$Billion VIA Order to Siemens?

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NS VIA Fan

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Looks like the $Billion VIA order to reequip the corridor fleet will probably go to Siemens AG

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/via-rail-chooses-german-firm-siemens-and-not-bombardier-for-massive-train-contract-1.4195289

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/via-rail-bombardier-siemens-1.4922638https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/via-rail-bombardier-siemens-1.4922638

Interesting how CBC shows the Budd RDCs at White River as the story photo.....not the trains being replaced. This photo was also used last weekend on a story about the derailment in Halifax.....and the photo in the CTV story about the new cars is the VIA sign over the entrance to the Halifax Station! 
 
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I looked at the link, and did not see Railiner's, but instead, a shot of the Halifax station....

Anyhow, I too am surprised that Ottawa did not write in a Canadian content requirement in the bidding.   Even if they could not favor Bombardier due to their free trade agreement, couldn't they at least have required bidder's to assemble the cars in Canada?
 
Siemens is the safe choice now.  And nobody trusts Bombardier after the Toronto streetcar fiasco.  But where is VIA getting $1 billion?
 
Siemens has a plant where they can put the cars together right now (out in California).  My guess is that at the RFI stage, Siemens made it clear that they could cut the cost of an out-of-Canada production line (in the US) more than they could if they had to use a factory in Canada.  Talgo might have given off similar noises, too, FWIW.
 
Siemens has a plant where they can put the cars together right now (out in California).  My guess is that at the RFI stage, Siemens made it clear that they could cut the cost of an out-of-Canada production line (in the US) more than they could if they had to use a factory in Canada.  Talgo might have given off similar noises, too, FWIW.
Unfortunately, the article is in French, but it shows a surprising depth of research, especially when it comes to questions of trade, where it suggests that whereas imposing local content quotas is legal for urban rail projects in Ontario and Quebec, this would be illegal for federal intercity rail procurements:


VIA Rail: Siemens avait une longueur d'avance sur Bombardier
 
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Interesting that the Charger will have another new aesthetic. Best looking nose. I wander if this what Amtrak has in mind for NEC Va. and NY state services. Amfleet and locomotive order looking more and more to be Siemens.
 
Interesting that the Charger will have another new aesthetic. Best looking nose. I wander if this what Amtrak has in mind for NEC Va. and NY state services. Amfleet and locomotive order looking more and more to be Siemens.
So there will now be three different types of Charger noses? What is the point of that?

If VIA wants it to be pointy and sleek, they can just go with the Brightline body, and if they want the nose to be a bit boxier and have more ground clearance, they can just go with the Amtrak body. Just seems unnecessary. 
 
So there will now be three different types of Charger noses? What is the point of that?
If VIA wants it to be pointy and sleek, they can just go with the Brightline body, and if they want the nose to be a bit boxier and have more ground clearance, they can just go with the Amtrak body. Just seems unnecessary. 
It should not be a huge deal to put a differently shaped nose cone on the thing. It is mostly decorative part anyway. More interestingly there may be other significant technical differences that we might get to learn about as things move along, of course all housed on the same core platform. That is the beauty of the basic architecture.
 
Doesn't seem like AMP vs not-AMP makes any difference here.
Yeah, I just removed all the google malarchy too. No reason to provide google with more statistics about what one is viewing :D . That "amp" thing is a Googlism for encoding an "&" I think within a google query result, or something like that..
 
It should not be a huge deal to put a differently shaped nose cone on the thing. It is mostly decorative part anyway. More interestingly there may be other significant technical differences that we might get to learn about as things move along, of course all housed on the same core platform. That is the beauty of the basic architecture.
Decorative definitely, but unlike the Genesis which had the easy to replace bolt on  nose the Chargers seem more integrated into the body. Interesting, maybe Via demanded a different nose for branding sake.
 
Decorative definitely, but unlike the Genesis which had the easy to replace bolt on  nose the Chargers seem more integrated into the body. Interesting, maybe Via demanded a different nose for branding sake.
Not the lower nose piece on the Brighline units. Those are replaced quite easily.
 
That's not a horrible price.  It's about CAD31m/set (USD23m/set).  Basically, about USD3-3.2m/car plus the locomotives (I got a price of a shade over USD7m/locomotive from the March 2014 order).  Given that we were working with $2.5m/car as an estimate close to a decade ago, this isn't *horridly* off the mark, and I suspect that a similar Amtrak order would scale a little bit.
 
Decorative definitely, but unlike the Genesis which had the easy to replace bolt on  nose the Chargers seem more integrated into the body. Interesting, maybe Via demanded a different nose for branding sake.
Brightline has managed to replace several nose pieces after grade crossing altercations. It takes them a couple of hours each time, is what I am told. But I cannot vouch for it since I have not actually been there when it was done at their Est Palm Beach facility. I have seen a small stash of nose pieces stored in their inventory there.
 
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