Bombardier Monorail
Posted on 07/01/2009 9:53:40 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Bombardier is well-known worldwide as a manufacturer of aircraft, snowmobiles, and personal watercraft. The company has annual sales of almost $20 billion USD, and is well diversified into multiple transportation markets. One of these markets is light rail vehicles, commonly known as streetcars.
Many European cities have highly developed light rail/streetcar lines that both complement and supplement subway lines. New subway lines are extremely expensive and can cost over $1 billion per kilometer to build. They also require high urban densities and heavy passenger volumes to be effective.
Light rail lines are much cheaper to build and operate. They can carry higher volumes than buses, while creating virtually no pollution due to their electric propulsion. Light rail lines are usually built on their own right-of-way on street level, but can also be built underground in dense neighborhoods. These underground lines can be converted to subway lines once population densities increase.
That is the current plan for the City of Toronto. The Toronto Transit Commission has just ordered 204 streetcars from Bombardier in the largest single order for light rail vehicles in the world. The contract is valued at $851 million CAD ($735 million USD, €523 Million).
"The contract represents the largest single order ever for light rail vehicles worldwide and solidifies Bombardier's position as the world's leading provider of light rail technology," the company said in a statement.
Canada's largest city plans to replace its aging streetcar fleet with these next generation, low-floor vehicles.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytech.com ...
Bombardier Monorail
The Las Vegas Monorail, pulling into the LV Convention Center Station, near Paradise & Desert Inn Rds. This image is released to the public domain.
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The Las Vegas Monorail vehicles and signals systems were developed by Bombardier Transportation. The technology for the monorail vehicles came directly from the well-tested monorail systems running in Walt Disney World. Bombardier constructed Mark VI Monorail trains both for Walt Disney World Monorail System and for Las Vegas.
The author of this piece obviously didn’t do any research.
1. Bombardier does not make snowmobiles or personal watercraft. That division was sold a couple of years ago.
2. The Toronto order is not related to the plans for an LRT network; as with most transit projects here, the “Transit City” plan will probably be abandoned within five years. This order is for replacements to the existing fleet of streetcars that are more than thirty years old.
Ping, for completely different reasons
Happy Canada Day.
:-)
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