Bombardier BiLevel Coach

The BiLevel coaches were designed by Toronto's regional commuter rail service, GO Transit and Hawker Siddeley Canada in the mid-1970s as a more efficient replacement for GO's original single-deck coaches and cab cars.[1] Later coaches were manufactured by Urban Transportation Development Corporation/Can-Car and finally Bombardier, who now owns the designs and manufacturing facility. There are more than seven hundred such coaches in service today and almost all have been built at the company's Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Plattsburgh, New York, plants.

Redesigned cab for crash energy management

The coaches feature an aluminum body on a steel frame. They are 15 ft 11 in (4.851 m) high and 9 ft 10 in (2.997 m) wide, and weigh about 61,000 kg (134,000 lb).[1] Depending on car design and seating configuration, seats are available for between 136 and 162 passengers, along with standing room. The coaches have two pairs of doors on each side which allow the entire coach to be emptied in 90 seconds. Some of the newer coaches have electrical outlets for laptop computers and other devices along with small tables.

All newly built coaches have a washroom on the lower level; the original coaches for GO Transit have the washroom on the intermediate level in the same location as where the cab is located in cab cars (see below). The washrooms feature a stainless steel chemical flush toilet, sink, mirrors and waste receptacles. The sliding washroom door, when locked, shows a light that indicates the washroom is in use. The washroom door is wheelchair friendly with wide doors and handle bars to assist those with mobility needs on the toilet.

One major variant is the cab car. The cab car is placed at the end of the train and features a full cab built into the end of the coach, from which the train's locomotive can be remotely controlled. This allows for push–pull operation with a faster turnaround time for trains, by avoiding having to physically turn around the train or locomotive. Unlike the similar Driving Van Trailer used by Britain's InterCity 225, the cab cars are otherwise identical to the regular coaches rather than imitating the design of the locomotive, leading to the appearance that the train is travelling 'backwards'. In 2014 Metrolinx (the provincial agency operating GO Transit) and Bombardier announced a new design for the cab car, which included a larger cab end and crash-energy management crumple zones.[2] Sounder Commuter Rail, Altamont Corridor Express, and COASTER have also purchased this type of cab car. This new series of BiLevel Cabcar are currently planned to replace all the older generation BiLevel Cabcars on three of the aforementioned four commuter rail services, many of which will be converted to normal coaches.

Most operators of these coaches use a 480 volt head end power (HEP) system for heating, lighting, and air conditioning. The only exception to this is with GO Transit which uses a 575 volt system (575 volts is a standard industrial Canadian voltage, having been previously used by CN for their Tempo cars — also built by HS). Whenever GO has leased coaches to other agencies, a power unit has been supplied with the coaches, or when GO has leased coaches from other agencies, a locomotive with 480 volt HEP capabilities was also leased. Amtrak, Via Rail and Exo also use 480 volt HEP (480 volt is a standard industrial U.S. voltage).

Many North American commuter rail agencies operate Bombardier BiLevel Coaches. They include:

Image	Operator	Location	Fleet size	Notes
	Altamont Corridor Express	San Jose, California	24 cars	[4]
	Caltrain	San Francisco, California	41 cars
	COASTER	San Diego, California	28 cars	[5][6]
	FrontRunner	Salt Lake City, Utah	22 cars	[7]
	GO Transit	Greater Toronto Area, Ontario	656 cars	[8]
	Metrolink	Greater Los Angeles Area, California	184 cars	[9][10]
	Northstar Line	Minneapolis, Minnesota	18 cars
	Rail Runner Express	Albuquerque, New Mexico	22 cars	[11]
	Sounder	Seattle, Washington	58 cars	[12]
	SunRail	Orlando, Florida	20 cars	[13]
	Tri-Rail	Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach, Florida	26 cars	[6][14]
	Trinity Railway Express	Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas	17 cars	[6][15]
	West Coast Express	Vancouver, British Columbia	44 cars	[16]
	Exo	Montreal, Quebec	22 cars

Bombardier also produces two other models of bi-level railway coach, the Bombardier MultiLevel and the Bombardier Double-deck Coach.

The MultiLevel was designed to a smaller loading gauge than the BiLevel in order to fit within the North River Tunnels used by New Jersey Transit in New York and the Mont Royal Tunnel used by Exo in Montréal. It also features doors on the middle level rather than the lower level in order to serve the high-level platforms in those two regions.

The Double-Deck Coach is designed, built and operated in Germany, so it is built to the German loading gauge and therefore features a narrowing profile on the upper deck.

Other bi-level or double-deck railcars competing against the Bombardier BiLevel and MultiLevel in the North American market include:

• Kawasaki L2 Double-Deck Coaches
• Kawasaki L3 Double-Deck Coaches
• Kawasaki MARC III Bi-Level coaches and cab cars
• Kawasaki CTC-4/BTC-4 series bi-level cars
• Hyundai Rotem BTC-5 bi-level train set
• Gallery commuter cars (Numerous builders including St Louis Car and Pullman Company
• St. Louis Car Company and Nippon Sharyo Highliner cars
• Colorado Railcar (now US Railcar) DMU bi-level and bi-level trailer cars

• Train 48 - a Canadian TV show that used a 64' replica Bi-Level car for train interior scenes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bombardier BiLevel Coach.

• The Bi-Level Coaches (from transittoronto.ca)
• Bombardier BiLevel in Canada and the USA - Bombardier