Modern MUs at Exporail

Many thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski, who pointed out that I had missed a pair of electric cars that entered preservation this past October: Exo 400 and Exo 485. They have now been added to the list.

The cars are shown above, in a photo from this page, being delivered to the Canadian Railway Museum (aka Exporail) in Delson-Ste. Constant, PQ, this fall. The cars are MR-90 type mainline commuter cars set up in good old motor-trailer fashion, with car 400 representing the fleet of four-motor cars while 485 is a control trailer. These MR-90 cars were built by Bombardier in 1994-1995 and replaced the old GE boxcabs and 1950s MU cars, many of which are now in preservation. But Montreal is completely rebuilding the Deux-Montagnes line, so this fleet was retired en masse in late 2020.

The entire fleet of 58 of these cars was scrapped except for these two, so they're unique and moderately significant in that respect. I'd also point out that their most recent operator, Exo, probably represents the shortest railway name on the PNAERC list. I have almost no mechanical information on these cars - they ran on 25kV AC and apparently used Siemens AC traction motors, but that's all I've got. If anyone can contribute control, motor, truck, brake, or air compressor information, I'd be very much obliged.