canobiecrazy wrote:orange1234 wrote:It looks like the Type 9 contract will be awarded to CAF USA. Does anyone know what their track record is in the USA besides building the WMATA 5000 series vehicles?
Within the USA, they have also built some of Sacramento's light rail vehicles, and are contracted to provide rolling stock for the Kansas City and Cincinnati streetcars. Internationally, they have a long track record of both low floor and high floor light rail vehicles, as well as heavy rail metro trains.
In the USA, their first LRV contracts were with Pittsburgh and Sacramento. Those trains have performed well. Pittsburgh also had CAF rebuild the original Siemens-Duewag trains that were used since system inception to match the CAF vehicles. Pittsburgh uses Bombardier propulsion (Bombardier has a propulsion center in Pittsburgh) and those motors were designed to provide around 275hp due to the terrain. In Sacramento, CAF partnered with Alstom for the propulsion and those trains have also performed well.
The WMATA 5000 series are being retired at midlife due to continued problems and reliability. Keep in mind with that contract, CAF did not do the assembly of the vehicles. That was performed by AAI out of Hunt Valley, MD since CAF did not have their Elmira plant up and running at that point. AAI was bought out by Alstom. Also, WMATA rushed the contract and ended up paying big time for it. Those trains will be replaced by their new Kawasaki 7000 series cars as one of the option orders that was agreed to.
Globally, CAF tends to perform really well on their trains. Their LRV's specifically are highly standardized, known as the URBOS platform. This means that even though the trains can be customized to an extent, many of the same components are used on every project they have. It helps with reliability overall. Other companies such as Bombardier do this with their Flexity trains, Siemens with their S70 trains, Alstom with their Citadis trains, and even Hitachi Rail (formerly AnsaldoBreda) with the Sirio trains.
My opinion is that CAF should not have the problems that AnsaldoBreda had. Plus, they can actually deliver without being excessively late unlike Breda. Heck, in Buffalo, we are almost 10 years into a 27 car LRV rebuild and Breda hasn't even completed that yet.
Here is an updated rendering of the new Type 9 from the CAF website:
http://www.caf.net/en/productos-servici ... .php?p=271" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Gotta love Alstom. Every year on opening day of hunting season, it is a paid holiday!