TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

[drum118]

But articles from earlier in the year citing the problems said that "walls" weren't attaching properly to "under frames", suggesting that Mexico is building a floor slab, wall slabs, and roof slabs, which are then assembled at Thunder Bay. Flat panels (walls/floors/roofs) would transport up from Mexico a lot more compactly than an assembled car frame, which would be a big hollow box...



Please cite how you know this. I work in this particular industry and can think of a handful of companies I deal with locally who could easily handle this work.

My background was in that field and every large manufacture, supplier and most mills that I dealt with or work for don't exist today. I even gave myself the pink slip when I close down a division.

You need to have more than one project in your shop all the time to pay the bills in case something happens to a project that has to stop production for sometime. Having a project being delay for sometime could mean layoff of employees to the point you could loose them to someone else if you are a one line production company. This mean retraining new workers and slowing production delivery until they are train, if you can find them once you restart up, depending on the delay. I have see and have put hold on various projects due to various issues lasting more than 6 months to the point another project took it spot to make sure there was work for the employees. Getting that delay project back into production can cause a lot of issues at that time.

Thunder Bay has 4+ different production lines with the TTC cars being one of them and getting pay by 3+ buyers.

One can say that these frames are one piece that are made up of many section. I have seen similar things personally in the past as well photos.

How they are welded together seems to be the issue which goes back to quality of welding and inspection. I have seen welds that look great, but x-ray shows they are not to the point there is no penetration to the point the weld will fail at anytime.

If they are being made up as panels like you stated, then there are more companies that could do this work since it will require less shop floor space. If its a box, then the numbers are smaller. Shipping cost will be higher with a box than just panels.

We are doing a lot of guessing since there is no clear picture as how they are been made in Mexico without someone having first hand knowledge of what taking place in the first place.

The other question who supply the jigs to Mexico?? Depending on who supply the jigs, where they inspected to see if they were built to the drawings correctly?? If the jig is wrong, the frames will be wrong and this goes back to the Minneapolis order.

 

[Duck]

Thanks for the detailed reply. You got my back up by just outright declaring "you are wrong" to me with nothing backing it up. I still think there are lots of fab shops that can handle welding together flat panels in a grid of HSS and throw them on a truck, though...

I'm guessing that Thunder Bay typically makes all the frames themselves for their other lines (Bi-Level coach, TR's) since they aren't delivering those as fast and subbing it out to Mexico was cheaper/quicker than, as you mention, hiring on a bunch of welders (10-20?), making all the jigs, building a temporary hall just to handle the sheer volume of panels/boxes they have to make to fulfil Toronto's massive order.

Another interesting question would be "Who in Mexico is building the frames, and what else have they built?" Is it just some random welding shop that said "Oh yeah, we can do that for you?" Or do they have any particular experience in vehicle construction? Not that they need to know exactly how the train is put together, but by knowing what areas are critical dimensions and what's important (hi, GD&T), they're far less likely to have issues. Has Bombardier ever used this plant for work in the past?

 

[nfitz]

Another interesting question would be "Who in Mexico is building the frames, and what else have they built?" Is it just some random welding shop that said "Oh yeah, we can do that for you?"

Bombardier is building the frames in Mexico, at their plant in Ciudad Sahagun near Mexico City.

There was a good article in the Financial Post about a year ago - http://business.financialpost.com/n...-thunder-bay-plant-hit-with-supply-chain-woes

 

[crs1026]

The Ciudad Sahagun facility is a former Mexican Railway backshop which was spun off to other interests, similar to how the CN's Pointe St Charles and Moncton shops were spun off. Bombardier is a secondary tenant in the facility - one of the major carbuilders took the larger share. I have wondered if Bombardier took second place in attracting the more skilled end of the local talent managerially and otherwise.

I asked about the fabrication because in today's high-tech manufacturing environment, the scenario of a part being made to the wrong dimension, and then making it through the quality check and onto a delivery truck, just seems absurd. Either the drawings were wrong, or the dimensions were keyed into the presses wrong, or the quality process doen't work. Or the plant's fabrication technology is primitive. It does make one wonder about those welds

- Paul

 

[Duck]

No presses - frames are welded together from straight cuts of HSS or simple laser cut sheet metal elements which are then bent along lines using a press brake - unlike an automobile which is made from stamped sheet metal, which is probably what you're thinking.

 

[crs1026]

No presses - frames are welded together from straight cuts of HSS or simple laser cut sheet metal elements which are then bent along lines using a press brake - unlike an automobile which is made from stamped sheet metal, which is probably what you're thinking.

Thanks for the education - I'm completely ignorant of specifics on this stuff.

Is it fair to say that these days, that process is largely computer controlled, laser measured, etc?

- Paul

 

[Duck]

Some, sure - most of it will be the guy takes a long piece of tube stock, goes to the chop saw, cuts it to length (or cuts many pieces against a stop), lays them out in a jig, welds them together.

Most of the car frame will either be tube or angle interspersed with flat pieces of sheet metal which are laser cut (using a CNC laser, plasma or water jet cutter) and then manually put in a press brake which bends the sheet along a line (think of gussets or other corner pieces and so on).

 

[Duck]

Just saw this and thought it might be of interest:

 

[Napoleon]

So did 4415 get delivered? Or is it happening after Christmas?

 

[M II A II R II K]

Perhaps it would be better if the Bombardier planes were made in Thunder Bay, and the transit vehicles be made at that plant close to Downsview Station instead.

 

[Johnny Au]

Perhaps it would be better if the Bombardier planes were made in Thunder Bay, and the transit vehicles be made at that plant close to Downsview Station instead.

It is unfortunate that the current configurations are the result of Bombardier buying different businesses. Blame DeHavilland and Hawker-Siddeley.

 

[smallspy]

So did 4415 get delivered? Or is it happening after Christmas?

It was delivered to Hillcrest yesterday evening, but I don't know if they've managed to offload it yet.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Interesting experience on a new TTC streetcar on the 510 from Spadina station to Union. At around Bremner and Spadina, the operator stopped the car and powered it down completely. All the lights (interior and exterior) and electronics were off. He said he had to "reboot the main computer". The streetcar took 3-4 minutes to "boot back up", then we continued on our voyage. The TTC fare machine didn't turn back on for the rest of the trip. I forgot to get the car number, but I found this practice very interesting and weird. Any insights on why this may have happened?

 

[the lemur]

Interesting experience on a new TTC streetcar on the 510 from Spadina station to Union. At around Bremner and Spadina, the operator stopped the car and powered it down completely. All the lights (interior and exterior) and electronics were off. He said he had to "reboot the main computer". The streetcar took 3-4 minutes to "boot back up", then we continued on our voyage. The TTC fare machine didn't turn back on for the rest of the trip. I forgot to get the car number, but I found this practice very interesting and weird. Any insights on why this may have happened?

 

[smallspy]

Interesting experience on a new TTC streetcar on the 510 from Spadina station to Union. At around Bremner and Spadina, the operator stopped the car and powered it down completely. All the lights (interior and exterior) and electronics were off. He said he had to "reboot the main computer". The streetcar took 3-4 minutes to "boot back up", then we continued on our voyage. The TTC fare machine didn't turn back on for the rest of the trip. I forgot to get the car number, but I found this practice very interesting and weird. Any insights on why this may have happened?

There are some situations where a device fails, and in spite of the design of the hardware and software gets into a state that prevents it from rebooting itself properly. On the buses, the stop calling systems frequently do this, and the fix is to open the main battery switch once the bus is shut down - this will drain the smaller, back-up battery on the stop calling system and once the main battery switch is closed (in theory) everything will start up in the correct order and operate properly.

I don't know exactly what transpired to caused it, but obviously the operator found some error that wouldn't clear in a traditional manner, and so felt that rebooting the car would fix it.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.