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At this point, it's just pointless to order something else. They should exercise any options left and buy whatever additional cars they need. Next fleet order blacklist Bombardier from bidding.

So long, partner. Aka Bombardier. Alstom would have to do it. And for good reason, as we don't really want a mismanaged company dealing with our vehicles anymore.
 
So long, partner. Aka Bombardier. Alstom would have to do it. And for good reason, as we don't really want a mismanaged company dealing with our vehicles anymore.
So we cancel all rail vehicle purchases forever then? Because that's what would happen if we refuse to order from companies that have management and quality issues. This happens with every manufacturer. Bombardier is no better or worse than the rest.
 
According to this european article, it's very likely that Bombardier will outright sell all its rail activities to Alstom (rather than merge as an equal partner).

Quebec's public pension fund, which currently owns 30% of Bombardier Transport would become a top shareholder of Alstom (10%).

 
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Bombardier is a joke. So they want to sell their cash making division (one which they screwed up so badly that it's now struggling), and hold onto Aerospace (the one that caused the company to bleed to much money in the first place)?

At this rate I expect the company to go fully bankrupt in ~10 years. A case study should be written up as to how to avoid a legendary bankruptcy caused by tremendous mismanagement by C-level executives.
 
Bombardier is a joke. So they want to sell their cash making division (one which they screwed up so badly that it's now struggling), and hold onto Aerospace (the one that caused the company to bleed to much money in the first place)?

In fairness...

While the Aerospace Division as a whole has not done well, their Aerospace Structures sub-division is performing extremely well, and seems to be really holding the rest of that division up. It sounds like they want to keep it, even as they spin off the other portions of Aerospace.

Dan
 
^They'll probably find a way to screwup that sub-division as well. At this rate I wouldn't put anything out of the realm of possibility for that company.

If someone told me 10 years ago that Bombardier would screw up their Transportation division so badly to the point their thinking about selling it because they're having trouble turning it around, I would've thought that person was delusional.
 
So we cancel all rail vehicle purchases forever then? Because that's what would happen if we refuse to order from companies that have management and quality issues. This happens with every manufacturer. Bombardier is no better or worse than the rest.
That what take place today in the real world for everything. Contractors don't hire various sub trades for those reasons even if that trade is low bidder. Major retailers will drop suppliers for the same thing.

Transit systems have done this time after time and one reason Orion doesn't exist anymore along with other companies.

I have been calling for the replacement of BBD since 2014 and they have lived up to my expectations since 2005.
 


Deutsche Bahn bought trains from bombardier and can't use them!
?
 
So they want to sell their cash making division (one which they screwed up so badly that it's now struggling), and hold onto Aerospace (the one that caused the company to bleed to much money in the first place)?

The Chinese are all set to crush margins for rail manufacturing. I think it's wise for Bombardier to exist that business now. The aerospace division lost money largely because of their boneheadness of running multiple programs at the same time. Everybody talks about the CSeries. That was not the actual disaster. This is what destroyed their cash flow that ate up runway for the CSeries:

 
Who could forget about the Learjet project. It was a stupid and unnecessary project spearheded by the bonehead Pierre Beaudoin who loved the guzzle around money like it was no mans business.
 
There is a rumour going around in Vancouver that Translink were in talks with Alstom begging them to bid for the 200 car order to replace the MK.1 cars, but evidently they are not going to bid on them. Nor is Siemens which means that the proprietary and now called Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) cars are indeed proprietary after TransLink spent a great deal of time and money convincing everyone that they are not.

The rumour is that if Alsltom joined with bombardier for joint production, they would insist that MALM production would cease altogether as Vancouver is the only customer for the product.

There has been almost a 3 day media barrage saying how wonderful that 12 more cars have entered service on the Canada line, but the line cannot be expanded.

Presently the Canada Line operates a 3 minute peak hour service from Bridgeport Station to downtown Vancouver.

Canada Line Hype and Hoopla : Rail for the Valley

There is absolutely no basis for these rumours. The guy who runs the Rail for the Valley blog has questionable links to the rail industry, and is well known here in Metro Van as a spreader of misinformation and a hater of the SkyTrain system.

This is the same person who's been peddling a false claim for years that the ART system and technologies are proprietary. This was extensively addressed earlier this year by both TransLink and Bombardier executives.

SkyTrain technologies, engineering not proprietary: TransLink report (Vancouver Sun)
Vancouver's SkyTrain technology is not proprietary, says Bombardier (Daily Hive guest editorial)
 
This is the same person who's been peddling a false claim for years that the ART system and technologies are proprietary. This was extensively addressed earlier this year by both TransLink and Bombardier executives.

SkyTrain technologies, engineering not proprietary: TransLink report (Vancouver Sun)
Vancouver's SkyTrain technology is not proprietary, says Bombardier (Daily Hive guest editorial)
That means you could start up a company and build a vehicle for the SkyTrain network. Could is one thing, would is another. Just like how anyone could design/build a train (if they can afford it) doesn't mean they should do it.

Why would Alstom or Siemens want to invest money to design a train compatible with the SkyTrain from scratch while BBD have 30 years of experience and design?
What is the market share for this technology?
Will the bid tender choose a new design with no proven track record over BBD for the technology?

Those articles are just pure political to support that fact that they didn't sole source the contract to BBD and broke law. On the back of out mind, we all know only BBD is in the position of delivering any Innovia trains. So it's not legally proprietary but only one company can build them.


It'll be interesting to see if Alstom dumps the Innovia technology if they acquire BBD. Vancouver might be forced to switch over to conventional rail.
 
While I can easily believe animus in the case of RFTV, if SRT technology wasn't proprietary wouldn't TTC have considered getting another vendor to build replacements/additional cars for the Mark 1s some years ago, rather than being left with only the option of either giving Translink replacement cost for Mark 1s or buying Mark 2/3 cars and having to resize the tunnel near Ellesmere for the new cars' dynamic envelope...?
 
While I can easily believe animus in the case of RFTV, if SRT technology wasn't proprietary wouldn't TTC have considered getting another vendor to build replacements/additional cars for the Mark 1s some years ago, rather than being left with only the option of either giving Translink replacement cost for Mark 1s or buying Mark 2/3 cars and having to resize the tunnel near Ellesmere for the new cars' dynamic envelope...?

You can't consider another vendor when no other vendors were willing to respond to your requests.

The fact of the matter is that the TTC's ICTS/ART fleet and network are so small as to not be able to justify the investment required for another company to engineer a replacement. Was it Vancouver, maybe.....

Dan
 

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