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Yesterday was the final day of service for the very last of San Francisco Muni's second-generation light rail vehicles.
In total, Muni operated 151 trains, built by a company named Breda Costruzione Ferroviarie (Breda), starting in 1996. They were problematic, but a significant improvement over the first-generation trains built by Boeing.
A pair of previous-generation Muni Metro trains cross each other on the Fourth Street Bridge.
sfchronicle.com
San Francisco has a new font. It was inspired by an old Muni street →
Last week, the SFMTA retired the last of the second-generation Breda light rail vehicles, and they turned out to be much more beloved than I'd thought.
Emily Sneddon saw poetic beauty. More specifically, the designer fell for the Dijon-colored destination display on Muni’s recently retired Breda trains. She calls the typeface “raw and functional and mechanical,” then in the next breath describes the lettering like it’s a Michelangelo fresco. “And yet there are curves,” she says, “and a unique counter thickness, that make you think, ‘A human hand has definitely touched this.’”
Her love for the LCD in the signs riding the N-Judah led Emily to a Muni rail yard to learn how they work, and then in search of the original designer, engineer Gary Wallberg.
This isn't the only typeface inspired by San Francisco. The default sans-serif system font for Apple devices – the one that looks like Helvetica – is named San Francisco, "SF" for short in the fonts menu. Apple's serif companion to San Francisco is New York, NY, for short. More info: Sans Francisco by Emily Sneddon
sfchronicle.com
These Muni trains hit S.F. streets when ‘Friends’ and Boyz II Men were hot. Now they’re retiring →
Muni will be retiring the last of the Breda-built light rail vehicles next week. The second-generation trains replaced the original Boeing Vertol light rail vehicles beginning in 1995, arriving in two batches labeled LRV2 and LRV3.
Breda trains helped shape the city through multiple dot-com booms and the rise of new neighborhoods south of Market. They hauled tech workers to downtown office buildings, and powered the T line that began running along Third Street in 2007, carrying Giants fans to what’s now Oracle Park. But every train has an expiration date, a rule that even applies to metro rail vehicles with new gadgetry and European roots. In 2017, Muni began replacing the Bredas with new Siemens LRV4s, which have data-driven systems to detect maintenance issues before they happen.
According to the SFMTA, the newer Siemens S200 trains, labeled LRV4, are 3-4 times as reliable as the Bredas they replaced.
If you want to say goodbye, there will be a happy hour from 4 to 8 on November 12 at Churchill on Church Street at Market Street.
A two-car N-Judah train heading west on Duboce Avenue.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, acting as the San Francisco County Transportation Authority commission, will decide whether to provide the $60 million SFMTA needs for early replacement of the aging Breda trains.
Supervisors delayed the funding last April after San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency officials encountered multiple mechanical issues on the new trains — passengers were caught between the train’s doors, wheels had flattened and an issue arose with the train’s coupler system.
An outside firm was hired to look into the issues involving the LRV4s.
At a meeting last month, SFMTA director of Transit Julie Kirshbaum told the Supervisors that Siemens has addressed the defects, including the coupler problems. You never want to discover any flaw with a new type train after it's started passenger service or entered mass production, but the practical reality is some problems just won't turn up until riders have put some wear and tear on them.
The shear pin problem indicates that the train’s couplers are absorbing more force than what they can handle at specific intersections — a design issue that Siemens should have initially anticipated given San Francisco’s steep grades and sharp turns, Kirschbaum said.
She said:
“There’s 10 times more force at those intersections than Siemens anticipated when they designed the coupler. Now that they know the problem, they can fix it.”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who lead the effort to block funding last year, is now onboard:
“I have increasingly become convinced that they are on the right path [and] that all the numbers are moving in the right direction. This is a product that The City should acquire particularly as the old aging Breda fleet is failing and becoming outdated.”
When we last checked on the new trains, the Board of Supervisors had directed $19 million of the funding the SFMTA had intended for accelerating train replacement towards other priorities.
The SFMTA is still going forward with plans to replace the remaining 151 Breda-built light-rail vehicles beginning next year and complete it by 2025, three years ahead of schedule.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority board issued initial approval of approximately $62 million that will go towards replacing all 151 Breda trains. The board will take a final vote at its April 23 meeting.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is working with the manufacturer to finalize costs of the second phase of the project, as transit officials want to retire the Breda trains earlier and accelerate the schedule of the new trains.
The SFMTA plans to have the entire expansion fleet, 68 of the new a href="https://muniverse.blog/tagged/Siemens+S200V">Siemens-built light-rail vehicles, in service by this summer.
The seating configuration is being changed, on the 151 replacement trains and 68 new trains going into service now.
The SFMTA plans to convert half of the longitudinal seats to single transverse seats inside the first 50 replacement trains while the 101 replacement trains will have double transverse seats.
On the new trains that are already here and in service. [T]he transit agency will also change the bench seating to the Freedman seating, lower the seats, and convert half of the longitudinal seating to single transverse seats.
Yesterday, the SFMTA inaugurated the first two-car Siemens S200 on the N-Judah line. Muni has been running an ever-growing fleet of one-car trains, running mostly off-peak, but edging into regular service.
Approval of the first two-car train is a significant step because of the extra scrutiny and an abundance of caution on the part of state regulators on any new transit vehicle. After the first kinks are worked out with the first few trains, there is less work needed to test the next 200+ before they can enter service.
Photo: SFMTA / Instagram
