Quote:
Originally Posted by JM1
Indeed. It was a stupid decision to with low floor. And if they had to do low floor, the flexity trains with bogeys between cars are much better. My guess is dwell times at station have to be longer for citadis because of the narrow aisles. The flexity trains with doors on one side only have double seating down one side and the odd single seat on the door side which makes for very roomy aisles.
Ottawa really messed up this procurement both in choice of system and in terms of contract.
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If we did doors on only one side, we'd have to have a turn around loop at every terminus of the station. And there's nowhere to do that in the trench without blasting room away there. Plus it would take longer for a train to go back into service after ending a run, because it'd have to go through the loop to turn around. Where with doors are both sides, can just stay there and immediately leave once the driver walks to the other end of the train (or even have a driver swap so the driver doesn't have to do that then) and only wait the normal dwell time, and it's back on the line going the other way.
Not only that, but Ottawa dodged a bullet by not going with Bombardier, and while yes Alstom did have a few hiccups, I'm sure we'd have had much more if we went with them.