Quote:
Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed
The new LRVs start arriving in August 2015. After arriving, they have to be inspected and have final preparations done here. Then we have to wait until there is 3-4 here, and they will arrive approximately one a week. Essentially, it will be October before they have enough new cars in sevice to Start having some 4 car trains. After that, it will till take a while before even a majority or trains are 4 cars - well into 2016. Even the current order doesn't have enough new vehicles to make every train in the system a 4 car train - after some retirements happen.
The order that starts arriving next year will bring in 60 vehicles. Essentially, the city will need another 120 or more new vehicles on top of that in the next 10 years, just to move to 4 car vehicles and replace retiring vehicles - never mind growth. All of the U2s will be retired, and the oldest SD160s are getting close to the end of their service life, as they are more than 20 years old now.
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I don't believe the first new car arrives until the fall now, and the testing and commissioning is about 6 weeks for the first car, then drops by about 50% for each subsequent car (near the end of the order, the commissioning process should take days, as most of the bugs should already have been worked out).
They don't start arriving one-a-week until later in the process - it gives CT and Siemens a chance to work out the bugs in the commissioning process for the first one or two, so any major corrections are made at the factory, rather than having major changes to be made to LRVs sitting in Calgary already.
As for the SDs, they are due for their mid-life refurbishment, so the oldest SD160s will start being overhauled (they're supposed to have a 30 year life span) - this will introduce new technology, and make them compatible with the Series 8s (CCTV, new dashboard, etc.)