Black and white and red all over - Calgary's new LRT cars revealed

The Bow CTrain design concept is one of three options Calgarians can select in a late September vote.

City Council has approved the purchase of 60 new CTrain cars for a total cost of $200M and hopes to see the new vehicles roll down the tracks by August 2015.

The city made the announcement on Wednesday morning and says the new cars will be coming from Siemens Canada.

Calgary Transit initiated a search for a supplier of the cars in December 2012 and received bids from five major companies.

The City picked Siemens Canada and says the company was the highest rated bidder.

The new S200 light rail vehicles will be manufactured at Siemens’ plant in Sacramento, California and  feature a new design and air conditioning. Calgarians will be invited to take part in a Calgary Transit vote to choose the new design for the trains from three options; The Bow, The Buffalo and The Mask.  All three designs rely on a black, red and white colour scheme.

The sleek, new vehicles will enable future four-car CTrain operation and will replace some of the oldest LRVs in the fleet.

$133M of the total $200M bill will come from Provincial Green TRIP funding and $67 million will come from previously approved funds.

The cars cost about $3.2M each and are three to four times more reliable than the old cars.

The city expects the first new LRV to be delivered in August 2015 and the rest should be here by December 2016.