02-22-2019, 06:29 PM
(02-22-2019, 12:21 PM)Canard Wrote:(02-22-2019, 11:35 AM)Spokes Wrote: So does that mean they CANT actually handle 4, or just that no one would?
More-or-less. If no customer has asked to run trains of 4, there's no reason for them to specifically test that they can actually do it. Sure, they've done the calculations, but I highly guess that this is more a case of the Bombardier Marketing Team having this conversation back in about 2007:
"So we're bringing over the Flexity 2 design from Berlin, I have to make a brochure. We're going to say we can run these things coupled together as a consist, right?"
"Yeah, that's a good idea, we should put that in."
"Okay, how many?"
"Well, that green line in Toronto they're thinking about is going to probably want 3 together... so just say we can do 4 and we'll leave it at that until someone asks for something different."
"Sounds good!" :: print ::
Remember, in this industry (and many, many others), even though marketing likes to pretend something is a "standard product", the reality is that every single vehicle rolling off the "line" is a custom-built entity. I can almost guarantee you that "under the hood" all 14 of our trains are going to be slightly different in some way, because somebody ran a bundle of wire through a different lightening hole in the frame, or someone decided to download a different update of some firmware on some isolated controller for blinking a light somewhere else, etc...
I work in custom automation and even though we might sell two or three "identical" machines, they never are.
I heard our operators mention also that the LRVs tend to have subtle differences when they're driving like they've got their own bit of character or something