CANADA: The Metrolinx board of directors has approved the purchase of 12 two-car diesel multiple units for Toronto’s future airport rail link from Sumitomo Corp and its partner Nippon Sharyo Inc for C$53m.

The DMUs will be similar to the 18 cars ordered by Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit Authority to work its commuter service between Cloverdale and Larkspur to the north of San Francisco. They will be powered by clean diesel engines meeting the latest EPA Tier 4 emission standards.

The cars will be built at a new Nippon Sharyo plant in Rochelle, Illinois, and will have the capability to be converted to electric traction, at a cost of about C$12m, if the province decides to proceed with plans to electrify the corridor; a feasibility study for this is currently underway.

The service would operate at 15 min headways using the Georgetown GO Transit corridor from Toronto city centre, then switch onto a new 3·3 km spur to Pearson International Airport. End-to-end journey time would be about 25 min with three intermediate stops. Metrolinx hopes to have the airport service running by 2015, in time for the Pan Am Games.