Agreed. They seem to have the production line sorted now, no point in having it shutdown and then start afresh in ten years with new and repeated problems. Instead the TTC should order a trickle of the cars, perhaps two a month to keep things active.
Its one thing for the production line to kept busy, but the big issue is how long will it take suppliers producing parts for the production line??? Most suppliers have obtain other work since they knew they have to find other work to keep their employees working and making a buck. Some may find some space to fit BBD order in on a longer time frame well others can only do it once they finish the work on hand. This also applies to BBD other plants that doing the work in Quebec in place of Mexico. Can BBD Plants build parts for the new car order while repairing the current order of cars???
Depending on the suppliers, BBD may have to wait some time or long time to start getting X parts from X supplier to the point they may have to find a new supplier that BBD has never used in the past. Can these new suppliers meet the replacement supplier both in delivery time and quality of work?? We know what lack of quality of work can do to both a production line as well BBD Bottom line.
You can only go to the well so many times before it dry up and putting off the final end of it. It cost money to keep a plant running on a monthly or yearly base and does that 2 car a month or 24 cars a year going to pay the full overhead cost??? I don't think so with BBD taking a hit for the bottom line to keep x employees busy not high on their list these days.
These new cars if built by BBD will not be at the price the extra 60 cars were to be at when the 60th car was produce, but at the current cost to cover the loses BBD has seen so far to the point will they be low bidder on a new Open Market Tender. Will the taxpayer of Toronto have to pay more taxes for these new cars by going Sole Tender???
I was welling to live with 252 cars in 2005 knowing it had to be higher, but not the 204 we are getting now.
2014/15 should been the year where a tender was call for 60 cars, with an option of more as needed. 2020 needs to be the year a tender is issue regardless if there is no money to pay for them now as it will take time to do the tender. The other option is to go to 3 other suppliers and buy 2 cars from them to see which supplier should get the order. It will take up to 2 years to get these cars to start doing the testing and another 6 months for that testing. Regardless, it will be about 2024 we could see more cars from the market being added to the fleet.