ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[timio]

Shots of the rail line from the University:
Looking south from E5 bridge


Looking north from E5 bridge

[plam]

I don't know how many members are tech-minded, but I am and we're talking about Waterloo, so I'm assuming it's fair to talk about

A problem I keep having with thinking about this construction and "Why are they doing X then Y instead of doing X+Z1 then Y+Z2 for parallelism?" is because, unlike in modern computers, the actors in this project aren't general-purpose.

Thanks, I appreciate the analogy. Scheduling constrained resources is indeed difficult. Sometimes they don't try, sometimes they do and then it's still hard.

[ookpik]

Speaking of schedules and delays and such, this doesn't bode well for us, even if the cars are different. Ir seems Bombardier is preoccupied with meeting Toronto's demands as well as mulling over a possible sale or merger of their rail division with Siemens.

Toronto transit mulls banning Bombardier as latest streetcar deadline missed 

Bombardier has admitted that it will not hit its latest target for delivering streetcars to Toronto, the news coming as the increasingly unhappy TTC board prepares to weigh options for barring the company from bidding on contracts...

Fewer than 10 streetcars have been delivered since the new ones began to enter service a year ago. This falls well short of every production schedule Bombardier has proposed.

The Bombardier statement Wednesday said that the company had “taken a strategic step back” to overhaul their quality control. They are now promising four vehicles per month, beginning in September.

“We think, finally, we have a credible schedule,” said Andy Byford, CEO of the TTC. “The issue now is, the acid test is, will we start to see quality vehicles roll off that production line? Because we’re going to hold them to that.”

[MacBerry]

Any guesses on the purpose of the smaller, round culverts to the sides of the main passages?

Likely overflow for the extreme rainfall that comes every now and again.  Or for the ducks.

It is the new fish ladder for the migrating Blue Gills or was that Sunfish during spring flood times?  

I actually used to catch Sunfish in this pond ... way back in the day.

[tomh009]

Speaking of schedules and delays and such, this doesn't bode well for us, even if the cars are different. Ir seems Bombardier is preoccupied with meeting Toronto's demands as well as mulling over a possible sale or merger of their rail division with Siemens.

Is it the same factory for Toronto and our LRT?

You can bet that the guys building rail cars are not the same ones that are working on selling the division.  And it's in BBD's interest to keep things on track (pun intended!) at the rail division in order to maximize its value.

[DHLawrence]

All the same place - Bombardier's plant in Thunder Bay. They also build GO's bilevels. They certainly aren't filling anyone with confidence with this project.

[BuildingScout]

If Mexico can't produce a satisfactory product, maybe it's time to cut them out of the manufacturing chain.

The original report said that the problems stemmed from improper engineering, not assembly. Here are the components that are manufactured successfully at the Mexican Bombardier plant:

Mexico City metro cars Sistema de Transporte Eléctrico (STE) Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) (México City) Monterrey city metro - Metrorrey Minneapolis Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) GM-AMD, Locomotives Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (AMT) (Montreal) Vancouver, Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) Kuala Lumpur, Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Metro cars New Jersey Transit (NJT), BOMBARDIER Bi-Level (New Jersey) Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), Toronto Rocket Société de Transport de Montréal (STM), Montreal Metro, Progress Rail Locomotives, commuter rail for New Jersey Transit (USA), trams and light rail for Toronto, Canada (Toronto Transit Commission and Metrolinx), metro cars for Toronto, Chicago, New York City Transit (NYCT) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in San Francisco, California, among others.

and

Originally, the glacial rate of production was blamed on a strike at the Thunder Bay plant and the tricky design of the TTC's unique, two-stage-wheelchair ramp. It was subsequently revealed, however, that there were significant issues with parts suppliers, including a plant in Mexico, and manufacturing difficulties in Ontario. TTC CEO Andy Byford has said that the cars were initially so poorly fitted that they were being riveted together and would have fallen apart on Toronto's streets.

[BuildingScout]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/te...-1.3172593

But CBC News has learned that some employees at Bombardier in Thunder Bay have lost their jobs over the company's failed attempts to meet production deadlines.

"We've replaced employees that were ineffective, we made additional investments in our tooling, in our resources and we deployed our top quality experts to the sites that are working on the project," Lefebvre said in an interview.

[numberguy]

You can bet that the guys building rail cars are not the same ones that are working on selling the division.  And it's in BBD's interest to keep things on track (pun intended!) at the rail division in order to maximize its value.

Bombardier's corporate focus is clearly on aviation. They've already doubled down on their bet on regional aircraft. It doesn't matter what their rail division does, if their regional aircraft don't sell, Bombardier is done. Their best assets and people are on their aviation side.

[Canard]

All the same place - Bombardier's plant in Thunder Bay. They also build GO's bilevels. They certainly aren't filling anyone with confidence with this project.

And yet the Bi-Level coaches keep rolling off the line from that very same plant with no issue - in fact, all the new cab cars are quietly going into service with no media fanfare - because nobody cares when things go right.  And, 98% of the time, they go right.

The problems in Mexico are already fixed.  They were fixed months ago.  This isn't news - this is more sensationalist media drama and TTC trying to push the blame for their poor service onto someone else.  Bombardier is a bit behind, and are catching up - but not at the pace that the TTC is happy with.  Threatening to omit Bombardier from future orders is the stupidest thing they could do.  What motivation have they got to do a good job on this order if they know TTC is going to cut them out from future orders?  The fault is squarely on the TTC for not building in a better penalty clause - and now they're trying to make up for it.

I am so sick and tired of everyone crapping all over Bombardier.  They make the best rail product out there, period, and are going to deliver in Waterloo region, too.

And let me just reiterate something, because it seems to get lost a lot here (and in the news) - There is absolutely zero reason to believe that our trains are behind schedule, or will be behind schedule.  They have not started building them yet.  The issues around Flexity Outlook are resolved for TTC's order.

[tomh009]

All the same place - Bombardier's plant in Thunder Bay. They also build GO's bilevels. They certainly aren't filling anyone with confidence with this project.

And yet the Bi-Level coaches keep rolling off the line from that very same plant with no issue - in fact, all the new cab cars are quietly going into service with no media fanfare - because nobody cares when things go right.  And, 98% of the time, they go right.

(...)
And let me just reiterate something, because it seems to get lost a lot here (and in the news) - There is absolutely zero reason to believe that our trains are behind schedule, or will be behind schedule.  They have not started building them yet.  The issues around Flexity Outlook are resolved for TTC's order.

The Thunder Bay plant has four separate production lines.  So delays on one line (such as the one building the TTC streetcars) don't necessarily affect the other lines, as canard points out.

[taylortbb]

And let me just reiterate something, because it seems to get lost a lot here (and in the news) - There is absolutely zero reason to believe that our trains are behind schedule, or will be behind schedule.  They have not started building them yet.  The issues around Flexity Outlook are resolved for TTC's order.

I wish that was true, but it's not. Just look at the comment from Metrolinx:

Provincial agency Metrolinx has confirmed that the first vehicles in its $770-million order are about a year behind on delivery. Originally expected late last year so Metrolinx could begin testing, they likely won’t arrive until this fall.

“Metrolinx is experiencing similar problems with the quality of light rail car frames assembled in Bombardier’s plant in Mexico,” the agency said on Wednesday.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/transpor...order.html .

Fortunately for us there was a year of slack in the schedule, so it's not currently an issue for opening day. That doesn't mean that they're not behind schedule. You could argue they're not technically "our trains", but rather the prototypes for them, but if the prototype is behind schedule then the project is behind schedule.

[Canard]

That's not really true though, because we don't know where our 14 trains sat in Metrolinx' overall ECT+ion order.

Any time I have asked the team, the schedule was that the first of our trains would arrive in the fall of 2016, and that hasn't changed. Until I see an actual release from Bombardier, the Region or GrandLinq, I am firmly sticking with my belief that we are on-schedule and on budget. To think otherwise is damaging to the reputation of the project, I think. Imagine if Ouhitt scoured our forum and found all this speculation?

[taylortbb]

That's not really true though, because we don't know where our 14 trains sat in Metrolinx' overall ECT+ion order.

Any time I have asked the team, the schedule was that the first of our trains would arrive in the fall of 2016, and that hasn't changed. 

We're supposed to be getting the first production trains, as we have the earliest in service date of any of the projects in the Metrolinx order. There's actually an agreement between Metrolinx and the Region of Waterloo to do perform some of the initial acceptance testing for the entire order on the Waterloo spur. That's why the spur line tracks are so far ahead of the rest of the project, they need to be in service (electrified, etc) for late 2016 rather than 2017.

You're right that the delivery date hasn't changed, and that's what I meant by there's a year of slack in the schedule. But it's definitely concerning that the prototypes are a year late, and that Bombardier is having assembly issues with them. That's what I mean by they're not technically "our trains", only the prototypes for our trains. But they're still a key part of the order for our trains, and they're behind schedule.

Outhit already knows about this, and has talked about this. I'm not concerned about what he's going to write.

[ookpik]

Outhit already knows about this, and has talked about this. I'm not concerned about what he's going to write.

To each his own but I rely on Outhit for the opposite view of reality. If Jeff says it's black, then in reality it's usually white (or very light grey.)