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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Transit Authority's Comet cars aren't heading out to pasture, after all.
State transit officials posted to social media Tuesday saying UTA would take FrontRunner's 50-year-old Comet cars off the tracks, citing issues with keeping the cars operable. Mechanics have struggled to find many of the parts needed to repair the cars and it has put the cars on the brink of their service life.
UTA said a farewell event would be held at the North Temple Station in Salt Lake City on April 1, so riders could say farewell to the old cars before they were pulled off the tracks on April 2.
All that was news to many within UTA, including spokesman Carl Arky. He told KSL.com later Tuesday that, yes, the agency has entertained the idea of pulling the cars off the tracks but no decision has been made. There are no farewell events scheduled for April 1 and the Comet cars are still planned to be used after April 2.
While it's possible, if not likely, the cars will be removed sometime in the future, the announcement was published in error. UTA backtracked the announcement on social media Wednesday to clear the air.
"While the 50-year-old classic cars are difficult to maintain, we are actively looking at options for acquiring more vehicles to prepare for our future growth," the agency wrote on Facebook. "We will remove the Comet cars when those plans are finalized. In the meantime, keep enjoying the Comet cars!"
UTA acquired its fleet of 25 Comet cars from New Jersey Transit for $35,000 prior to the launch of FrontRunner. All of the cars were built by Pullman-Standard in the early 1970s. They have been a staple of the FrontRunner commuter train since its 2008 inception, used primarily as a quieter space for riders.
After the fleet of cars was acquired, UTA spent $400,000 refurbishing them — much less than the $2.2 million it paid for the newer cars on the train. The Comet cars have been noticeable to riders through the past decade because of the brown leather seats inside and because it is the single-level car always attached to the locomotive.
"They have served us well," agency officials wrote in a now-deleted news release, "offering increased capacity affordably in the early days of our commuter rail."
