooms

http://www.vre.org/service/commuterweek ... ugust9.pdf

These are built by the same company that has assembled the newer Metra coaches, and essentially look the same from the picture. Are they the same bilevel gallery coaches?

Any word on what their build/delivery status is?

Coming directly from VRE:

New Car Display
On Wednesday, December 6, VRE will have one
of our new cab cars on display at Union Station.
The car will be available to the public between
10:00a and 7:00p. If you have the time, hop on
over during lunch or before your evening
commute to see what the new cars look like.

Two new VRE gallery cars were running on inbound on #30 on Sunday
night 11/19 at WUS. One was a cab car and the other a coach.

Both cars on #30 that arrived in Washington on Sunday were cab cars. The cars were V710 and V711.

Anyone get any pictures? I'm curious to see what VRE changed from Metra's cars.

Looks like the first of VRE's new cab cars started test runs yesterday. I didn't know VRE had cars in RTA's old scheme, almost looks like it could be mistaken for a Metra set.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=167271

Here is a picture of V710 during a test run connected to the antique cars
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=167271

VRE's cars could be mistaken for a metra set because that's what they once were - CNW legacy coaches that metra painted in tastefull, restrained colors. However, those Metra/CNW legacy coaches in VRE's scheme are hideous! The VRE scheme looks so good when applied correctly (GP40's, F40's, Mafersa, depowered RDC). But that abomination on the legacy coaches is awful.

CB&Q got it right, too, when they decided not to paint a stainless steel coach. Someone needs to tell VRE not to slap decals and paint all over a stainless steel coach - it's a timeless industrial design which is truly a rarity, and it doesn't need updating with VRE "wings", etc...

Disclaimer: I have nothing against VRE, I loved how it looked when it was just Mafersa coaches and Geeps in that red/blue/silver setup. It seems like a classy operation. There's just a need for restraint on their new equipment. This isn't Braniff Airways

Today I saw 5 of these brand new VRE gallery cars in the middle of a freight consist on the Union Pacific Geneva Subdivision (also Chicago Metra's UP-West line) on Chicago's west side. From what I saw the cars are basically the same as Metra's 6000 series gallery cars. Not the best looking pic as I took this with my camera phone and from a distance:

davinp wrote:Here is a picture of V710 during a test run connected to the antique cars
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=167271

Wow, how many different paint schemes does VRE have?!