NEW HAVEN — If you’re riding Metro North’s New Haven Line, the only rail cars you’ll find are from the new M8 fleet. Transportation leaders announced Monday afternoon that the old cars have been retired.
This began back in 2006 with ordering 300 cars,” said Governor Dannel Malloy. “Since then we’ve enlarged the order very substantially, taken delivery, and put into service and now put into full service the M8s.”
The state has officially put all 405 M8 rail cars into service and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. “It’s like night and day,” described Elena Korolyshun, a commuter.
Malloy says the full deployment of M8 cars is just the beginning. “Now we’ve gotta get signals done, now we’ve gotta get bridges done, now we’ve gotta modernize what is a very old system and of course it’s gonna require a lot of work.”
The M8s will eventually be used on the Shore Line East route between New Haven and New London. DOT officials say that diesel equipment will undergo a refurbishment and be put into service on the new Hartford Line in 2017.
