Cheaper? How? Bombardier bid about $5 million per car on this (before accounting for things like spare parts). The next bid was about $7.5 million per car.
So who is suddenly going to bid less than $5 million per car?
And faster? Bombardier is talking about ramping up to 1 car a week in the fall. If they do that, they won't have any problems meeting the 2019 deadline - and 60 more cars would only add about 14 months to the deliveries.
The whole process was skewed from day by the Chair of TTC who said to me publicly at a TTC meeting, that unless the cars were coming from Thunder Bay, he was not interested in hearing about other suppliers having prototype cars here in 2007 before Thunder Bay.
I have stated publicly at TTC meeting that TTC was been taken for a ride as well the taxpayers of Ontario by going the the same sole source and was asking for trouble by having all your eggs in one basket.
If the trade rules that now exist were in place in 2005, TTC would had seen at least 6 bidders, not the 2, with the 3rd been rejected which I agree with since they could never handle this project in the first place.
As I stated in the past,
Siemens only toss in a bid to keep their foot in the door for future orders.
Other than Minneapolis, Bombardier has never sold an LRT in the USA since that order which had the same problem as TTC order.
If you look at the price per car on small orders around the world including the USA, cost per car are cheaper than the one TTC are getting.
The ramp has been used for the delay before the strike and that is a BS line as it was only a matter of a few months delay, not a year.
Done too many bids to know when something stinks and this has stunk from day one. After going to a few TTC meetings, it was clear there were 2 issues with TTC. Management and how the commission was setup. The Commission is still a problem today with management not been as bad in the past under Andy leadership, but Andy is cleaning house and that a slow process and will take years to break the silos down.
It is not TTC nor the City place to protect jobs, but to get the right item for the best price so no one is paying higher price to use TTC as well the tax payers are putting money in someone else pocket.
The original contract completion date was 2018 and no way would the contract be fulfill by then at this rate. 2019 will be a tell time if the order is meet.
Looks like 4405 will make service in March.
All cars must do 600km burn in without problems before going into service. If problems do arise, it goes back to zero depending on the issue.
