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0 pointsgsnedders8y ago0 comments

> There is nothing off the shelf, even if some other subway gave them all the design (unlikely), it would still be hundreds of thousands of dollars per train to make it fit the New York trains.

What? Alstom, Ansaldo STS, Bombardier, Siemens, and Thales all have off-the-shelf designs that they will happily sell. And I've probably forgotten some here. I realise none of these are American companies, and "Buy American" is often a constraint on acquisitions in the US, but it's fundamentally untrue that there are no off-the-shelf designs.

See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_con... for various systems using various suppliers' products.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

masklinn8y ago· 3 in thread

That's the com system, but there are fully automated off-the-shelf systems (com, rolling stock, …). Two examples are Siemens's VAL (Lille, Taipei's Brown, Seoul's U-line, VAL tech has also been used in Lyon's D and Paris's 14 and 1) and Hitachi's AnsaldoBreda Driverless (Copenhagen, Taipei's Yellow, Milan 5, …).

The latter is very popular and getting deployed in several places right now: Honolulu, Thessaloniki, Lima 2, Rome C, …

gsneddersOP8y ago

> Hitachi's AnsaldoBreda Driverless

To nitpick, this is actually Hitachi (the ex-AnsaldoBreda part) and Ansaldo STS (which Hitachi only bought 40% of, and became its own company when Hitachi bought AnsaldoBreda).

Depending on rolling stock and space for equipment, replacing the rolling stock when replacing the signalling equipment might not be required (see, for example, the the London Underground 1995 Stock on the Northern Line).

inferiorhuman8y ago

> The latter is very popular and getting deployed in several places right now: Honolulu, Thessaloniki, Lima 2, Rome C, …

Is Breda really popular? SFMTA forbade Breda from bidding on this latest round of vehicles because the current ones have been so problematic. I don't think Chicago or Seattle had a much better experience with Breda either.

gsneddersOP8y ago

The former AnsaldoBreda… had issues (and that's really an understatement). Now owned by Hitachi, it seems like we aren't seeing the same build quality issues getting into service (though esp. in the earlier days of Hitachi running it, some issues were only found after they left the factory).

bluGill8y ago

I semi stand corrected. Only semi because even if you buy those system isn't isn't a plug and play effort to make them work.

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