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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

The bottom line with these delivery delays is that Bombardier is solely at fault for them. There are no external forces (including Metrolinx) that are at fault for what we're seeing.

What i'm wondering is how the TTC's legal case against them is proceeding, as we havent heard anything about that in quite some time.
 
Amare said:
The bottom line with these delivery delays is that Bombardier is solely at fault for them. There are no external forces (including Metrolinx) that are at fault for what we're seeing.

What i'm wondering is how the TTC's legal case against them is proceeding, as we havent heard anything about that in quite some time.
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Personally I think it's better we aren't hearing from the TTC lleagl department about this as it means they want to keep it private between them and bombardier until they are ready to let the public know.
 
EastYorkTTCFan said:
Personally I think it's better we aren't hearing from the TTC lleagl department about this as it means they want to keep it private between them and bombardier until they are ready to let the public know.
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The ultimate goal of the TTC is to get the streetcars delivered and in service. I don't see how suing them harder help achieve that.
 
remind me what the legal case between the TTC and ML is about and when it started....guess I got so interested in the ML v BBD legal mess that I missed the TTC taking them to court.
 
in response:

upload_2017-10-12_12-16-47.png


So newest BBD number for this year is 5 more than Mr. Byford's number but 5 less than planned.
 

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TTC Statement:

October 12, 2017

The following is a joint statement TTC Chair Josh Colle and TTC CEO Andy Byford.

News by Bombardier Transportation today that a promised delivery of a cumulative total of 70 streetcars by the end of this year has been revised to 65 is extremely disappointing and frustrating.

There should be 146 new streetcars in service today; instead there are just 45. This is completely unacceptable. The TTC is having to continue to use buses on streetcar routes to meet ridership demand.

The TTC is pursuing a $50 million legal claim against Bombardier for its ongoing failure to meet delivery targets and the TTC board has directed staff to pursue other potential suppliers for future streetcar orders. In the meantime, the TTC is making every effort to keep its old streetcars on the road as long as it can, ensuring they are both reliable and safe.

-30-

Media contact: Corporate Communications, 416-981-1900, media@ttc.ca

Last updated Oct 12, 2017 12:15:20
Sent: Oct 12, 2017 12:15:28
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ShonTron said:
TTC Statement:
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Very disappointing but not entirely unexpected. We're in for a penny in for a pound with the Flexity order so we must as well just hope for the best. Maybe Bombardier can ramp up their second Thunder Bay line and get their "global supply problems" ironed out. I always get the impression that things would have been hunky-dory if Bombardier had built all of the components for the TTC's Flexities here in Canada instead of spreading production all around the world.
 
books said:
Very disappointing but not entirely unexpected. We're in for a penny in for a pound with the Flexity order so we must as well just hope for the best. Maybe Bombardier can ramp up their second Thunder Bay line and get their "global supply problems" ironed out. I always get the impression that things would have been hunky-dory if Bombardier had built all of the components for the TTC's Flexities here in Canada instead of spreading production all around the world.
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problem is, that if they did do everything here, they would not be able to undercut the rest of the competition by that great of a margin when they got the deal. they took a huge risk and they lost out big time
 
Mayor John Tory expressed what he described as his “immense frustration” with the company on Thursday morning, telling reporters at a SmartTrack news conference that “this got to the point of almost farce.”
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I vehemently disagree. It's well beyond farce...
 
This is a performance level by Bombardier that we have grown to expect. At its core, it represents a corporation's attempt to maximize its profitability through the globalization of its production. There will be some who will claim that it is doing so to remain competitive with other global players in the industry. But what is also clear, is this gambit has been most costly to Canadian manufacturing, the expertise that underpinned the quality of its production, and its experienced and talented workers who have been asked to bear the brunt of this transition from a more national base of production to a global one.

From an idealistic perspective, i can see the virtue in the spreading the benefits of industrialization throughout the world, especially in regions in dire need of economic development, but under the assumption that along with the globalization of production would have been the transfer of equitable labour costs, similar levels of taxation so as to sustain these emerging economies in reaching production cost similar to the economies from which they were spawn.

But in a more realistic perspective, corporations have globalized to promote their profitability on backs of a national workforce who had established certain benchmarks in compensation and benefits. Globalization would relieve companies such as Bombardier from carrying first world labour costs, and being able to substitute these with more profitable venues to be found in emerging economies with a much lesser cost of labour and taxation, hiring a less educated and experienced workforce, as result a less stable and productive one, while still being able to do business and profit from contracts derived in Canadian localities such as the TTC.

There are the practical challenges experienced in the production of new system that come to weigh in Bombardier's inability to keep to promised levels of delivery, but these pale in comparison to its overall agenda to escape its obligation to fairly pay its workforce and taxes, and which impinges on its ability to fabricate its streetcars in timely manner from within its global network.

We are left with making the most of a difficult situation, in the name of a corporate hubris built on the alter of maximizing profit at all cost.

During a Democratic debate in 1984, Walter Mondale quotes an ad where senior citizens in a local hamburger chain are shown saying, "Where 's the beef?" It would seem appropriate to ask a similar query in regards to Bombardier.
 
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Robert James said:
In the reelection campaign of President George Bush the first, a senior citizen shown saying in one of his campaign ads which helped win his election, "Where 's the beef?" It would seem appropriate to ask the same query in regards to Bombardier.
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That was a 1984 Wendy's commercial - it was also made famous in a debate between two Democratic candidates that year, ahead of that year's election campaign between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.
 
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