TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

[pstogios]

I think it's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that the requirements to drive every single production vehicle 600 km is a load of crap. What kind of QC does Bombardier have that we expect each vehicle off the assembly line not to be exactly like the one before it?

And to have the two training cars 4401 and 4402 *still* in use for training is also a load. How many drivers need to be trained that haven't been trained in the MONTHS those two LRV's have been here? Honestly.

Finally, it's an absolute joke that there hasn't been any information released to the public regarding why Bombardier is so far behind in fulfilling the LRV order, strike or no. I'll bet there won't be any penalties and we get shafted and have to wait like 10 years to roll out the entire order. Unbelievable.

/endrant

 

[W. K. Lis]

So if you buy a car (new or used), there is absolutely no need to test drive it? I have an Edsel for you.

 

[pstogios]

So if you buy a car (new or used), there is absolutely no need to test drive it? I have an Edsel for you.

If it used, you should or you are irresponsible.
If it is new, you test drive a showroom / demo model so you know how the handling is, etc. But the one you take home, if new, is shipped to your dealership and not test driven, you just drive it home and trust the QC.
Why can't this happen with the Flexicities?

 

[jamincan]

I have absolutely no idea if this form of QC is normal. That said, the TTC already knows how the model performs and has already bought the vehicles; this is in no way equivalent to someone test driving a car. Who takes a vehicle on a 600km test drive anyway?

 

[wopchop]

Pretty sure that buying a car is not equivalent to buying a million dollar piece of equipment.

 

[BurlOak]

I think it's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that the requirements to drive every single production vehicle 600 km is a load of crap. What kind of QC does Bombardier have that we expect each vehicle off the assembly line not to be exactly like the one before it?

And to have the two training cars 4401 and 4402 *still* in use for training is also a load. How many drivers need to be trained that haven't been trained in the MONTHS those two LRV's have been here? Honestly.

Finally, it's an absolute joke that there hasn't been any information released to the public regarding why Bombardier is so far behind in fulfilling the LRV order, strike or no. I'll bet there won't be any penalties and we get shafted and have to wait like 10 years to roll out the entire order. Unbelievable.

/endrant

+100%. Maybe this is a throwback to how things were done 50 years ago.

Pretty sure that buying a car is not equivalent to buying a million dollar piece of equipment.

Construction equipment that is hundreds of thousands of dollars works the same as cars. You test a demo model, and then take delivery of the new one and put it to work right away. Why take possession if you aren't going to put it to real use right away. Even after you start using it, it has a warranty to cover you in case of defects.

 

[nfitz]

Pretty sure that buying a car is not equivalent to buying a million dollar piece of equipment.

Of course not, but the degree of naïveté here sometimes is shocking sometimes. Heck, the other day in another thread, someone was suggesting that the $10 million for platform doors was too much, and they should go to Home Depot instead ... OMFG!

 

[BurlOak]

Of course not, but the degree of naïveté here sometimes is shocking sometimes. Heck, the other day in another thread, someone was suggesting that the $10 million for platform doors was too much, and they should go to Home Depot instead ... OMFG!

Your right. $10M is much too little for platform doors. Unless the TTC can find a way of paying $50M per station for doors, we will not accept them because they must be too cheaply built.

Put is out to an RFP with reasonable specifications, along with a warranty period, and see what the prices come in at.

I honesty can't believe the naïveté of some here who believe everything that is told to them from political leaders or civil servants without question.

 

[nfitz]

Your right. $10M is much too little for platform doors. Unless the TTC can find a way of paying $50M per station for doors, we will not accept them because they must be too cheaply built.

Why would doors cost $50 million?

... an RFP with reasonable specifications, along with a warranty period, and see what the prices come in at.

This is exactly what they do. And then they take the lowest bid (which often creates it's own problems).

I honesty can't believe the naïveté of some here who believe everything that is told to them from political leaders or civil servants without question.

I honestly can't believe that some people believe that they have far more competency in every field, than the professionals that practice in those areas. This remains a huge problem with Toronto, that there are people out there who simply have little comprehension or perhaps even the basic skills to comprehend these type of undertakings.

 

[drum118]

Every transit system test every LRT, EMU and rolling stock for rail that has equipment in them before put into service.

TTC is no different then the rest of the world for new equipment.

As I stated before the length of testing and burn in various from system to system.

Boston T just received one of their rebuilt streetcar and it going under a month of testing and will be follow by the others doing the same thing that are being rebuilt.

It not a simple task to remove a broken down streetcar on line compare to a truck or car to the point it can cause major service issues. We are talking about a different animal when comparing the new car to the current to the old PCC or the Witt.

When I was in Malian in 2012, a new LRT was on a passing track with cease wheels and was told it had been sitting there for a couple days and would be another few days before they could move it. If the car had broken down some where else on line, the line would been out of service until they could move it without doing any real damage to it or the tracks.

Best to test the equipment first than throw it on line only to breakdown and piss everyone off and say there a good reason they shouldn't be on the road in the first place.

So, sit back and wait until each car goes through its testing before riding it. The TR goes through the same testing.

Where you should be bitching about is the la.....tttte dell....livery and dealing with a poor manufacture because of a sole source supplier requirement.

If you want that type of warranty, you going to pay through the nose and having no money for other things.

 

[jeffreym]

I think it's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that the requirements to drive every single production vehicle 600 km is a load of crap. What kind of QC does Bombardier have that we expect each vehicle off the assembly line not to be exactly like the one before it?

And to have the two training cars 4401 and 4402 *still* in use for training is also a load. How many drivers need to be trained that haven't been trained in the MONTHS those two LRV's have been here? Honestly.

Finally, it's an absolute joke that there hasn't been any information released to the public regarding why Bombardier is so far behind in fulfilling the LRV order, strike or no. I'll bet there won't be any penalties and we get shafted and have to wait like 10 years to roll out the entire order. Unbelievable.

/endrant

You assume the cars that have been delivered are working without any problems. It's my understanding that that's not the case.

 

[georgevicbell]

You assume the cars that have been delivered are working without any problems. It's my understanding that that's not the case.

It also seems people are assuming we are buying only one multi-million dollar piece of equipment, not 100's of them, totalling Billions of dollars over many years, built by many different people...they have just been built, put on a train and driven across Ontario...parts of them are coming from around the world...if you expect all of that to work perfectly every time...you are crazy...or stupid...the law of averages says that there will be one lemon in the bunch...

Then you are going to put 100's of people on them and drive them around at a high rate of speed with no seat belts or airbags...you are going to potentially be doing that in the middle of winter...so let's send out the brand new streetcar, fill it with 100 people and send it out on the first big winter storm and find out that someone, somewhere wired something backwards and instead of breaking through the intersection we have a major disaster on our hands...

Best to do a bunch of testing of the cars in semi-controlled, low risk situations...the amount of time and distance wasn't just randomly picked out of a hat...it was debated and probably came from feedback from engineers, and likely some lawyers and accountants...

Even iPod's go through a few cycles of testing before they get put in their box and shipped...all we are doing here is testing it after we take it out of the box (but before we actually own the thing)...

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I think it's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that the requirements to drive every single production vehicle 600 km is a load of crap. What kind of QC does Bombardier have that we expect each vehicle off the assembly line not to be exactly like the one before it?

And to have the two training cars 4401 and 4402 *still* in use for training is also a load. How many drivers need to be trained that haven't been trained in the MONTHS those two LRV's have been here? Honestly.

Finally, it's an absolute joke that there hasn't been any information released to the public regarding why Bombardier is so far behind in fulfilling the LRV order, strike or no. I'll bet there won't be any penalties and we get shafted and have to wait like 10 years to roll out the entire order. Unbelievable.

/endrant

I think you've greatly underestimated the complexity of these machines.

I can guarantee you that 4400 will not be identical to 4604. Slight modifications to the specs, changes in manufacturing processes, manufacturing tolerances, human error, among other things guarantees that.

Just look at our Toronto Rockets as an example. There are numerous diffences between the first TR to be delivered and the most recent delivery. Admittedly, I'm not sure how trivial these differences are (paging smallspy), but they do exist. Likewise, T1 5000 was not made identical to 5371.

Heck, even with standard automobiles straight from the assembly line, you can see small variances in vehicles that are supposed to be identical. Now you mean to tell us that these LRVs, which are incredibly more complicated than any automobile on the road, will all be identical to each other? Give me a break.

Anyways I have absolutely no problem with the 600 km testing. We paid millions of dollars for each of these machines, so we better be damn sure that they're perfect before accepting liability for anything that may go wrong with them.

 

[BurlOak]

It not a simple task to remove a broken down streetcar on line compare to a truck or car to the point it can cause major service issues. We are talking about a different animal when comparing the new car to the current to the old PCC or the Witt.

When I was in Malian in 2012, a new LRT was on a passing track with cease wheels and was told it had been sitting there for a couple days and would be another few days before they could move it. If the car had broken down some where else on line, the line would been out of service until they could move it without doing any real damage to it or the tracks.

Best to test the equipment first than throw it on line only to breakdown and piss everyone off and say there a good reason they shouldn't be on the road in the first place.

If this is the case - do the testing up in Thunder Bay and not on the streets of Toronto.

You assume the cars that have been delivered are working without any problems. It's my understanding that that's not the case.

If this is the case - do the testing up in Thunder Bay and not on the streets of Toronto.

It also seems people are assuming we are buying only one multi-million dollar piece of equipment, not 100's of them, totalling Billions of dollars over many years, built by many different people...they have just been built, put on a train and driven across Ontario...parts of them are coming from around the world...if you expect all of that to work perfectly every time...you are crazy...or stupid...the law of averages says that there will be one lemon in the bunch...

If this is the case - do the testing up in Thunder Bay and not on the streets of Toronto.

Even iPod's go through a few cycles of testing before they get put in their box and shipped...all we are doing here is testing it after we take it out of the box (but before we actually own the thing)...

If this is the case - do the testing at the factory and not in my house.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Your right. $10M is much too little for platform doors. Unless the TTC can find a way of paying $50M per station for doors, we will not accept them because they must be too cheaply built.

Put is out to an RFP with reasonable specifications, along with a warranty period, and see what the prices come in at.

I honesty can't believe the naïveté of some here who believe everything that is told to them from political leaders or civil servants without question.

OT - One can expect price reductions, but don't expect the cost to magically come down from the multi-million range. It's not a line item that one can hide and expect it not to have an impact on a budget without much slack. Don't accuse others of being naive when one is offering Home Depot up as a solution.

As to the issue of testing, once the design is frozen the manufactured product should be the same - I am not sure why one needs to test every single car extensively after that point (and if there are variances in the manufacturing process, well, isn't that the point where it should be looked into?) Then again, we can point to the Rocket as how wanting the process can be (and they still have that unreadable Serif font on the LED display at the front of the train)

AoD