Long Island Railroad DD cars

I am are having a discussion with a few guys in an Austalian based mailing list about the Long Island double deck cars that were built in the late 1980's Apparently these cars were originally supposed to be built by an Australian company called Comeng with a design based upon the Sydney Interurban multiple unit cars aka "V set" And as a result of the company being asset striped apparently they sold the design to one of the other tenderers and they ended up being made in Japan to the Australian design. These are the cars that I am talking about http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lirr5002.jpg
Does anyone have any info as to the tendering process and introduction into service of these cars. And how the cars are going now and are they well liked by the passengers.

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Actually, there were ten experimental cars (all trailers, no control cabs) built as class C-1 that I heard this info about. These care were withdrawn from service, were stored for a long time and I understand recently someone bought them (for what??)
The 5000 series control cab cars (and 4000 series trailers) of the C-3 class were built in the late 1990's.
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Not sure, but may I suggest a board where someone might have more information, as it is more NYCity related? http://www.subchat.com/subchat.asp
Most of it is related to the NYC subway system, but there are some very knowledgeable folks there who might have LIRR info.

What is old is new. Back in the very early 50's the LIRR used DD cars behinf steam and or electric engines. Almost double the capacity per car.
Then some genius suggested to a regular caoch. These cars that you are asking about have seemed to work out well. You will probably hear gripes by some, but three weeks ago in the major blizzard we had 26 inches of snow, the cars did fine.
Bill www.thestudebakerstore.com

On 04 Feb 2005 17:52:14 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (Bill Glass) wrote :
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However, today's double-deckers and those old LIRR double deckers from the late 1940's are birds of a different feather.
The old cars had one common aisle down the length of the car, and staggered seating compartments, sort of "Wells Fargo Stagecoach" style.
Today's LIRR double deckers have two distinct floors between the side entry doors of each car.

Is there anywhere I can find an interior photo?
Thanks www.thestudebakerstore.com