Muni subway to be closed for railcar tests

Muni Metro riders can look forward to shiny new, and, one would hope, more reliable light-rail cars soon, perhaps by October, but first they’ll have to put up with a little pain.

During the closures, Muni will use buses to run between stations on the subway portions of Metro lines, although those typically take longer and travel more circuitous routes.

“I guess I’ll find other ways of getting home if I’m staying out late,” said Matt Long, 31, a software developer who rides Metro three or four days a week.

The first of 265 new railcars arrived in January and Muni has been testing them in its yards and on the street-level sections of the Metro lines, where operators control the trains.

Workers have had to adjust the heights of some boarding platforms and move some cables to accommodate the new cars, which are being manufactured by Siemens in Sacramento, and the workers have replaced the headlights with brighter ones.

The biggest challenge has been getting the 14 different systems on the new trains — from air conditioning to Clipper readers to the public-address announcement and message displays — to work together.

Trains in the subway are computer controlled, so tests in the tunnel will focus on fine-tuning the control system to work efficiently with both the new Siemens cars and existing Breda cars operating in the subway at the same time.

The control system governs the propulsion and braking systems, when the doors open and close and where and when trains stop.

The cars, which are gray and white and wrapped with a big red stripe, will feature more dependable doors, more efficient braking, a more spacious interior and more stanchions and handholds to grab, he said.