11-03-2016, 08:38 PM
(11-03-2016, 07:40 PM)JoeKW Wrote: We're fine but we still won't be able to piggyback on their wealth of knowledge and experience with these trains. There's a whole host of downsides if they end up cancelling.
We were always going to be the launch customer, so in fact it would have been Metrolinx that would have been benefiting from us being the "Guinea pigs"!
(Yes I fully appreciate that there are significant technical similarities to the TTC's FLEXITY Outlook LFLRV's which in fact would be more relevant for knowledge transfer, here)
(11-03-2016, 08:08 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: They are now two years late with the delivery of the first vehicle. They have also moved the production completely from Mexico and Thunder Bay to Kingston. They ran into major issues, likely in all three of design, financial and labor and rather than come up clean and give an honest picture of what happened they keep on giving unrealistic dates for delivery that are unmet time and time again.
Bolded text... - Not quite. Frames were produced in Mexico, then shipped to Thunder Bay where the rest of assembly takes place. After struggling with quality issues, frame production was (is) being transferred to La Pocatiere, Quebec. To expedite the production of the FLEXITY Freedom order and free up resources in TB for FLEXITY Outlook (TTC), production of Freedom was (is being) moved to Millhaven (Kingston), which typically operates more as a test facility but has done some limited production runs for specialty vehicles (Monorail, ICTS/ALRT).
-La Pocatiere is ramping down from production of Toronto Rocket (MOVIA) frames at the end of the TTC's order. They're starting on FLEXITY Freedom frames, now.
-Millhaven is just about finished building the expansion on their main hall so that they can build the trains there. This happened fast. It was only this spring that they decided to pull the trigger and do this. It takes time to build an entire assembly facility.
I do, however, agree that Bombardier could have been far more transparent with this - but when everyone is bitching about how shitty you are, why on Earth would you talk to anyone willingly? This is why they've virtually completely shut down any form of communication beyond the bare minimum they have to.
I've got some more information and essentially what's happening here is just posturing - nothing's been cancelled.