Teething Troubles – TransLink Singing The Bombardier Blues
Bombardier’s rail division is a bit of an embarrassment with late deliveries of trams to Toronto and now something seems amiss with the new MK.3 cars, which are really MK.2 cars with fewer seats.
But what caught Zwei’s attention was this little quote”
Seven of the new Mark III cars have been budgeted at $91 million, with 28 in total expected over the next three years.
Now the questions I ask is: Do seven cars cost $91 million or do 28 cars cost $91 million?
Further, I thought Mk.3 came in 3 car sets, but seven is an odd number so another question I as is; “Are the MK.3 cars merely coaches, with no driving controls, gangwayed at both ends?”
SkyTrain car that broke down early Wednesday is one of the new trains: TransLink
Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s TalkPosted: September 21, 2016
( A note from Zwei: This of course is a Canada Line Train and it seems the CKNW news department doesn’t have a clue of the difference)
TransLink has confirmed that the SkyTrain car that broke down early this morning was one of the new Mark III trains.
That stall putting a damper to commuters at 6 a.m. which saw the car with its emergency lights flashing at the end of the SkyBridge near Scott Road station.
Earlier today TransLink said a train lost power on the sky bridge and had to be manually removed.
The trainAi??wasAi??one of the new models that was launchedAi??earlier this year.
No word yet on a cause of the stall, TransLink says more information is coming.
Seven of the new Mark III cars have been budgeted at $91 million, with 28 in total expected over the next three years.
“Now the questions I ask is: Do seven cars cost $91 million or do 28 cars cost $91 million?”
The Mk3, as ordered by Translink, comes in a 4 car trainset. 7 trainsets is 28 cars … Poor wording seems to be the culprit here …
Each Mark 3 rail vehicle is a 2 car “married pair” not a 4 car vehicle. As a running consist, it has 2 married pairs per consist. Therefore 14 (2 car married paired) vehicles were purchased at $6.5 Million per “married pair” or $3.25 Million per car if you like.
The problem is that, this makes them very expensive vehicles given that, the length of a married pair is 33.47 metres. This means that these small driverless vehicles cost $194,203.76 per metre length. Even the much maligned Bombardier Flexity Outlook Streetcars were originally only $152,450.57 per metre length now up to $187,000 after the production problems but still cheaper.
The 182 Bombardier Flexity Swift LRV’s for the Toronto area’s new LRT lines the Eglinton Crosstown, Finch West, Sheppard East, Hurontario, Hamilton B-Line and Kitchener-Waterloo’s Ion only cost $137,362.64 per metre length.
The 139 metre long Toronto Rocket Subway Train Set = $18,200,000 per 6 car continuous set.(5 gangway connections) or only $130,935.25 per metre length
The Alstom Citadis Spirit LRV’s for Ottawa’s Confederation Line which are 48.57 metres long at $5,000,000 per 4 section vehicle costs only $102,944.20 per meter length. They can be expanded by adding a fifth section at their own maintenance facility, where the new section is just shipped directly from the factory to the maintenance facility (most LRV designs from nearly all manufacturers, have this ability) unlike the Skytrain design which, would have to shipped back to the closest Bombardier factory to accomplish this.
The new generations of LRV’s are a fraction of the cost to maintain because they are designed from the outset to have “easy access” to all major components and to be worked on by only a single repair/maintenance person for most jobs, unlike the Skytrains which require a crew of 2 or 3 to do most repair and maintenance jobs.
On top of that LRV’s can operate on any type of right way, above grade on viaducts like the Skytrain or bellow grade in tunnels, on private surface rights of way or in mixed traffic on a street, hell Houston even has their running through a fountain (I’m not kidding) where as, Skytrain must be put on a physically segregated surface or grade segregated right of way for legal and safety reasons, street running is never an option thus making it always more expensive compared to LRV’s, to build the rights of way.
The MK.3 cars include two gangwayed “coaches”, giving full communication with a 3 or 4 car train set, this I think one could say that a 3 car train a married triplet and a 4 car train a married quadruplet.