page_title: Siemens S70
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Siemens S70 / Usage and current orders / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Shiny new red cars
context_page_description: The Siemens S70 or Avanto is a low-floor light-rail vehicle or streetcar manufactured by Siemens Mobility, a division of Siemens AG.
  The S70 is in use, or on order, by several light rail systems in the United States, where Siemens refers to this model only as the S70. In this field, it competes mainly with Bombardier and Kinki Sharyo low-floor LRVs and modern streetcars manufactured by Inekon and Brookville Equipment Corporation.
  In Europe, Siemens's Combino and Avenio models are the preferred offerings for purely light rail or tramway systems; and the same S70 model, under the name Avanto, is principally sold to tram-train systems which, in whole or part, share their tracks with heavy rail trains. In the tram-train market, its principal competitors are Bombardier’s Flexity Link tram-train and Alstom’s Regio-Citadis and Citadis-Dualis tram-train variants. To date, the Avanto has been sold to two tram-train operations in France.
context_section_description: METRORail, Houston, Texas: 18 units purchased, with delivery complete in late 2004. 19 additional units were later ordered, procured using Utah Transit Authority options, delivered starting in late 2012. The original cars are the long variant; the new cars are the shorter variant as used by UTA. 14 more units were ordered in 2019.
  San Diego Trolley, San Diego, California: 11 'full size' 92-foot (28.04 m) units purchased in first order in October 2004, with delivery complete in July 2005. A second order, for 57 81-foot (24.69 m) cars, was placed in October 2009; the order was later increased to 65 'streetcar length' S70s in 2012. All of the S70 vehicles are in service. 45 additional units, first entered service April 2019. To be delivered through 2020.
  Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte, North Carolina:
  Lynx Blue Line: 16 units purchased for $50 million, in service since November 2007. Four additional units purchased in 2008 and in service by March 2010 to keep up with higher than expected ridership. In 2012, after 4 years of operation, the trains had to be repaired at the Siemens facility in California for an estimated cost of $400,000 each. CATS currently operates 42 vehicles.
  CityLynx Gold Line: Six units were purchased in 2016, with delivery by 2020. These six cars will have internal batteries to allow off-wire operations in some areas. The S70 streetcars are a compact version of the S70 light rail vehicles  that currently operate on the LYNX Blue Line. The cost to purchase these six vehicles and spare parts is $40,400,000.
  MAX Light Rail, Portland, Oregon: 22 units purchased.  Order for 21 cars announced on May 11, 2006; later expanded by one car. Entered service starting in August 2009. Order placed 2012 for another 18 cars.
  Tide Light Rail, Norfolk, Virginia: 9 cars, ordered in 2007. First cars delivered October 2009.  Entered service with the opening of the Norfolk system, in 2011.
  TRAX, Salt Lake City, Utah: 77 units ordered; in service since August 7, 2011. The order also includes an option for 180 additional cars.
  Metro Transit, Twin Cities, Minnesota: 59 purchased with 40 options. Delivery began in 2012, with the first unit entering service in February 2013.  In October 2015, the option was exercised for five additional vehicles at a cost of $20 million.
  Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, Atlanta, Georgia: 4 cars, ordered in 2011. In May 2011 Siemens announced that it had won the $17.2 million contract to build the four streetcars that run on the Downtown Loop. The vehicles were built at Siemens’ plant in Florin, California, but with major components, including the propulsion system, assembled at Siemens' plant in Alpharetta, Georgia. The first of the streetcars was delivered on February 17, 2014, and began passenger service on December 30, 2014.
  Sound Transit Link Light Rail, Seattle, Washington: 152 units on order.  Of these, an order for 122 was placed in September 2016 and delivery began in 2019. This $554 million contract was the largest contract in Sound Transit's history. The order was expanded by 30 cars in spring 2017. The LRVs will be used for expansion of the Central Link system.
  Valley Metro Rail: 11 vehicles ordered, in June 2017, with options for up to 67 more.
  Orange County Transportation Authority, Orange County, California: 8 units ordered in March 2018 for the under construction OC Streetcar light rail line.
  Sacramento Regional Transit, Sacramento, California: 20 units ordered initially with options for a total of 76 new vehicles to replace the existing fleet of 36 original Siemens-Duewag U2A light rail vehicles, 40 CAF SRV-I light rail vehicles, and 20 recently refurbished second hand Urban Transportation Development Corporation light rail vehicles. Shortly after the initial 20 unit order, Sacramento was awarded by the California State Transportation Agency another $23.6 million dollars to purchase an additional 8 units thus bringing the total S700 units on order for delivery beginning in 2022 at 28 units.
caption: San Diego Trolley Siemens S70
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