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Will We Ever See Our New Streetcars?

In the Financial Post, Peter Kuitenbrouwer reports on problems at Bombardier’s Thunder Bay plant.

It’s a sad tale of cock-ups with parts that don’t fit and claims that designing for Toronto’s streetcar environment is too challenging. Fortunately for Bombardier, they have not yet had to start producing the Metrolinx cars that should be an off-the-shelf design as a point of comparison.

Sorry, Bombardier, you bid on this contract, and you pass yourselves off as a world-class supplier. Stop complaining and start delivering.

46 thoughts on “Will We Ever See Our New Streetcars?”

  1. Yep, and all the Scarborough residents will love when they have to transfer between Scarborough and Toronto buses whenever they want to cross Victoria Park. And I’m sure they’ll enjoy paying for the entirety of “their” subway extension, without the help of the downtown tax base. Oh, and I bet they’ll be thrilled about paying more than downtown residents to ride the TTC, given that their underloaded subway and their separately painted surface buses require a much larger subsidy than the transit in the old city.

    You can’t have it both ways, and if you de-amalgamate transit, Scarborough will hurt more than anyone.

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  2. There’s an even more obvious reason this comment is inane. If the point of a DRL is to offset pressure on Yonge, then a west DRL already exists. The University-Spadina subway is the north-south corridor west of Yonge which serves the downtown core and continues to have available capacity.

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  3. Tom Gradgrind: “Sometimes I come to your website just to see you smack down the trolls.”

    But Steve deletes most of it, so we are missing out on the fun. Outrageous arguments are often amusing but Steve’s blood boils and he deletes them.

    Steve: I keep most of the outrageous arguments (unless they have been posted several times before), but I delete the insults mercilessly.

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  4. From a Metro Morning interview with Andy Byford:

    “We are pressing Bombardier to fix these production issues,” Byford told Metro Morning host Matt Galloway. “We do have a contract with them. There are penalties within that contract and we will apply them. I am not going to let them off the hook. We cannot continue struggling through winters with streetcars that are worn out.”

    I am glad to hear that there is likely to be some real pressure applied. I hope that Bombardier can get back on track. I would hope they would have enough of a backlog of partially complete cars that they could start pushing out 1+ a week shortly.

    Oh, and I think they really need to start having those show up where they will likely make the biggest difference to traffic. Move the largest cars available to King. Sure Spadina needs large cars as well, but maybe start sending cars to King once Spadina is half converted. 6 on Spadina, and maybe the next 20 on King, then move to convert Bathurst, and back to complete Spadina. Need to get a real fleet bump before summer.

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  5. Malcolm N said:

    “I would hope they would have enough of a backlog of partially complete cars that they could start pushing out 1+ a week shortly.”

    Unfortunately the CEO’s report for January’s TTC Board meeting says:

    “TTC continue to work with Bombardier to expedite deliveries while ensuring that all quality and safety objectives are met. Shipment of the next car (4405) from Thunder Bay is anticipated before the end of January, 2015, with commissioning and entry into service occurring before the end of February, 2015. The fifth revenue service car (4406) is anticipated to ship before the end of February, 2015 with commissioning and entry into service expected before the end of March, 2015. Production in Thunder Bay is currently impacted beyond car 4406 due to the supply chain issues.”

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  6. @Cloudj

    Hopefully that are still building their work in process, and/or clearing work elsewhere, so they can increase their delivery rate, when they do get this worked out. They have some significant ground to make up.

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