SkyTrain loss is Ansaldo’s gain
Bombardier and their friends on the Skyscraper blog must be weeping a sad song. After many years, carefully cultivating a case for an elevatedAi??SkyTrain light metro in Honolulu, the Ansaldo company of Italy, pipped Bombardier and SkyTrain at the post, by winning the Honolulu light metro contract.
The main difference between SkyTrain and the Ansaldo metros is that the SkyTrain light metro system is powered by Linear Induction Motors, whichAi??need reaction rails which are very expensive toAi??to install and maintain.
Like Vancouver’s Canada Line, Bombardier’s proprietary SkyTrain light metro system proved to be too expensive for the job.
That Honolulu needs an elevated light-metro is another question altogether, yet the smear campaign against modern LRT was so great, by the light metro crowd,Ai??the politicians caved in and only light metro was planned for. This is how TransLink continues with SkyTrain and light metro in Vancouver, an ongoing smear campaign, abetted by the mainstream media has made the mode almost unbuildable here, but now with Surrey demanding LRT, there is going to be a lot of red faces at TransLink.
The Ansaldo light metro inAi??Thessalonika Greece, which will be similar to the Honolulu metro.
The Bombarier bid was actually over $200 million less than Ansaldo. They were disqualified for some reason and are now challenging.
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/03/30/10011-honolulu-rail-contract-to-italian-firm-under-fire/
While the design-build was more $697,263,592 vs. $573,782,793, operational costs were much less.
Intermediate Operate & Maintain – $86,550,393 vs. $166,974,503
Full Operations & Maintenance – $176,167,567 vs. $339,056,303
Optional Operations & Maintenance – $203,375,014 vs. $317,573,494
Total $1,163,356,566 vs. $1,397,387,093
I find it strange that Bombardier’s Intermediate Operate & Maintain costs are almost half of Ansaldo’s as the LIM equipped SkyTrain is very heavy on maintenance. The reaction rail must be constantly lowered (manually) to maintain the critical 1 cm air-gap between the LIM’s and reaction rail. As the track rail wears, the air-gap becomes less ans less and adjustments must be made.
The late Des Turner did much study on LIM’s and had a folder of correspondence with Prof. Laithewaite of the UK on LIM equipped transit vehicles, which showed that constant attention was needed to maintain the critical 1 cm.
A correspondent in the USA, has told Zwei that because there was no independent verification of SkyTrain’ operational claims in Vancouver, unlike the two competitors with their products, many of Bombardier’s operational claims about SkyTrain were discounted, certainly the large difference between the Intermediate Operate & Maintain costs between Bombardier and the other two competitors, probably set off alarm bells with the vetting committee.