Unlike Toronto, TransLink Can’t Cancel A SkyTrain Contract
Toronto is cancelling its contract with Bombardier, which would have provided light rail vehicles for Toronto’s planned LRT network and the TTC is also looking at dumping Bombardier as the supplier for their tram replacement program due to non delivery of new trams as per the contract schedule
This is why Bombardier Inc. love proprietary railways like our ALRT/ART (SkyTrain) system because the customer is tied to one supplier and it is far too expensive for the competition to design a new rail vehicle, for a small order, to operate on another’sAi?? proprietary railway.
The Canada Line is a good example because it is in reality a heavy-rail metro dumbed down as a light metro but it is also a generic railway vehicle and can operate on almost any railway and metro system around the world, but it cannot operate in conjunction with our proprietary ALRT/ART mini-metro.
This means through running is impossible and now the Canada line has become a stand alone mini-metro line and being so, is slowly becoming more and more apparent with politicians that it is a “white elephant”.
Back to Toronto; Siemens, Alstom, Stadler, and more are waiting to pick up the Toronto LRV contract, something that would not happen in Vancouver.
The proprietaryAi?? LIM powered ALRT/ART SkyTrain system is
not compatible in operation with conventional railways.
Bombardierai??i??s arrogance costs commuters in light-rail setback
Bombardier reaped what it sowed when it lost the Toronto LRT contract, writes David Olive.
Bumai??i??s rush for Bombardier
The pressure will soon be on Bombardier Inc. to get serious about splitting the company into its rail and aerospace operations.
Each are troubled, but might fare better on its own, solely focused on their respective businesses.
Ontario last week told the Montreal-based Bombardier it is terminating its $770-million contract to buy all 182 light-rail vehicles (LRVs) needed for extensive expansion to Torontoai??i??s public transit network.
A pilot Bombardier LRV to have arrived in Toronto three years ago missed its latest delivery deadline last week. By the time it does arrive, Ontario will have given part of the LRT contract to eager bidders Siemens AG of Germany and Franceai??i??s Alstom S.A.
In a separate fiasco, Bombardier has been a chronic annoyance for Toronto Transit Commission commuters, made to cope with unreliable and late Bombardier equipment.
Post-Nortel and the halcyon days of BlackBerry, Bombardier is Canadaai??i??s biggest tech champion. It has long been nurtured by corporate welfare, and informal but real Buy Canada practices, notably in Ontario.
Squandering those advantages, Bombardier has worked hard to exemplify what a customer-unfriendly enterprise looks like. It deserves its bumai??i??s rush, which might finally teach Bombardier to shed the arrogance that drove Nortel to an early grave.
The problem with the article is that the contract has not been cancelled yet they are just starting the process that could lead to cancelling of the Bombardier contract with Metrolinx. Once you decide to actually cancel the contract, which they haven’t done yet, that process can take up to 14 months to fully play out. Its true that Bombardier is very, very, late delivering the pilot or test LRV for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT but, production for the rest of the 181 LRV’s is on schedule and on time. I’m not trying to go out of my way to defend Bombardier here but the article is pointing out that, many people have a large confidence crisis in the belief that Bombardier can deliver the LRV’s on time. Other than the test vehicle they haven’t actually broken any part of the delivery of the rest of the contract, whose vehicles should be under production by 2018 for delivery between 2019-2021. This is so that all the vehicles are there on sight when the line opens in the fall of 2021. Remember the bulk of the LRV’s aren’t even to slated to begin production for another year and a half!
Remember it was Rob Ford’s tinkering with the original line proposal between 2010-early 2011 that forced Metrolinx to separate the RFP (Request For Proposals) contracts for the line’s tunnel and the rest of the building and operating of the line, so while the tunnel portion of the line was being dug, the RFP contract for actual building of the stations, yard and the operation hadn’t even been finalized yet. So instead of opening in 2018 as originally proposed the actual start date is in 2021. The test LRV which was supposed to be delivered by late 2014-early 2015 was based on the opening date of 2018 not the revised one of 2021. That all said however, you think Bombardier could deliver 1 single LRV on time, in that way they took this contract way to lightly.