New Red and Orange Line Cars

Finch said:
If Rotem comes out ahead within whatever framework or points system guides the selection process, then they will get the job. It's as simple as that. Now, perhaps there is some room for discretion within the process, in which case perhaps an undesirable bidder could be denied the contract, but that will only get you so far before you start drawing serious complaints from whichever bidder(s) feel they were snubbed. I guess we'll all have our answer soon enough.
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No, it's not quite as simple as that.


You can be late on the right things. Nearly any large government procurement is going to be late on some of the right things. Being late on the right things is inefficiency executed gloriously and profitably.

Or you can be late on the wrong things. Things that mobilize contract lawyers to pursue nondelivery penalties, contract exits, settlements to cut the order short in exchange for bigger warranty protection, etc., etc. Nobody wants that, because the government always gets left holding huge sunk cost for an early out. Which doesn't lend itself to a public procurement official being able to take a sweet swing through the public sector-private sector revolving door. Because somebody has to take the blame. Transit General Managers don't get sent out to inspect a factory in South Korea for the fun of making business contacts...it's schlepping so somebody doesn't have to take the blame.



Breda and Rotem were late on the wrong things. That is why one of them has had zero action in the U.S. for the last 10 years. And the other...??? Bureaucrats are very very good at covering their own asses. What few qualifications there for striking down low-bid-takes-all tends to be shaped along those lines.

In short...don't be late on the wrong things. And really really don't be late on the wrong things with multiple buyers at same time.
 
I guess the "late on the wrong things" factor is what I was referring to when I mentioned discretion. Maybe there is some room for that in the selection process (if you're afraid of Rotem, you certainly hope there is). Or maybe there is even a metric for past performance, making things a little more transparent.
 
The contract requires at least partial assembly in Mass and the number of jobs created in Mass is part of the scoring.
We know CNR will score high because they have no U.S. facility and they have said that the proposed Springfield plant would be their U.S. base. Rotem has a facility in Philly, but it sounds like the are proposing a substantial facility in Springfield if they get the MBTA contract, perhaps the problematic Philly plant's days might be numbered if they get the MBTA contract.
The other bidders, CAF, Alstom, Kawasaki, and Bombardier, all have substantial U.S. facilities already. No one has leaked out what their Mass. assembly proposals are, but chances are they will not be as extensive as CNR or Rotem's proposals. That doesn't rule them out from getting the contract, but they might not score as well in the economic impact section.

Jobs in the state aren't the only things being scored obviously. Price will be a factor, and expect both CNR and Rotem to do well with that as well.

Siemens did not submit a proposal, but if any of the bidders brought them in as a partner to supply the propulsion systems, that might score well for engineering. Alstom and Bombardier both build their own propulsion systems and would probably not bring in anyone else to supply them.

Also, AnsaldoBreda got the Miami metro replacement fleet contract a couple of years ago:
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...reda-wins-miami-metrorail-train-contract.html
 
Hearing that the MBTA might pick-up the option with Rotem to buy additional commuter rail coaches after all.
That would suggest that:
-They are happy with the modifications being made and think the final configuration post-mods is a good car
and
-They might be pleased with the bid prices they got for Red/Orange, which may have freed up funds to buy more Rotems that weren't in the CIP. Word was that they weren't going to pick up the commuter-rail option because of the anticipated costs of the Red/Orange order. We shall see.
 
The entire Rotem fleet is being rotated out to Davisville, RI to the semi-permanent encampment of Rotem techs based out there in that freight yard to get a whole pu-pu platter of warranty mods installed. The last train of unaccepted units just got shipped back from Davisville from their mods...a good half-year after they left the Philly plant.

Now the units that have been in real no-foolin' revenue service all this time have to get rotated out of service several at a time to Davisville to go under the knife for their mods. As well as a bunch of them that are been on the "active" roster for months but rarely if ever seem to leave BET attached to a real train. First 5 of from the "active" roster got shipped out on Sunday (RR.net's being very tight-lipped about exactly what this latest batch of mods entails, other than it entails every car in the order). Next week there'll be an exchange of a few more going out, a few coming back in. And it will churn like this through the winter until they're done.

Then and only then will the original order be "over". Provided nobody has to go back for seconds at Davisville. In which case it's still not over.



I admire their bravery and morbid curiosity if they pick up the option order. But it's probably driven a lot more by desperation than good sense. Carmageddon 2020 is coming with all 200 remaining single-levels and all 34-36 (TBD) remaining old locomotives being up for simultaneous replacement in one massive funding swallow. And likely impossibility of ever being able to pay for it all when this DMU odyssey is probably going to raid a nice chunk of that vehicle renewal money and force a repeat of the same rolling ruins uptime nightmare of the last few years that they're only now clawing out from under. The 75-car option was originally kind of critical in the fleet replacement plan for load-spreading some of those expenditures around in easier bites before the big 2020 swallow. Now it might be a matter that they are so far up the creek on those all-at-once replacements that they might not have a choice but to hold their noses and pick it up. In 2025 shit product that's somewhat fresher and operational may end up being the better option than formerly great product that's 5 years too shot to run at all. Better than nothing = continuing the nightmare that won't end being the "less-badder" of several very unattractive choices.


"We can't quit you Rotem...you're all we got." Maybe being late on all the wrong things in such a lethal and brand-killing combination ends up being exactly the right business moxie that invents a new way to be late on the right things. Like an antimatter annihilation of wrong vs. anti-wrong.
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There is an agreed on plan between the MBTA and Rotem for all 75 cars to be brought up to the same spec on mods. They have been making mods all along at BET on the fleet, but not every car has received the same level of work, and the cab cars, by the nature of the beast, need more work than the trailers. A lot of it is software upgrades, the problems with the air-conditioning system as an example were software not hardware. The door motors need to be changed out to a sturdier design (a hardware issue), and the cab cars had cab signal issues since resolved that were a problem with a subcontractor. The first 8 sent to Seaview last spring were 8 unaccepted cars already on the property, then cars 803 and 804 (two accepted cars) were sent down in May to bring the total at Rhode Island up to 10. 803 and 804, two of the early cars that needed the most work, have since returned and are in service. The 8 unaccepted cars have all now returned and will go through the burn-in testing to enter service. There are 10 cars at any one time down at Seaview, and they will be cycled back into service and replaced by a batch of cars needing mods in groups of 5 at a time. 5 cars returned just last week, so 15 of the 75 have been through the program, 10 are there now, 50 left to go. Its not any big secret, the MBTA announced they had reached a plan with Rotem and its being done on Rotem's dime under contract at Seaview Transportation. That's a lot more willingness to get the cars up to a proper spec than Breda ever showed with the Type 8s. These are also stainless-steel push-pull cars, at the end of the day, as long as the shells are solid, you can keep on replacing or upgrading everything to get them running and get 40 years out of them no matter how many software or electrical problems they had when new.

The Rotem fleet status as of yesterday was 13 unaccepted cars at BET for burn-in testing, 10 accepted cars at Rhode Island for mods, 5 active cars at BET returned from mods being inspected for service, 4 active cars at BET for minor repair or inspection, 21 cars in northside consists and 22 cars in southside consists.
 
winstonoboogie said:
If you go to 0:11 in the linked youtube video from a Springfield news station, you can see Rotem's artist concept drawings for their proposed Red Line car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HekQPQKPMF8
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Corrected the URL. It doesn't parse the player correctly when you use the HTTPS (secure) URL. Have to remove the "S"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HekQPQKPMF8

Also 0:24 interior shot - are those door open buttons? Also, happy to see handles hanging down the middle. Still no center poles though
 
Blue Line cars have door open buttons should they ever want to use them. That's probably going standard across all 3 HRT lines.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Blue Line cars have door open buttons should they ever want to use them. That's probably going standard across all 3 HRT lines.
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I know and they never use them. They can save a lot of heating and cooling costs. They were awesome in Berlin, as they were on all modes - bus, tram, U, S.
 
datadyne007 said:
I know and they never use them. They can save a lot of heating and cooling costs. They were awesome in Berlin, as they were on all modes - bus, tram, U, S.
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They are used at Bowdoin eastbound, only the last four cars are on the platform and passengers must press the door buttons to enter the cars. The motorperson monitors a video screen mounted at the first car marker in the tunnel to know whn to close the doors.
 
winstonoboogie said:
If you go to 0:11 in the linked youtube video from a Springfield news station, you can see Rotem's artist concept drawings for their proposed Red Line car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HekQPQKPMF8
Click to expand...



Then the Orange Line rail cars would or should look the same, right?

Since the Red Line cars could possibly be made by Rotem, or whomever they choose to do them, I'm pretty sure that both lines would have the same style cars, but with different colors. :cool:
 
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Jahvon09 said:
Then the Orang Line rail cars would or should look the same, right?

Since the Red Line cars could possibly be made by Rotem, or whomever they choose to do them, I'm pretty sure that both lines would have the same style, but different colors. :cool:
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Yes, the Orange Line cars will be a shorter, narrower version of the same design.
 
Just like the Blue Line cars, both old & new, are shorter than the Orange Line cars. They both had cars the same style that were made by Hawker Sidley in Thunder Bay, Canada.

The PATH cars that operate between the World Trade Center in New York City & Newark, NJ, also have that same style.

Even the new Blue Line cars have just 2 doors on each side of them. The Orange Line cars have always had 3 doors on each side of them. :arrow:
 
Jahvon09 said:
Just like the Blue Line cars, both old & new, are shorter than the Orange Line cars. They both had cars the same style that were made by Hawker Sidley in Thunder Bay, Canada.

The PATH cars that operate between the World Trade Center in New York City & Newark, NJ, also have that same style.

Even the new Blue Line cars have just 2 doors on each side of them. The Orange Line cars have always had 3 doors on each side of them. :arrow:
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OL's probably going to have the end doors like the Red Line 01800's. Much easier for accessibility, so however the doors get spaced out by carbody length that's likely to be their overwhelming preference.
 
I like the stying on the outside & inside!

But I'm wondering if the image is just a warm-up of what the ACTUAL may look like. In other words, would the image that we see now, be the final featured style of the new cars?
 
So... we're buying Chinese products unproven in America, instead of established workhorse models, because the company bought the State Government by promising some temporary jobs in Springfield?

If the only reason they were able to come in so low (it seems really low) is that they have lower costs due to being a repressive authoritarian government with an artificial monopoly, I think the activists have a point. How is it OK for MA to benefit monetarily from the mistreatment of workers in China, not to mention directly financing a government with a Human Rights record on par with Iran?

I realize the US does a lot of business with China, but it seems like one of the only reasons they won this bid was because their corruption lowered their price.
 
Equilibria said:
So... we're buying Chinese products unproven in America, instead of established workhorse models, because the company bought the State Government by promising some temporary jobs in Springfield?
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CNR claims if they get any future U.S. contracts, the Springfield plant will be the assembly facility to meet "Buy America" requirements.

Also, look at the price, the MBTA CIP was assuming $800 mil for the cars and the bid came in at $566.
 
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