The P865 and P2020 were

articulated An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were someti ...

light rail vehicles used on the

Los Angeles County Metro Rail The Los Angeles Metro Rail is an urban rail transit system serving Los Angeles County, California, United States. It consists of seven lines, including five light rail lines (the A, C, E, K, L lines) and two rapid transit (known locally a ...

system. They were manufactured by

Nippon Sharyo , formed in 1896, is a major rolling stock manufacturer based in Nagoya, Japan. In 1996, it abbreviated its name to "日本車両" Nippon Sharyō. Its shortest abbreviation is Nissha "日車". It was a listed company on Nikkei 225 until 2 ...

and used on Metro's A Line, C Line (P2020), and E Line. The trains featured

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

, emergency intercoms, wheelchair spaces and automated announcements. They are of an air-electric design, with air powered doors, friction brakes, and a

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

Operational history

The P865s were the first urban rail vehicles to run in Los Angeles County since the

Pacific Electric Railway The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...

ceased operations in 1965 as the first cars were delivered in May 1989. The original 54 railcars, numbered 100–153, were ordered at a cost of $1.17 million each. Prior to entering service, all of the railcars were christened after various cities in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

; it was in the same style as christening a ship before being launched. Examples include ''Long Beach'' (Car 100) and ''Bell'' (Car 105).

Nippon Sharyo P2020

The P2020 was the newer version of the P865, which had automated control panels for Green Line service since the Green Line was originally intended to be fully automated. A total of 15 vehicles with that model designation were delivered to Metro in 1994. The railcars, numbered 154–168, entered revenue service on the Green Line the following year. In the early 2000s, the railcars were transferred to the Blue Line fleet when the Green Line received newer Siemens P2000 LRVs. As of April 2021, the P2020s were retired due to exceeding the maximum storage capacity after the final batch of the P3010 were delivered. All 15 railcars were retired throughout early 2021. The last railcars were removed from service on April 23, 2021.

Overhaul

In late 2013, Metro awarded a 60-month fixed price contract to ORX to overhaul the powered axle assemblies for the then twenty-three year old railcars.

Retirement and preservation

The P865s were completely retired in September 2018 after 28 years of service, and were replaced by Kinki Sharyo P3010s. While most of the P865s were dismantled for parts and subsequently scrapped, Cars 100 and 144 were retained. Car 100, christened ''Long Beach'' and painted in the original LACTC livery, is being preserved for its namesake city. Car 144, christened ''South Gate'', was donated to the

Southern California Railway Museum The Southern California Railway Museum (SCRM, reporting mark OERX), formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving ...

Perris, California Perris is an old railway city in Riverside County, California, United States, located east-southeast of Los Angeles and north of San Diego. It is known for Lake Perris, an artificial lake, skydiving, and its sunny dry climate. Perris is wit ...

. Both cars are currently preserved in operating condition. Car 100 will be placed on static display in Downtown Long Beach. The P2020s were towed to Division 16 in Westchester throughout early 2021 via the C and K lines. On March 5, P865 Car 100 assisted in the towing operation. Most of the P2020 fleet was later removed and scrapped. P2020 Car 164 will be preserved at the

Western Railway Museum The Western Railway Museum, in Solano County, California is located on Highway 12 between Rio Vista and Suisun. The museum is built along the former mainline of the Sacramento Northern Railway. Their collection focuses on trolleys, as it is ...

in Northern California.

In popular culture

The P865 has made several media appearances other than public service announcements. It was featured in movies such as ''

Lethal Weapon 3 ''Lethal Weapon 3'' is a 1992 American buddy cop action film directed by Richard Donner and written by Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen. The sequel to ''Lethal Weapon 2'' (1989), it is the third installment in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film serie ...

'', ''

Virtuosity ''Virtuosity'' is a 1995 American science fiction action film directed by Brett Leonard and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Howard W. Koch Jr. served as an executive producer for the film. The film was released in the United Sta ...

'', ''The Italian Job'', and ''Captain Marvel''.

References

External links

Los Angeles Metro Rail Electric multiple units of the United States 750 V DC multiple units Train-related introductions in 1990 Light rail vehicles Articulated passenger trains Nippon Sharyo multiple units {{US-tram-stub