To be fair, the F40PH-3 & -3C rebuilds by MK Rail for Metra and Metro North incorporated Tier 0+ emissions and microprocessor controls that have performed pretty flawlessly in-service. But MK painstakingly followed the MPI blueprints from the last all-new F40 production batches, made as few changes as humanly possible for the modern updates, and did its homework on the systems integration. Then Metra and MNRR stuck exactly to script and made no deviations from that spec when they sent their units to MK for rebuild.
End result was a textbook case of Keep It Simple Stupid™ executing on its goal of modernizing the product while making it built to last. It will probably net more aftermarket -3C rebuilds from other roads when their late-gen -2C's and PHM's hit rebuild age because the -3C remans now project stable enough in large enough numbers @ Metra, etc. to have a guaranteed 20 additional years of parts & maint scale left in them. As much as employees hate risking a good thing with computer upgrades, the job that was done for the -3C's is what'll keep the F40 lineage firmly established in the Top 3-4 most oft-used North American passenger makes for a 5th decade instead of drawing down to imminent extinction like their rapidly disappearing passenger-Geep siblings or slow decline without major life extension like their F59 would-be successors.
Could you ever trust the T to state in plain English "We want X units rebuilt to -3C with not a single lugnut or line of code changed from the off-shelf spec"? No. The T has never ever refrained from customizing for customization's sake. That's what ruined the Geep remans, and that's what impaled MPI on the HSP design. Would anyone trust them to send the 1050's and 1025's out for a full rebuild and not get too cutesy with the special requests? Could they ever be trusted to not get seduced by an inexperienced builder over-promising and under-bidding out of desperation? No.
It isn't Not Invented Here syndrome so much as the same sort of brain drain afflicting so many critical agency functions: the internal project manager positions are unfilled, so procurement functions normally straightforward enough to be run in-house have to get contracted out. And then there's nobody adequately watching the proj. mgt. contractors, who then end up cooking up cooky specs to create extra billed work for themselves. They have a new top-level procurement guy who's been hired to straighten out this problem of lack of PM oversight perennially dragging them off-target when it comes to sticking to common-sense principles of "Keep It Simple Stupid", "Don't deviate from off-shelf scale unless absolutely necessary", and "Weight in favor of vendors with a proven track record". But the FCMB hasn't funded him yet to hire a full staff; until they do we're still dealing with too few watchers and too little steering. The guys in Procurement can have the absolute best intentions, but the same mistakes are structurally fated to repeat themselves if they are spread too thin to research their own decisions or watch their subcontractors. They're failing because they're flying blind a lot more than they're failing because they're intentionally overcomplicating things. Desperation more than corruption.
The last two power RFP's--the DMU's and the F40's--getting pulled weeks before completion hints strongly to the procurement dept. still not having the bare minimum human resources to process the information they're getting from the market and make informed decisions. The incoherence of the wording on the loco RFP--so vague as to not even state whether this 'IS' a real rebuild or just a duct tape job--never gave this one much of a chance to begin with. If the best-case scenario was Procurement coming back to the FCMB and going to bat for the generic uncustomized -3C spec, with reams of info backing up their reliability...how would they be able to make their case with clarity if there's nobody employed to crunch those numbers and articulate that case? It would've been fated to go the same way as other procurement decisions: cover for the short-staffing and brain drain by punting out to an outside specs engineering firm...not have enough bandwidth to watch them or keep a tight leash on grounds that rebuilds of generic power don't
need special customization...watch as the opaqueness of that agreement starts accruing mission creep from specs vendor billing extra customization work for themselves and too many agency voices chiming in from all directions with special requests that aren't vetted by any big-picture 'deciders'...then wonder what happened when the end result is a late, over-budget integration mess. It's not enough that the new procurement czar wants to run a tighter ship that explicitly closes the loopholes that have allowed missteps like that to repeatedly happen.
It's on the FCMB to actually give him the resources to start enacting it. Right now it still seems like they're trying to prove some abstract point about oversight from a thinktank whitepaper instead of actually committing the resources for action. They wanted something quick and in-house, not obfuscated by a third-party specs eng. vendor. Well...not enough people in-house to even articulate what they need, so how can any vendor possibly parse the ultra-vague gobbledygook of the written RFP and create a bid package? The agency doesn't have enough bandwidth to state what it wants, and the FCMB has no idea what kind of price target they'll allow so the agency can clarify how extensive a job this'll be. How can any builder on the planet fill in those blanks for them?!? Even a mind-reader is useless on someone who can't make up their mind! We're going to keep having this sequence repeat itself until the Board gets it through their skulls that they have to spend the going rate on human capital before they can spend the going rate on sanely-managed physical plant capital. Still haven't punctured that membrane separating the abstract world from the real world.
