USA: New York City Transit authority MTA has issued a request for proposals for up to 2,390 R262 series cars. The firm portion of the future procurement will include 1,140 cars. Contract award is expected by early 2028. MTA states this will renew up to 34.6% of the entire 6,574-car metro fleet.
The rolling stock proposed in the base order portion is to replace R62 and R62A trains built more than 40 years ago by Kawasaki Rail and Bombardier Transportation. If the option is exercised, R142 and R142A cars from the same manufacturers, produced in the early 2000s, will also be retired.
As noted in the technical specification, some trains will feature intercar gangways. The future rolling stock must also include passenger counting, electric braking control and CCTV. Reliability is expected to rise significantly: mean distance between failures should be at least 320,000 km, versus 142,000 km for the R62 and R62A series.
The new rolling stock purchase will be partly funded under MTA’s 2025–2030 Capital Plan. Funds from central New York congestion charges are also slated for the procurement. The prior 1,495-car purchase was valued at $7.6 bln.
The New York metro fleet is currently being refreshed with Kawasaki Rail R211A, R211S and R211T (intercar gangway) cars, entering service progressively since 2023. Their production takes place at the Japanese manufacturer’s US plants in Lincoln and Yonkers. Under the firm 2018 contract plus exercised options, 1,610 cars were ordered, of which MTA has taken delivery of 750.
