Transit and rail
Tested against the standard this sector asks in
Transit is the one market where the first question about an interior material is not what it looks like. It is what the material does in a fire, in an enclosed space, underground, with a crowd in it — and the question arrives as a standard rather than as a conversation.
PriWatt film has been through three independent tests at Intertek run against NFPA 130, the standard for fixed guideway transit and passenger rail systems. Not because every project is a railway, but because it is the hardest bar an interior material in this sector is asked to clear, and the reports state their conclusions.
What was tested, and what came back
| Test | Criterion | Result |
|---|---|---|
| ASTM E662 — smoke density, flaming and non-flaming | NFPA 130-17, other vehicle componentDs at 1.5 min < 100 · Ds at 4.0 min < 200 | Met, in both modes |
| ASTM E1354 — heat release, per NFPA 130 A.8.4.1.10 | 180-second average heat release rate < 100 kW/m² | 52.29 kW/m² |
| ASTM E1354 — smoke | Test average smoke extinction area < 500 m²/kg | 483.18 m²/kg |
| Bombardier SMP 800-C — toxic gas generation | The method sets no pass or fail; its concentrations are a guide | HCl, HCN, HBr, HF, NO, NO₂ and SO₂ not detected |
Carbon monoxide was measured at 120.3 ppm without a pilot flame and 225.2 ppm with one. All three reports record no deviations from their test standards, and all three are supplied in full — report numbers, data and graphs — into a submittal. The full transcription, with what these results are not, is on fire, smoke and toxicity.
Stations and operational facilities
Everything PriWatt holds applies directly to a station interior: SGCC 9894 safety glazing, UL file E514182 for the electrical system, and the fire data above in the frame the authority already asks in.
Control rooms and signalling
A room that has to be supervised and, at other times, screened from a concourse. The glass switches in milliseconds and there is nothing to launder, nothing mechanical over an operator, and no blind gathering dust in a 24-hour facility.
Ticket offices and staff areas
Cash handling, back-of-house and interview rooms, private on demand and transparent the rest of the time. Reverse mode holds the transparent state with no power drawn.
Concourse glazing and wayfinding
In its private state a panel is a 94–95% haze diffusing surface, which is a rear-projection screen. A partition that closes a room is also the surface information is projected onto.
Glare on a glazed elevation
DLC moves between a tinted transparent state and a deep dark one — 36% down to 1.5% light transmission — which is a shading device with no mechanism over a public space to service at height.
The part that needs a second qualification
Cab partitions, saloon glazing and first-class dividers are all things a switchable panel does. But a vehicle window is not an architectural one, and the fire reports do not answer the question that governs it.
In the United States, glazing in passenger rail equipment is governed by the Federal Railroad Administration’s safety glazing standards — 49 CFR Part 223 — which is a separate qualification from material fire performance, and separate again from the SGCC certification that covers architectural safety glazing. A switchable layer in a vehicle window is therefore a conversation with the vehicle builder and the operator, starting from the material data above rather than finishing with it.
What is already answered
The material fire performance, the electrical system under UL file E514182, the switching, the voltage, the power draw and the panel limits. All of it documented and all of it in writing.
What is answered per project
The glazing qualification for the vehicle, the mounting and the edge condition, and how power reaches a panel in a moving vehicle. Those are engineering questions with the builder, not catalogue entries.
Which edition applies
The reports cite NFPA 130-17. Which edition a contract works to is set by the authority having jurisdiction, so the reports are supplied as they are and the comparison is made against the clause you are working to.
Publicly funded means the origin question too
Transit work is federally funded work, and the second form after the fire data asks where the product is made. PriWatt panels are laminated, wired, assembled and tested in the USA from domestic and imported components — the glass American, the liquid-crystal film from Japan and China, the isolation transformers German.
What Buy American, the Trade Agreements Act and Build America, Buy America each actually ask of that is set out on where it is made, along with how to get a written position for a specific contract clause rather than a badge.
Delivered in comparable environments
National Library of Medicine
Federal work in Bethesda: film onto the existing partitions, conference rooms that close without reglazing.
West Pharmaceutical
Cleanroom viewing panels on a working plant floor — supervision from outside, confidential work screened.
Royal Ontario Museum
A public building with a switchable display case: opaque until a visitor presses a button, thousands of times a week.
Government facilities
The sector page: what changes when the submittal is the conversation and every claim has to be a document.
Common questions
Yes. ASTM E662 was run against NFPA 130-17 and the report concludes the film meets the requirements for other vehicle component, with Ds under 100 at 1.5 minutes and under 200 at 4 minutes in both flaming and non-flaming modes. ASTM E1354 was run in accordance with NFPA 130 section A.8.4.1.10 and met its criteria. Both reports are supplied in full.
The material data exists and is documented, but a vehicle window carries its own glazing qualification — in the US, the FRA safety glazing standards at 49 CFR Part 223 — which is separate from material fire performance and from the SGCC architectural certification. It is a project conversation with the vehicle builder, and PriWatt starts it with the data rather than with a claim.
That is where everything PriWatt holds applies directly: SGCC 9894 safety glazing, UL file E514182 for the electrical system, and the NFPA 130 material fire data. Control rooms, ticket offices, staff areas and concourse partitions are the same specification as any other institutional interior, with a harder question about the material.
No. Switchable glass is not fire-rated glazing and cannot be used where a rated assembly is drawn. What it has is independent material fire-performance data — smoke density, heat release and toxic gas generation — which is a different question and the one NFPA 130 asks of an interior material.
That is answered against a specific contract clause rather than claimed in general. The panels are laminated, wired and assembled in the USA from domestic and imported components; the component-cost test and the substantial-transformation question are set out on the where-it-is-made page, and a written position is issued for a project.
Send the clause and the drawing
The standard you are working to, the edition, and what the glazing has to do. The fire reports, the certificates and a written origin position go into the submittal together. Pompano Beach, Florida; (833) 333-8556.