‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by bluGill on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @03:36PM (#16579060)

Money. The technology is not hard to create, but it does take a bunch of engineers time and effort to design it all (probably a mix of mechanical and computer work), and then more time to buy the equipment and install it. 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.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by gsnedders on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @03:46PM (#16579136)

> 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.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by masklinn on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @04:02PM (#16579266)

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, …

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by gsnedders on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @04:07PM (#16579306)

> 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).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by inferiorhuman on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @07:37AM (#16583963)

> 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.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by gsnedders on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @07:48AM (#16584023)

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).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by bluGill on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @03:07PM (#16587404)

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.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by masklinn on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @03:43PM (#16579111)

> There is nothing off the shelf, even if some other subway gave them all the design (unlikely)

VAL[0] has been a thing since the Lille Metro opened in 1983 and AnsaldoBreda[1] is being deployed all over the world (it's the platform for Honolulu's upcoming HART).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Véhicule_Automatique_Léger

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnsaldoBreda_Driverless_Metro

[ Parent | on HN ]