Comet V

The Comet V railcar is the fifth generation of the Comet railcar series. Produced by the manufacturer Alstom, the Comet V is a much different type of car compared to previous versions of the series. The Comet V began servicing New York metropolitan area commuter rail operators New Jersey Transit and Metro-North in April 2002.^[1]

Layout and design

The main design of the Comet V is similar to its predecessors starting with the Comet III. Each trailer car has six doors for entering and exiting (like the Comet IV, the cab cars have five doors); the doors at the ends of the car are single-leaf with trap doors for low-level boarding while those in the middle are double-leaf but lack steps and trapdoors, only opening at high platform stations. The length of the cars at 85 feet (25.9 m) over the couplers remains unchanged from previous models^[2] and their width adheres to the standard loading gauge of 10.5 feet (3.2 m).^[2]

The one unique feature of Comet V cab cars, compared to earlier Comets and especially the Comet IV, is the lack of steps and a trapdoor at the door in the vestibule opposite the engineer's operating position. Like the Comet IV, the engineer's side of the cab vestibule has no door.

The interiors of the trains have significant differences from previous Comet railcars, featuring redesigned seats and windows that are larger than previous Comet coaches.^[3] There are also new LED digital information displays along with slightly more seating.^[1][2]

Door problems

One prominent problem of the Comet V is failures in its door-opening mechanism. On the Comet V, Alstom added a new button to open vestibule doors that lead to the end doors labeled with "push to open."^[3] This led to confusion among passengers about how to open the doors; eventually many resorted to opening them manually.^[3] The Comet V's software glitches came to light as doors failed to open or malfunctioned.^[4]

Accidents

On the morning of September 29, 2016, an NJ Transit train crashed through a bumper block and into the concourse of the station, killing one person and injuring over 110 people.^[5][6] Comet V can car #6036 suffered major damages due to falling debris.

References

External links

Media related to Alstom Comet V at Wikimedia Commons

NJ Transit Rail Operations
Hoboken Division	Bergen County Line Main Line Meadowlands Rail Line Montclair-Boonton Line Morris & Essex Lines (Morristown Line and Gladstone Branch) Pascack Valley Line
Newark Division	Atlantic City Line North Jersey Coast Line Northeast Corridor Line Princeton Branch Raritan Valley Line
Connections	Aldene Connection Lehigh Line Connection Kearny Connection Montclair Connection Secaucus Junction Waterfront Connection
Current rolling stock	EMD GP40PH-2 ALP-46 ALP-45DP PL42AC Comet coaches Comet V MultiLevel coaches Arrow multiple units
Proposed lines	Lackawanna Cut-Off Monmouth Ocean Middlesex Line Northern Branch Passaic–Bergen Rail Line West Trenton Line
Other topics	Access to the Region's Core Atlantic City Express Service Gateway Project List of stations Historic stations