Transit City Gauge

[Earlscourt_Lad]

Also by sticking to standard gague, you retain the possibility to transport LRT vehicles on existisng rail lines and to utilize currently underused ones (Ottawa's O-Train).

I expect that any transfer would see the units shipped on a flatcar as opposed to training them and pulling them along the line. Further, I don't know if LRT vehicles have the correct sort of coupler to allow them to be attached to a locomotive, never mind the air brake system.

 

[Kiwi]

For Hamilton it's been determined to use the standard gauge for the B-Line.

 

[kettal]

I personally don't think it makes much sense to use TTC gauge outside of Toronto and its immediate surroundings (ie, not Waterloo, Hamilton, or Ottawa). Why pay the additional cost if the systems will never interact?

What additional cost?

 

[drum118]

For Hamilton it's been determined to use the standard gauge for the B-Line.

KW is using standard gauge as well Ottawa.

There is a cost going to non standard, but it a small cost.

There is only a few systems in NA that don't have standard gauge. Philly gauge is different from TTC and they are going to have the same issue when they go to low floor.

Have no idea where Mississauga fits in since the mayor sees LRT as a pipe dream and will be at least 15 years before any LRT line get built.

Another example why I have said Hamilton will have LRT before Mississauga as there is real no support for an LRT line other than a lot hot air coming out of council mouth. The Mayor reinforce this again at planning and development Monday night.

She keeps whining where the extra $57M going to come to pay for her BRT. Wait tell the tender prices start coming in as well cost over runs that should put her into the box as the $57m is a drop in the bucket at the end of the day.

 

[drum118]

I expect that any transfer would see the units shipped on a flatcar as opposed to training them and pulling them along the line. Further, I don't know if LRT vehicles have the correct sort of coupler to allow them to be attached to a locomotive, never mind the air brake system.

They would not meet the FRA standard to travel on any RR tracks and would be haft the size of what they where when they went onto the rails in mix freight.

Then, one good pull....Oppps!!! we have a haft or part of a car. The only way they would move by RR on rail is be by special train made up of LRT's only and that becomes another issue how you power the trucks and what happens if a car fails.

They will arrive on flat cars the safe way or by lowboy flat trucks.

 

[DavidH]

As you can see, the price is within a well defined range, and does not react to scale. The differences in price likely changes due to the system's different requirements or internal outfit.

Bulk discounts tend to be at most on the order of 10-20% because the manufacturing cost does not significantly vary by order size unless we are talking about a custom order with a significant design and development cost.

The data you quote includes a sample size of only 3, with several years variation in time (e.g. inflation of costs may be a factor) with different requirements per customer. To determine whether a bulk discount exists, the analysis would need to break out those factors. Essentially, you would need access to information about a large set of orders with information on options included in each order. You could then perform a multivariate regression to determine how much the order size is affecting the price per unit. Of course, getting all of that data will likely be challenging.

Without such an analysis, it's really impossible to say that we have proven that there is no sensitivity to order size in LRV pricing.

 

[kettal]

Steve Munro: Rumour has it that at least one vendor other than Bombardier wants to bid on the Transit City cars, and are claiming that the odd gauge gives Bombardier an unfair advantage. This it total crap, of course, but lobbyists will use any excuse.

 

[Darwinkgo]

^ The TC cars should be put out to tender in any case, no matter what the gauge. The gauge thing is just a way to force the hand on tendering the TC cars, which should happen anyways since the technical requirements are significantly different than the streetcars.

 

[EnviroTO]

Metrolinx pushing for standard gauge is a mistake. The reason railway companies standardized rail gauges over the years was to allow trains to run across the railway networks of different companies, not due to vehicle procurement issues. The existing LRT network in Toronto is TTC gauge, not standard. Using standard gauge creates more problems than it solves. If they are going standard then there should be a plan to migrate the city routes to standard... which is a complete waste of money. Within Toronto using standard gauge is really un-standardizing.

As for tendering out again... it doesn't make sense. The additional car option on the city order was for cars that met TC's different requirements. The bid on the city cars, which was open to all bidders, was done based on the knowledge that the winning bidder would get an option deal for TC cars and the technical differences between those car types was known at the time of the bid. Bombardier has already won so of course other bidders are going to state that Bombardier has an unfair advantage... they will already have a line which is creating city cars which can be easily adapted for TC cars within Canada. This advantage didn't exist until Bombardier WON the initial bid and if Bombardier hadn't won then some other company would have that same advantage.

 

[Darwinkgo]

The interoperability point is moot since without the specialized modifications that are happening to the streetcars (basically everything except number of doors and operator cabs) the TC will not be able to run on the legacy network without causing derailing issues. Getting ride of those customizations saves a bit of money.

Gauge I don't think really matters due to the above issue. The only advantage standard gauge would have is if a SRT conversion to LRT would be easier if most of the track didn't need to be replaced, and that is a question best left to engineers (whether the SRT track can support more weight). Having similar gauge would allow interoperability if you started rebuilding the old network with new standards, but that will likely be piecemeal at first and happen along the waterfront first where new and old are going to be together (Is the new Union Streetcar loop designed for coupled trains?)

 

[Chuck]

I"ll buck the trend, and suspect that the vehicle cost for a TTC compatible streetcar would be significantly more than standard gauge. In an industry where parts are rejected for being off by a fraction of a millimetre, changing a dimension by over an inch is significant.

A streetcar manufacturing plant is probably very similar to an auto plant - highly engineered, highly purpose built. To assembly a different car, entire plants are shutdown for months at a cost of millions and millions of dollars. This is because the machines along an assembly are not only built manufacture very specific parts, but at points farther along the assembly line, they are only compatible with incoming parts of a certain size as well. Every machine has to either be retooled or rebuilt from scratch.

Another factor for streetcars is moving them around the plant during later stages of production. Once the streetcars are ready to be moved around the plant on their actual wheels, they do so on a trackbed built into the floor. This would have to be ripped up and rebuilt for TTC gauge.

So you see, it's not just as simple as ordering a slightly longer axle and calling it a day. Bombardier does so much business with the TTC that they likely factor cross compatibility into their new manufacturing plants. For an overseas manufacturer, forget it. To achieve TTC gauge, a manufacturer would likely build the streetcars exactly to standard gauge, then modify them afterward. Even then, the testing and quality assurance facility would have to be completely overhauled.

 

[Darwinkgo]

With an order as big as the TC order will be, it is likely any order will require a new plant to be built, considering the order backlog at all the North American plants for Siemens and Bombardier, and the time frame for opening the lines.

 

[Voltz]

I"ll buck the trend, and suspect that the vehicle cost for a TTC compatible streetcar would be significantly more than standard gauge. In an industry where parts are rejected for being off by a fraction of a millimetre, changing a dimension by over an inch is significant.

A streetcar manufacturing plant is probably very similar to an auto plant - highly engineered, highly purpose built. To assembly a different car, entire plants are shutdown for months at a cost of millions and millions of dollars. This is because the machines along an assembly are not only built manufacture very specific parts, but at points farther along the assembly line, they are only compatible with incoming parts of a certain size as well. Every machine has to either be retooled or rebuilt from scratch.

Another factor for streetcars is moving them around the plant during later stages of production. Once the streetcars are ready to be moved around the plant on their actual wheels, they do so on a trackbed built into the floor. This would have to be ripped up and rebuilt for TTC gauge.

So you see, it's not just as simple as ordering a slightly longer axle and calling it a day. Bombardier does so much business with the TTC that they likely factor cross compatibility into their new manufacturing plants. For an overseas manufacturer, forget it. To achieve TTC gauge, a manufacturer would likely build the streetcars exactly to standard gauge, then modify them afterward. Even then, the testing and quality assurance facility would have to be completely overhauled.

There are auto plants that can assemble four distinct lines of vehicles on the same assembly line.

The difference in track gauge is a complete non issue, I don't get why this is so hard for some people to grasp, the only difference is the wheels get spaced out a bit, and by a bit I mean a little more than a inch, there is no change to the carbody.

 

[CDL.TO]

Non-standard rail gauges are extremely common. The Wikipedia article on the topic is pretty good. We're lucky that we have a single standard rail gauge all over North America, but in Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa, and Australia there are multiple rail gauges used regularly.

If a railcar manufacturer designed their operation so it was difficult and expensive to adjust to different rail gauges, they would be removing themselves from a massive proportion of the world market.

 

[smallspy]

I"ll buck the trend, and suspect that the vehicle cost for a TTC compatible streetcar would be significantly more than standard gauge. In an industry where parts are rejected for being off by a fraction of a millimetre, changing a dimension by over an inch is significant.

Of course, the difference in track gauges is more than an inch - almost 2 and a half.

A streetcar manufacturing plant is probably very similar to an auto plant - highly engineered, highly purpose built. To assembly a different car, entire plants are shutdown for months at a cost of millions and millions of dollars. This is because the machines along an assembly are not only built manufacture very specific parts, but at points farther along the assembly line, they are only compatible with incoming parts of a certain size as well. Every machine has to either be retooled or rebuilt from scratch.

You can't compare the two. Auto manufacturing is a highly automated process. The plants may be built to handle more than one design, but not many more - the tooling and machinery is specialized to pump out thousands upon thousands of like assemblies, or complete units quickly and cheaply. With the exception of certain subassemblies, streetcar/railcar building is not even remotely automated, and relies on having a lot of manpower on hand to assemble the car from many smaller subassemblies. Flexibility is the name of the game, and you can't do that without thousands of robots designed for one or two tasks each - that may then have to sit idle if the project doesn't require them.

Another factor for streetcars is moving them around the plant during later stages of production. Once the streetcars are ready to be moved around the plant on their actual wheels, they do so on a trackbed built into the floor. This would have to be ripped up and rebuilt for TTC gauge.

In the case of Bombardier, this is not true. The trackage at Thunder Bay is slightly under TTC gauge, but enough that either TTC-spec or standard gauge equipment can run on it with care.

And even then, it wasn't an issue with SIG when they built the first CLRVs. They were built to TTC specs, but pressed the wheelsets inboard enough to operate on standard guage - which they did in testing in Switzerland and when the three cars were shipped to Boston for demonstration. Of course, the cars were built from the outset with this capability - I don't know if this will be the case with the the low floor LRVs.

The difference in track gauge is a complete non issue, I don't get why this is so hard for some people to grasp, the only difference is the wheels get spaced out a bit, and by a bit I mean a little more than a inch, there is no change to the carbody.

Like I wrote above, it's more than an inch.

There may be no change to the exterior (that we know of), but they may be structural issues that have to be looked at. You have to consider that the trucks will be swinging a fair amount, and even being further outboard by an inch and a quarter may be enough to interfere with any underfloor equipment or structure that would have cleared using standard gauge trucks.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.