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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

I believe Airbus has over 10 aircrafts completed and waiting for the PW Engine for their A320NEOs as well.

it's not a new world problem though. Development delays and supplier failure has been apart of the aerospace industry forever. The Boeing 787 was delayed 3 years 5 months before it finally entered service but only to be grounded 1.5 years later due to (guess what) supplier problem (batteries) for 3 full months. Airbus A380 was delayed for almost 2 years due also to supplier problems (incompatible design software) and this cost them almost 6 billion dollars (i believe more than bombardier's total market value)
 
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Obviously my sarcasm on keeping Bombardier jobs in Thunder Bay in reply to the latest news on how screwed the TTC was on 509 recently, was lost on most of you.

I made that comment because I was trying to sound ridiculous by pointing out we should care about jobs in Thunder Bay while here in Toronto we are forced into such predicaments.

Clearly we shouldn't. It doesn't matter where those jobs are.

It only matters that the TTC gets what they paid for, when they expected them, in the condition they expected.
 
UD2 said:
I think it's more that many people don't agree with you.
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Is that right?

Maybe you should have asked all those people crammed like sardines onto our old CLRV's in recent days that should have been riding new streetcars.

That conversation surely would have went like this:

"How do you feel about the fact that we don't have nearly as many new, large, air-conditioned streetcars from Bombardier as we paid millions of dollars for?"

"It totally sucks. We really are in a pickle right now. But boy, am I glad we kept those jobs in Ontario at a company that keeps screwing us over but we still keep bailing out!"

(That last part was thrown in for a second try at sarcasm)
 
pstogios said:
Is that right?

Maybe you should have asked all those people crammed like sardines onto our old CLRV's in recent days that should have been riding new streetcars.

That conversation surely would have went like this:

"How do you feel about the fact that we don't have nearly as many new, large, air-conditioned streetcars from Bombardier as we paid millions of dollars for?"

"It totally sucks. We really are in a pickle right now. But boy, am I glad we kept those jobs in Ontario at a company that keeps screwing us over but we still keep bailing out!"

(That last part was thrown in for a second try at sarcasm)
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I don't think many of the general public relly care or understand everything going on with the building of the new streetcars they only get what the media tells them. Yes they are late and behind schedule but I still say let the TTC and city deal with it and not the public or from members because they are the ones that are there making sure that the order gets delivered.


I also fail to see what could be accomplished if we went with different supplier what would happen if they had the same problems would poel then say we should have used Bombardier because they are in Ontario? Don't forget they had a strike and the suppliers thought it would last longer then it did so they stopped their work on parts for them then we had the whole farme mess from Mexico where they had to take them apart and reweld them . How do poel on the board know that Seamas or whatever other manufacture wouldn't have problems delivering such a large order on time?
 
Bombardier deserves less slack and more institutional concern on this deal, thanks to

- its inadequate, insincere, and customer-defiant remediation of the immediate problem - how many excuses? how many revised schedules?
- its concurrent demand for federal subsidies to keep Canadian jobs (do we hear them asking the EU for subsidies on threat of cutting jobs over there ?)
- its concurrent refusal to accept accountability or accept the tough but necessary changes in governance at the corporate level
- its overall corporate profile - these days it's fundamentally an off shore enterprise with a Wizard-of-Oz fake storefront in Quebec

Little of this impacts directly on the average TTC customer, true ..... but the premise that this is a good solid Canadian corporation that only dropped this one little ball is false. All procurement is risky but holding out a special place in our Ontario heart for this enterprise as we make more transit procurement decisions is not good business.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
the premise that this is a good solid Canadian corporation that only dropped this one little ball is false. All procurement is risky but holding out a special place in our Ontario heart for this enterprise as we make more transit procurement decisions is not good business. - Paul
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I completely agree that Bombardier has shown either inability or incompetence in several of its ventures - the TTC streetcars are of great interest here but they also have problems with their planes and had a huge contract in London (UK) cancelled because they were simply not performing. Much as I like the idea of using OUR public purchasing money to support OUR companies it is quite clear that this has simply not worked in this case and we need to rethink this policy for any future purchases.
 
EastYorkTTCFan said:
I also fail to see what could be accomplished if we went with different supplier what would happen if they had the same problems would poel then say we should have used Bombardier because they are in Ontario? Don't forget they had a strike and the suppliers thought it would last longer then it did so they stopped their work on parts for them then we had the whole farme mess from Mexico where they had to take them apart and reweld them . How do poel on the board know that Seamas or whatever other manufacture wouldn't have problems delivering such a large order on time?
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The trick is to use MULTIPLE suppliers. That's what Vancouver does, using both Hyundai Rotem and Bombardier rolling stock for the Sky Train. Ottawa had planned to buy Siemens LRTs to serve alongside their Alstom trains. Montreal's new subways are designed/produced by a Bombardier-Alstom consortium.

Toronto is one of the few cities in Canada where, outside of the UP Express, everything on rails presumably MUST come from Bombardier. And Bombardier knows this, and treats us like crap because they can.

The next bid for anything on rails needs to be dual sourced. If the TTC wanted 100 streetcars, for example, buy 50 from BBR, and 5o from Siemens. And set the spec so it's not so specialised, beyond the necessities of turning circle.
 
pstogios said:
Is that right?

Maybe you should have asked all those people crammed like sardines onto our old CLRV's in recent days that should have been riding new streetcars.

That conversation surely would have went like this:

"How do you feel about the fact that we don't have nearly as many new, large, air-conditioned streetcars from Bombardier as we paid millions of dollars for?"
Click to expand...

How would those same people would feel if they didn't need to cram into any streetcars on any day because they had lost their jobs as a residual effect of one of Canada's largest businesses going out of business?

People need to use the same streetcars that they had used as a habit for the past 30 years for a number of month more. Let's not blow this out of proportions.
 
UD2 said:
How would those same people would feel if they didn't need to cram into any streetcars on any day because they had lost their jobs as a residual effect of one of Canada's largest businesses going out of business?

People need to use the same streetcars that they had used as a habit for the past 30 years for a number of month more. Let's not blow this out of proportions.
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What are you talking about?

1) Almost nobody outside of Bombardier would lose their jobs if Bombardier went out of business. Bombardier does not employ a significant percentage of Canada's population. I welcome you to post any evidence to back up your extraordinary claim.

2) That is an absurd misrepresentation of the situation. Do you have any familiarity with public transit in Toronto? The current streetcars provide far too little capacity for the level of demand present, and are suffering from severe reliability issues due to age, resulting in service reductions and delays. I encourage you to try to use the streetcar network on any of the number of extremely cold days we're likely to have this winter, when a significant percentage of the streetcars will not be operating, and tell people that they don't need new streetcars.

Oh, yeah, and they're not accessible. Would you like to tell wheelchair users that they should continue using the same streetcars they've been using for their entire lives for a number of months more? Oh, wait, they can't. Well, nice of you to suggest it to them, though! Real considerate...
 
EastYorkTTCFan said:
I'm not relly sure if how much of that has to do with Bombardier or the design of the tunnel itself.
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Reread it, as its an BBD problem. The tunnel is not the issue, as it applies to surface lines as well.

What got me in 2012 was seeing so short freight trains in Europe compare to ours. Europe is only moving to 750m trains now, which you will find on most short lines here.
 
Megaton327 said:
Oh, yeah, and they're not accessible. Would you like to tell wheelchair users that they should continue using the same streetcars they've been using for their entire lives for a number of months more? Oh, wait, they can't. Well, nice of you to suggest it to them, though! Real considerate...
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I don't get the accessibility thing on these streetcars. Outside of these vehicles nearly the entire system is not accessible for wheelchairs, few elevators on the subway, nearly all buses do not have foldout ramps, etc. Isn't this why we have Wheeltrans? Is the plan to eventually close that down?
 
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