NJ Transit has issued an RFP (request for proposals) for supply of 113 bi-level EMU (electric multiple-unit) passenger cars with a bid closing date of Feb. 15, 2018. NJ Transit also plans to invite bids early in 2018 for 17 dual-power locomotives.
The second Bombardier Flexity Freedom LRV for the completed yet not-yet-operating Kitchener-Waterloo LRT in Ontario, Canada, was delivered to the Dutton Road storage and maintenance facility during the week of Oct. 2, 2017.
Germany’s Siemens AG and France’s Alstom SA are discussing a merger to create a European rail transportation manufacturing conglomerate to counter growing competition from China, according to a report in the Sept. 23, 2017 Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Siemens continues to engage in talks with Canada’s Bombardier, Inc. about merging their railway businesses.
The LRT scene in downtown Kitchener (Ontario) in early September 2017 reminds the visitor of an episode of “The Twilight Zone”: tracks complete but rusty and debris-filled; stations ready for passengers, but none to be seen.
Two of Ontario, Canada’s numerous light rail transit projects—the Kitchener-Waterloo ION and Hamilton Street Railway B Line—have been facing difficulties, albeit of a different nature. The former is still without functional LRVs; the latter is looking at potentially conflicting operating proposals.
Former Bombardier Transportation executive Andrew Robbins has been named executive director and chief executive of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
Metrolinx, the Ontario Government’s transit agency, has dropped its appeal of the court decision earlier this year that had prevented the authority from cancelling a C$770 million order with Bombardier for 182 Flexity Freedom LRVs.
In the wake of Bombardier Transportation’s ongoing problems with light rail vehicles it’s building for various Ontario LRT projects, the purported combination of the railway businesses of Siemens and Bombardier appears to have taken on an interesting twist. This folllows the filing of an official protest letter by Siemens Canada with Ontario’s Transportation Minister over Metrolinx’s awarding of a single-source LRV contract to Alstom.
The first Bombardier Flexity Freedom LRV for the new Kitchener-Waterloo LRT line arrived Feb. 22, 2017, after a long journey by rail from the carbuilder’s plant in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Bombardier announced Nov. 22 that it has been awarded an eight-year contract by Montréal’s Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (AMT) for the operations and maintenance of the AMT commuter rail fleet on all of its six lines in the greater Montréal area.