ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[GtwoK]

Water / Duke was paved today, would hazard to guess that it'll open tomorrow.

[Canard]

If you cancel the current order and go with another vendor, ion will not open until 2020.

These are not "sitting on the shelf" items. You get in a queue, and your equipment gets built.

The trains we are getting are a NA variant derived from the FLEXITY 2 platform in Europe and are "standard". Our trains are not custom in any way other than they're painted blue.

Look up vehicle delivery news articles and you'll see that even if we'd gone with CAF Or Siemens, we'd still likely have late trains.

This is not really a big deal.

[tomh009]

We should just cancel the Bombardier order and get bog-standard LRVs from Siemens or Skoda or anybody who is willing to bid on the basis that they will actually deliver when promised. Is it really impossible to get vehicles in less than two years?

Take a look at when you could get delivery on an Airbus A320 NEO or a Boeing 737 MAX -- it's probably 2020 or later.  Trains are the same: they are built to order, and there is always a backlog, at least for any decent product.  And we don't just need one, either.

On top of that, there would be cancellation penalties, as I doubt this level of delays would give us cancellation rights.

EDIT: To operate in two years, we need to receive the first trains in less than one year.  It's just not going to happen with anyone else at this point.

[Pheidippides]

I'd have to agree with others that unfortunately this is likely not the last delay in the vehicle production. The only hope I am holding out is that Bombardier has finally learned to under-promise and over-deliver instead of the other way around.

Perhaps Canard or someone can explain why if this is a "standard" product what makes it so challenging to produce on a regular schedule. Does Bombardier have the same production timeliness problems producing the European version of the Flexity at their European plants?

[Canard]

It's a NEW standard, for North America, based on the FLEXITY 2 designed in Europe. The frames were being built at a Bombardier-acquired plant in Mexico and this was the first job for them (the FLEXITY Outlook trams for Toronto). They screwed them up and now production of the frames is being shifted to BBD's La Pocatiere facility in Quebec, which is winding down the TR Subway vehicle order for the TTC.

Thunder Bay COULD have cranked these out on schedule, like they do every other product they make, if it weren't for the shoddy frames. That put them so far behind that now they need to shift production of our train variant, the FLEXITY Freedom, to another plant - Millhaven (Kingston). Millhaven is just finishing up an order for Kuala Lumpur so they have capacity there now, too. That's also where the test track is, which the first Freedom LRV will use, so this all makes sense.

The problem is we're now riding a rolling wave of lateness which will eventually tighten up. But it will take a little bit of time (6 months).

We just have to sit tight and wait. Knee-jerk reactions of "cancel the order! Buy different trains!" Solve absolutely nothing and would only result in a far, far worse delay.

[BuildingScout]

I'd have to agree with others that unfortunately this is likely not the last delay in the vehicle production. The only hope I am holding out is that Bombardier has finally learned to under-promise and over-deliver instead of the other way around.

Perhaps Canard or someone can explain why if this is a "standard" product what makes it so challenging to produce on a regular schedule. Does Bombardier have the same production timeliness problems producing the European version of the Flexity at their European plants?

The problem seems to be the Mexican plant. Attention to detail is not the Mexican worker's strong point. When a good percentage of the work coming from Mexico has to be fixed, it slows the assembly of the cars.

There's something deeper at play here than what Bombardier admits to. First, given modern CAD/CAM design and manufacturing blue prints, it is not possible to just drill holes in the wrong place. Second, even if this somehow happened (e.g. uploaded the wrong set of blueprints) it doesn't take 8 months and a sliding schedule to fix. Third, car manufacturing plants in Mexico routinely win awards for quality, how come not Bombardier's? They owned that plant since 1992. Fourth, how come is the schedule even later after bringing La Pocatiere and Millhaven online?

A reporter should dig into this and find the true reasons of this debacle.

[Canard]

It's a very high-level view of how manufacturing works to just blindly say "Modern production doesn't allow for mistakes". Trust me, it does. Coordinating multiple teams from multiple plants causes colossal errors.

Even Airbus isn't immune. Germany and France were using different service packs of their solid modelling software which used different K-factors for cable routing. Guess what happened when they put the first A380 together?

As I have said multiple times (I'm tired.), the changes are being made soon, and it takes time to bring these other facilities online with this project. These changes were just recently decided and they can't just INSTANTLY start totally reworking their production schedules, get jigs ready, order material etc... It is a 6 month rolling wave.

[tomh009]

Perhaps Canard or someone can explain why if this is a "standard" product what makes it so challenging to produce on a regular schedule. Does Bombardier have the same production timeliness problems producing the European version of the Flexity at their European plants?

I thought the problems were not so much with the Metrolinx order of Flexity Freedom, which is indeed pretty much a standard product, but with the TTC order of Flexity Outlook, which is quite heavily customized to fit Toronto's needs.  And the Metrolinx order is in the queue behind the TTC order, so TTC delays hit us as well.

Or have I misunderstood this?

[tomh009]

More details and comments in this morning's Record, in a quite calm and balanced article:
http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6677...er-blamed/

And a positive, supportive editorial:
http://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/6...-the-wait/

[Canard]

They're ~80% similar. The frames and so on are all virtually the same. The nose cone is different on ours, ours are wider, doors on both sides, a different width truck is on ours... But all the same issues with Outlook trickle down to Freedom.

[timc]

More details and comments in this morning's Record, in a quite calm and balanced article:
http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6677...er-blamed/

I didn't realize this was the case:

A new order from some other company would mean modifications to the actual light rail system, particularly the stations, because it is being built specific to the low floor trains from Bombardier.

[tomh009]

They're ~80% similar. The frames and so on are all virtually the same. The nose cone is different on ours, ours are wider, doors on both sides, a different width truck is on ours... But all the same issues with Outlook trickle down to Freedom.

But the TTC trams have at least a unique gauge and the ability to make tighter turns than the standard Flexity -- both of which would potentially impact the frames, would they not?

And the delays to date have been with the TTC version, because the Metrolinx order hasn't hit the production line yet -- or has it?

[Canard]

There is a $1500/day/vehicle penalty to Bombardier.

Source?

In the contract, the provision for late trains is $1,500 per day, per train, up to a maximum of $3.3 million. The region can also seek further damages.

Source: http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6677...ier-blamed

[tomh009]

Source?

In the contract, the provision for late trains is $1,500 per day, per train, up to a maximum of $3.3 million. The region can also seek further damages.

Source: http://www.therecord.com/news-story/6677...ier-blamed

What's not clear is the date (or dates) when that penalty kicks in.

[Canard]

The frames from a design standpoint on Outlook and Freedom "under the hood" are almost identical. Toronto's vehicles are narrower (so the roof and floor panels are narrower). The tighter curve radius means the distance between vehicles and swivel plate mounts are stretched a bit differently. The bogies/trucks are wider because TTC's gauge is a few inches wider than standard.

These are all very minor differences.

The same problems affecting Outlook affect Freedom.