The Philippine National Railways said it acquired eight brand-new rail cars, or two train sets, as part of the refleeting program to increase capacity.
The state-run agency said the eight new 8100 series of diesel multiple unit rail cars were docked at the Port of Manila and awaiting transfer to the PNR depot.
It said the eight rail cars would form two trains, with each train composed of four cars. The new rail cars are part of the 2018 train procurement and PNR’s refleeting strategy that aimed to increase capacity and frequency of trips.
PNR said that once fully deployed for operation, the new trains were expected to carry 1,000 passengers per trip and would be used for Tutuban to Alabang route.
The trains will undergo 150 hours of RAMS validation test before they are deployed for commercial operations. RAMS refers to reliability, availability, maintainability and safety test.
PNR said it was also expecting to receive two more DMU, three locomotive, 15 passenger coaches and two shunters in the first half of 2020.
It deployed six brand-new DMU rail cars from Indonesia in December that increased the line’s capacity to 73,500 passengers a day from the previous 60,000 passengers.
Manufactured by Indonesian company PT-INKA, the six brand-new DMU train cars were converted into two train sets of three rail cars each. They added 18 to 20 more trips per day on the line’s routes from Tutuban (Manila) to FTI (Taguig City) and from Malabon to FTI.
The PNR’s metro line runs from Tutuban in Manila to Los Baños, Laguna.
The two Indonesian train sets were designed to accommodate 13,500 additional passengers daily.