Those derelicts in the back of RT's yard are gone! 21 of them (is that all of them?) have been refurbished and will go into service this week. See: [iportal.sacrt.com]

These are 1987-model cars originally used by Santa Clara VTA. Sacramento bought some around 2003 when VTA got new cars. They sat on the far back tracks in RT's maintenance center yard gathering dust and spiders after that. About 5 years ago (when was PCR-NMRA in Sacramento last?) they pulled a couple off the dead line and ran them through the RT shops to see what they needed to have done. Then, they contracted with Siemens (home-town manufacturer, and maker of the oldest cars in Sac) to refurb others. Apparently the job is done, and RT's starting to use them on the Blue Line (extended to Cosumnes River College) this week. We'll see if they last the expected 15 years (how have they held up in Salt Lake City where the startup LRVs were, likewise, refurb VTA cars?). Even with the refurb cost, they were apparently much cheaper (will need some time to tell if they were actually inexpensive) than buying new.

IIRC as presented during a shop tour at a NMRA convention, the UTDC cars were not compatible with the other Sacramento cars electrically or otherwise - they MU only with other UTDC cars. Does anybody know whether that was fixed during the refurb?