The first of Los Angeles Metro's long-delayed subway cars to be overhauled under a 213 million dollar Korean contract completed its maiden powered run at South Korea's national rail test track last month — a milestone that puts the Olympic-deadline refurbishment program back on track after six years of failure, litigation, and a $12 million settlement with the previous contractor.
The two-car A650 trainset, painted canary yellow and stripped to its structural frame for rebuilding, arrived at the Korea Railroad Research Institute's Osong facility in North Chungcheong Province in April. It began rolling under its own power in early May when the test track was energized. The four trainsets being rebuilt in Korea are scheduled to complete a 3,000-mile burn-in run at Osong before being shipped to California, where they will undergo additional testing on LA's own lines. First delivery to Los Angeles is targeted for October 2027. The remaining 33 trainsets will be overhauled at Woojin's newly completed factory in Carson, California — a facility completed in 2025 that also satisfies the Buy America localization requirements embedded in the federal transit contract.
Why LA Metro Is Running 30-Year-Old Subway Cars Into the Olympics
The B (Red) and D (Purple) lines carry hundreds of thousands of riders a day through downtown Los Angeles and into Koreatown. The A650 cars running on those lines — built by Italy's AnsaldoBreda between 1988 and 1997 — have been in service for nearly three decades. LA Metro's Rail Fleet Management Plan requires maintaining them in a state of good repair through at least the 2028 Games and beyond.
The refurbishment was supposed to be finished by now. In September 2016, LA Metro awarded a contract to Spain's Talgo — whose US operations are based in Milwaukee — to overhaul the 74-car fleet. The program stalled. COVID-19 disrupted supply chains and staffing, and the two sides' accounts of what followed diverged sharply. By spring 2022, Talgo had completed meaningful work on roughly 14 cars. LA Metro terminated the contract that year, citing non-performance. Talgo filed a countersuit claiming the authority owed it $48.8 million; LA Metro's suit alleged Talgo was withholding cars to gain leverage. The litigation dragged on for three years before a settlement in June 2025, under which LA Metro paid Talgo $12 million and both parties' suits were dismissed.
The six-year gap between Talgo's departure and the delivery of the first refurbished Woojin car is itself an engineering problem. As LA Metro's board noted in a 2025 procurement filing, components and systems that were current when Talgo won the job in 2016 had become obsolete by the time Woojin began work in 2024 — requiring additional replacement scope and increased engineering cost.
How Woojin Rebuilds a 30-Year-Old Subway Car
Woojin Industrial Systems, founded in 1974, built its business around an unusual vertical integration model: the company designs and manufactures more than 90 percent of the electrical systems it installs in railcars, according to CEO Kim Jung-hyun. That characteristic matters for a refurbishment program because the original A650 cars were assembled by AnsaldoBreda using subsystems from multiple vendors — each with its own communication protocol, power architecture, and maintenance history. After 30 years, many of those original suppliers no longer exist, their components are no longer manufactured, and their documentation has fragmented.
Woojin's approach is replacement rather than repair. Each car is stripped of its electrical architecture and rebuilt with a unified new system. The work covers VVVF (Variable Voltage, Variable Frequency) propulsion control, which governs how 750-volt DC third-rail power is converted into variable alternating current to drive the traction motors; the auxiliary power supply, which provides onboard power for lighting, doors, HVAC, and control systems; the train control and monitoring system (TCMS), the car's onboard diagnostic and network management computer; passenger information displays; and public address equipment. HVAC units are replaced entirely.
Because Woojin builds the VVVF inverters, auxiliary power units, and TCMS in-house and designs them as an integrated system, the rebuilt A650 does not inherit the interoperability problems that arise when multiple third-party replacement components must be made to communicate with one another across incompatible legacy bus architectures. That is one technical reason the company argued it could complete a job that had defeated its predecessor.
The 3,000-mile burn-in run at the Osong test track is the final stage of Korean-phase qualification. The track, operated by the Korea Railroad Research Institute and used for high-speed and urban rail verification programs across South Korea's transit industry, subjects the rebuilt car to sustained load cycling across the full operating speed range. This surfaces integration failures in the replaced electrical systems that would not appear under static bench testing. After Osong, the cars ship to Los Angeles for line-specific testing before entering revenue service.
What Woojin Built to Win the Contract
Woojin established its US subsidiary and a production plant in the Los Angeles area in 2011, supplying component-level systems — including display devices, driver cabin equipment, and auxiliary power units — to transit agencies in Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Utah. That US track record was a prerequisite for the A650 contract, and LA Metro required demonstrated stateside manufacturing capability both as evidence of engineering competence and to satisfy Buy America content requirements.
The Carson factory, completed in 2025, is where the bulk of the overhaul will happen. Once the first four Korean-refurbished trainsets complete their Osong qualification run and are shipped to LA, Woojin's Carson crews will work through the remaining 33 trainsets — 66 cars — on American soil. The factory was built specifically for this contract, but Woojin has said it intends to use it as a platform for future US bids.
Juan Matute, deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, has written about how LA Metro's compressed Olympic timelines can constrain procurement choices — leaving the authority in a position where sole-bidder contracts or accelerated awards become necessary to meet fixed political deadlines. The Woojin contract was awarded as a sole-source selection after no other qualified bidder emerged for a second time following Talgo's departure.
Is LA Metro Ready for 2028?
With first delivery now targeting October 2027 and the final car not scheduled until April 2029, the A650 overhaul will not be complete before the Games. But the relevant benchmark is not full fleet renewal — it is whether enough refurbished cars are in service by July 2028 to maintain reliable frequency on the B and D lines during peak Olympic demand.
LA Metro's broader readiness effort includes the D Line subway extension, which opened its first section on May 8, 2026, with two additional sections through Beverly Hills, Century City, and Westwood still under construction and scheduled to open in 2027. A separate $730 million contract with Hyundai Rotem for 182 new heavy-rail cars is also underway, though those vehicles are destined for the extended D Line rather than directly replacing A650 cars on existing alignments.
For the A650 fleet specifically, the program's success between now and the Games will depend on Woojin sustaining its current production pace and the Carson factory executing on schedule — without the kind of contractor failure that consumed six years the first time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did LA Metro need to refurbish its A650 subway cars?
The A650 fleet, built between 1988 and 1997, has been in service for nearly three decades. Federal transit rules require agencies to maintain rail fleets in a state of good repair, and many of the A650's original components — including propulsion control electronics and HVAC systems — have reached the end of their service lives and are no longer manufactured by their original suppliers.
What happened to the Talgo contract for the same refurbishment?
LA Metro awarded Spain's Talgo a contract in 2016 to overhaul the 74 A650 cars. Talgo completed meaningful work on only about 14 cars before LA Metro terminated the contract for non-performance in 2022. Both parties sued each other; the dispute was settled in June 2025 when LA Metro paid Talgo $12 million and both lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice.
Who is Woojin Industrial Systems and why did LA Metro pick them?
Woojin is a South Korean rolling stock manufacturer founded in 1974. The company designs and manufactures more than 90 percent of its own electrical rail systems in-house, including the VVVF propulsion controllers and auxiliary power units being installed in the rebuilt A650 cars. It was the only qualified bidder for the contract and has operated a US subsidiary in the Los Angeles area since 2011.
Will the refurbished LA Metro subway cars be ready for the 2028 Olympics?
The first refurbished A650 cars are targeted for delivery to Los Angeles in October 2027, giving LA Metro approximately nine months to integrate them into service before the Games begin in summer 2028. The full fleet overhaul is not scheduled for completion until April 2029.
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