Do The SkyTrain for Surrey Lot & The MOT Have A Clue About SkyTrain? Evidently Not!
The following bit of misinformation comes from the SkyTrain for Surrey folks, who seem to continually to embarrass themselves with their ignorance of transit matters.
Bombardier Wins TransLink Contract for 28 new Trains TransLink and the Government of BC have signed a contract with Bombardier for 28 new SkyTrain cars, a contract valued at $90.7 million. The contract also includes the possibility of an additional 28 cars for June 2017.
The cars will be four articulated trains that riders can walk from one end of the train to the other. Current SkyTrain stock allows rider to walk between two cars but not all four. The cars will be used on the Evergreen Line, Expo and Millennium.
The new cars will be completed for the Evergreen Line and delivered by January 2016. The contract was awarded as a result of request for expressions of interest in February 2012. According to a representative from the Ministry of Transportation, Bombardier was the only company that responded to the Request for Expressions of Interest.
SkyTrain is a proprietary technology owned by Bombardier. The province conducted market sounding on vehicle procurement in 2010. Other companies said that unless the order was for 100 cars or more, they would not be interested.
Now let us look at the italic & underlined items.
- SkyTrain is a proprietary light-metro system owned by by Bombardier Inc. and only SkyTrain vehicles can operate on the guideway. The cost ofAi??one Mk.3 vehicle, with a maximum capacity of about 125 personsAi??per vehicle, works out to about $3.25 million a copy. A modular light rail vehicle or tram, with a capacity of about 250 persons, costs an average of $4 million aAi??car.Ai??Ai??It would be cheaper to operate couples pairs of trams, costing around $8 million, but having the same capacity ofAi??500 personsAi??of aAi??four car SkyTrain train-set, costing $13 million.Ai??TransLink would need only fourteen LRV’s or trams costing about $56 million to do the same work as twenty eight SkyTrain metro cars, costing $90.7 million.
- The SkyTrain cars are not articulated and operate as a permanently married quadruple set. The cars are gangwayed, permitting communication throughout the train-set. The Mk.3 ‘quadruple set’Ai??hasAi??now made the Bombardier’s ART system a heavy-rail metro as the light metro market has all but collapsed. Articulated cars are rail vehicles which consist of a number of smaller, lighter cars which are semi-permanently attached to each other and which share common bogie or truck.
- Of course no other company made a bid on supplying cars, ART is a proprietary transit system and only Bombardier built cars can operate on the Expo and Millennium Lines!
- To absorb the development costs for SkyTrain compatible cars, companies like Alstom and Siemens need to build a minimum of 100 cars. As the MOT and Bombardier keep ordering small lots of MK.3 cars, all other companies are effectively shut out of the bidding process.
Transit companies buying proprietary transit systems fall prey to predatory marketing, where only the one company can provide replacements carsAi??and at muchAi??higher costs. TransLink and the provincial MOT have been suckered by Bombardier and in turn continue to sucker the taxpayer to ante up more and more money for an outdated and obsolete product!
Having investigated Bombardier’s proportions for their new and improved ART metro system, I am astounded that transit officials in Vancouver have not learned from the Canada Line experience, that a conventional railway is always cheaper than a proprietary railway. Was not the Canada Line a conventional railway?
Being gangwayed throughout is not a great feat at all as most railway passenger carriages have been gangwayed since before the 20th century! As the concept of being gangwayed was to permit access to the restaurant car and or the WC facilities, there was little need to gangway metro or tube cars.
I have tried to find a drawing of the Mk 3 Innovia car to look at the number of bogies to see if indeed the 4 car set is articulated, but evidence in the article suggests not (the price per car is given, not train-set). From my understanding of LIM’s is that a passenger car needs two to provide the power to operate properly and that a LIM powered articulated train would be under powered, especially so it a LIM failed.
Development costs for a new vehicle are not cheap, somewhere between $30 to $40 million and to recoup the developmental costs a minimum order of 100 cars would be necessary.
I still find it strange, that with all the information that is around, that Vancouver planners, indeed TransLink, would still plan for a very expensive SkyTrain light metro system. I guess it is true, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Years ago the head of the TTC (around 1988-90) complained that the Scarborough RT was a proprietary system that was forced on them by the Province of Ontario. The killer comment was by one of the operators. She informed me late one night that, most of the operators hated these “Rinky Dink Little Toy Trains” as well as that, “they were tempermental pieces of s**t and a pain to operate”. She was able to have this conversation because they use to leave the door open to the cab. When the door is closed the cab is quite confinning and uncomfortable for most operators. Although, there is room for a second person in the cab it is very cramped. This was because the driverless system was not wanted and the union had forced the builder to add the operators cab. Originally UTDC ALRV’s were supposed to operate on this line but politics had forced the TTC into getting this system. The line had to be shortened to McCowan RD. from Sheppard Ave. in Malvern due to the unplanned cost overruns of the more complicated LIM propulsion and guideway. It is interesting when the RT is replaced by Eglinton-Scarborough LRT around 2020-2022, the line will be lengthened to Sheppard Ave. in Malvern. Only 34-36 years late, oh well.
LIM’s advantage is small curve and high grade which made it possible for Skytrain to save capital cost by achieve shorter line and less land aquision. Those are not visible if you look at only the vehicle price. LIM is also used in many other cities in China, Japan for example. And of course Bombardier is not the only company that produce LIM vehicles.
Zweisystem replies: You are somewhat correct. LIM’s absolutely have nothing to do about transit vehicles traversing tight curvature, but LIM’s are very good in climbing steep grades. Unfortunately, modern trams can also climb steep grades, 10% and more. There is absolutely no evidence that LIM’s save capital costs, when compared to LRT. LIM’s are designed for each individual transit vehicle’s use and by their very nature, are susceptible to damage and have many other weather related problems because they must be within 1 cm of the reaction rail. All three SkyTrain type systems, operating in northern climes, Vancouver, Toronto and New York JFK have shown great problems operating in the snow and ice.
Please don’t compare apple and orange. LRT can climb 10% grade but it has driver, sometime takes a few times to make a grade, of course with sanding equipment. LIM can operate at 90 seconds headway with any onboard staff consistently. And it has much higher capacity than LRT.
Skytrain consistently provide the lowest operating cost per passenger compared to similar size systems in North America. There are problems with any transit systems. At end of the day the operaing costs per passenger speak for the system itself.
Zweisystem replies: I am sorry, but what you say is absolute rubbish.
Industry rules stipulate that the maximum grade a tram or LRV can climb, it must be able to stop, then restart with a maximum load. The maximum load is all seats taken and the theoretical calculation of 8 standees per metre sq.
There absolutely no evidence that SkyTrain has a higher capacity than LRT and plenty of evidence that LRT has a higher capacity than SkyTrain.
Of course SkyTrain has no sanding equipment, it is a non-adhesion railway, but in the snow, the 1 cm air-gap between LIM and reaction rail constantly gets fouled by snow and ice, causing major problems.
TransLink, unlike other operating authorities, do not include the provincial subsidy of over $300 million annually. You also ignore the fact that SkyTrain has over 170 full time attendants, and more maintenance and control staff, than comparable LRT operations. The last comparison I have seen is that just the Expo Line costs about 40% more to operate than Calgary’s C-Train (both about the same length and ridership. The fact is, SkyTrain is hugely expensive to operate and one of the reasons why light rail has made the mode obsolete.
@LIM, please don’t compare SkyTrain lemons to trams or LRT. When you add the cost of the “extra buses” used “along SkyTrain routes” to shuttle riders to SkyTrain stations spaced miles apart in distance – the “true cost of SkyTrain” is about $4.28 per passenger mile; whereas, the cost of a tram line is just $1.23 per passenger mile:
Sustainability by Design – 2009 UBC Research Paper (page 9)
http://www.sxd.sala.ubc.ca/8_research/sxd_FRB07Transport.pdf
Moreover, the “only in BC SkyTrain” model for public transit costs the most in Canada and is at least 33% more costly than conventional transit elsewhere in Canada ($3.92 per revenue passenger compared with the national average of $2.94 per revenue passenger):
Shirocca TransLink efficiency Review (Figure 4-9 on page 27)
http://translinkcommission.org/TransLink_Efficiency_Review_Mar_21-12_FINAL.pdf
When you awaken from your delusional SkyTrain stupor, let me know.