Q&A with light-rail designer John Swanson

John Swanson, vehicle program manager for Metro light rail, oversaw the design of the light-rail train. Before coming to Phoenix, he developed light-rail vehicles in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. He spoke to Ron Sanzone of The Republic about his first North American design. He talked about how the cars were designed for safety, the Valley's extreme heat and the unique challenges of designing trains in America.

Q: What effect did the Valley's climate have on the train's design?

A: Phoenix's climate is like nowhere else light rail is running. If there was nothing else people had to be, it was cool. While a lot of other vehicles put 13 or 14 tons of air conditioning in a car, we put 25. . . . We also have tinted glass, reflective film in the windows, and insulation in the car. There are a lot of steps taken to keep it as cool as possible. The light color schemes, the light reflective paint -- it's a metallic paint -- so we get a lot of heat reflected back off.

We actually had a full climate chamber test done in Japan. Normally this is done in extreme cold conditions, but in our case it's the opposite. We had to bring the vehicle into the climate chamber test where the temperatures could reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Some things were difficult to do because electronic component don't like it above 120 degrees.

Question: What safety features are on the vehicles?

Answer: The very first thing we did was close in the front-end of the car . . . We put a shock- absorbing bumper (on the front-end of the car). When you do have an impact, the bumper distributes the impact force over a larger area which, overall, makes it less damaging. Secondly, because it's slightly curved, it has a tendency to push things out of the path of the vehicle rather than into the path of the vehicle. For example, if a pedestrian gets in front of a train, it would tend to push him out of the way of the car.

In addition, we put skirts along the sides so that the wheels of the truck and the underframe of the car are closed.These skirts have two functions. First of all, they keep people and things from coming into contact with the wheels directly. The second one is it reduces noise. Wheel rail noise is the primary noise factor that you have, so any place that you can block that is beneficial.

When you compare this to any other car in North America, this is the sleekest car in North America by any means

Q: What was most challenging about designing the train?

A: There was a lot of education. When you sit down with a client and people who have been doing this in the industry a long time, a lot of people are bringing the baggage of what they've done before with them. . . . In North America, design has not exactly been what you'd call state of the art or progressive. It has always been 10 years behind what Europe has been doing. North American design is real conservative and often based on traditional heavy rail experience and not on light rail experience. People bring to the table what they've seen in the past, so they're starting with a system that they commissioned 10 years ago which was already 10 years out of date when they commissioned it.

You have to bring them along and say 'This is fine, but you can do this now. The technology is here to do it now.' . . . I spent an awful lot of time showing them what's possible and convincing them that it's practical . . . . To my great astonishment, I actually managed to get almost everything I wanted to get done.. I'm quite optimistic that we'll be setting a new standard for North American light-rail vehicles. It certainly incorporates a lot of things that nobody else is doing yet.

John Swanson