51–60 of 109 posts
Manchester's Metrolink uses Bombardier M5000's ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000 ) that seem to have worked OK. But I do wonder - is there anyone other than Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles these days?
The Swiss national train company has their own share of issues with trains built by Bombardier. After years of delays, what was finally delivered is horribly unreliable and passengers also don't like the shaking feeling when they do run. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502 Two examples doesn't make a trend, but seeing how similar the issues are, maybe there is some systemic issue plaguing them.
> BART gets to withhold the last 5 percent payment for the $2.5 billion fleet until both sets of cars hit their maintenance targets Is it just me or does 5% not seem like nearly a large enough percent? If I only had to hit 20% of my expected performance in exchange for 95% of my pay... I would have a lot more hobbies.
Most of these large capital contracts leave very little money for profit upfront. That comes from long term maintenance. If they are the lowest bidder they are probably losing money even at 95% payout.
Is anyone else concerned about the surveillance in the new BART trains? It looks like there are 7-9 small CCTV cameras in each car. This means that there is nowhere inside the vehicle where you have private space to enter a password, or check your work email, or pull out a laptop to do some programming. For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. Also, this is another step toward pervasive…
2) It turned out a lot of BART cameras were fake. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Repl...
3) If they got rid of cameras you'd still not be able to use your computer during your commute because you'd almost certainly be robbed within the year if you were to use it every day on the BART for a year. In fact, even with cameras this will be true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are wrong here, what you said is mostly about how it is in big cities versus the rural areas, same thing is in Europe. You will not find a lot of mass transit in European countryside, sure there are buses and trains probably more abundant than in USA but be prepared to walk a few kilometers to the nearest station. Your point would make sense if USA had high-speed trains linking big cities but it doesn't,…
Where did I say that it's about rural areas vs big cities ? In most US metro areas majority of people of people live in houses. In US people either drive or fly. There is good infra for long range driving. This has nothing to do with large cities vs rural areas for the most part.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did I say that it's about rural areas vs big cities ? In most US metro areas majority of people of people live in houses. In US people either drive or fly. There is good infra for long range driving. This has nothing to do with large cities vs rural areas for the most part.
There is still a serious linguistic disconnect here. You’re talking about what are essentially suburbs. Big cities are mostly apartments and condos. This is true throughout the developed world including in the US, but for some reason in the US we ended up calling every group of houses and a general store “city”.
The person you are responding to never even used the word cities.
> “I don’t know everything these new trains can do — they probably have artificial intelligence or something — but I know they’re better than these buckets of steel we’re sitting in,” said Board President Bevan Dufty. Maybe this guy shouldn’t be president of the BART board? I mean, lots of other people quoted in the article seem to know what they do.
The role of President is to gladhand and otherwise maintain relationships necessary for the partners to feel safe continuing their contracts.
That kind of “aw, shucks” mentality is very useful for this.
About 20 to 25 years ago, I took a trip from the US (where I'd lived most of my life) to travel around Europe by train, and I was immensely impressed by its far superior train system. The best trains of all the countries I visited were in Sweden, which had trains which were so modern that they seemed like something out of the future, even compared to the best trains I'd seen in the US by that time, Amtrak trains. The…
Unfortunately very little in Sweden. Really the only thing of note close to Sweden would probably be the subway in Copenhagen. Maybe Spain would be impressive, but most of it is happening in Asia these days.