Montreal’s oldest métro cars are being given a second life, thanks to a project that will see them repurposed for uses other than transportation.
With the soon-to-be obsolete MR-63 cars being put out of commission with arrival of new Azur fleet, the Société de transport de Montréal launched a public contest in March to repurpose the cars.
On Friday, the 50th anniversary of the métro, the STM announced the seven finalists from among 30 bids it received to reuse the cars.
The proposals from the finalists ranged from using the subway cars for fire training exercises at Collège Montmorency in Laval to integrating the cars into modern building designs.
The STM bids were evaluated by several criteria, including image and heritage, environment and development, design quality, guarantees of achievement, quality, feasibility and logistics.
“The finalists proposed … original projects that will keep present in the Montreal and Quebec landscape the MR-63 cars that are part of our history,” said STM chairman Philippe Schnobb.
Projet Aedifica will see a dozen MR-63 train cars incorporated into a building.
