Silverliner V: Progress Reports

aem7 wrote:I'm also mindful that North Korea is an international powder keg with a lit fuse and the first place that would feel those effects would be S. Korea. That would really put the order on hold!

Mirai Zikasu wrote:

aem7 wrote:I'm also mindful that North Korea is an international powder keg with a lit fuse and the first place that would feel those effects would be S. Korea. That would really put the order on hold!

So, if North Korea terrorizes the world, the Silverliner V delivery will be delayed further. In that case, if we nuke North Korea, does that mean the Silverliner Vs will be done on schedule?

gardendance wrote:If you're going to assume South Korea will feel the effects of North Korea first I think it's reasonable to assume China and Japan would feel the effects second.
I'm pretty sure if Rotem hadn't gotten the contract that there would still have been a heavy Japanese involvement, so if North Korea caused problems they would also manifest as problems in Japan, and would still mess up this contract.

NortheastTrainMan wrote: ...Or simply SEPTA could have contracted Bombardier . But SEPTA was dropped on it's head as a baby and can't really think too straight haha !

chuchubob wrote:Why Bombardier? Kawasaki won the original bid that was illegally awarded to Rotem.

ChemiosMurphy wrote:Also, how late were the N5 cars that resulted in Septa getting the ALP-44?

Matthew Mitchell wrote: Actually, Rotem was announced as the winner the first time around, which is why Kawasaki threatened to sue and have Rotem declared unqualified. The grounds for the action (I've seen the papers) was SEPTA illegally changing the qualification requirements without reopening the process. Initially, there was a requirement for bidders to have experience making FRA compliant stainless steel cars. Rotem lacked that experience, so SEPTA dropped that requirement in the middle of the process. Meanwhile several other builders didn't bid because they didn't meet the experience requirement. Had they known the requirement would be dropped, they might have competed.

Faced with a pretty solid case against them, SEPTA cancelled the contract award and started over with a new RFP, without any requirement for having built FRA cars. Rotem and Kawasaki were virtually equal on cost (Rotem was cheaper for the initial order, while Kawasaki was cheaper if you counted the option cars), while Kawasaki was far superior on technical qualifications (Rotem was worst of the four bidders). Citing their low bid on cost, SEPTA awarded the contract to Rotem.

Remember that if it weren't for those shenanigans, we'd probably have Silverliner Vs on the property by now.

Red Arrow Fan wrote:Can Septa do ANYTHING right?

Nasadowsk wrote:Was it really that solid? i.,e., did SEPTA just ignore the experience requirement, or did they actually release an amended copy of the spec, or update, dropping it. If it's the latter, there's really not much of a case, unless it was RIGHT before bidding, or such, and in that case, I'd imagine a number of other vendors would have complained besides Kawasaki.

I'd be curious what the four bidders were - Kawasaki, Rotem, Bombardier, and Almost? Or was it Siemens?

Builder	Tech score	Percent	Cost	Per car
Kawasaki	163/175	93%	$250 M	$2.4 M*
Sumitomo	157/175	90%	$323 M	$3.1 M
Bombardier	132/175	75%	$340 M	$3.3 M
Rotem		125/175	72%	$236 M	$2.3 M

*--note that Kawasaki was the lowest when option cars were included

Given the location of Rotem's assembly facility, and the way this all happened, I'm guessing someone told SEPTA that Rotem was going to be the winner, long before the bids came in.