Well said Matthew! Could not agree more about the lack of loyalty to their own people by the NSW govt. stark contrast to Vic where we are building our own.

With regards to the project partners etc., one would think that the IWLR would be out of partnership by now and could release the cars for elsewhere and just get some extra Citadis ordered. Though I guess the Parramatta partners would want to bleed as much out of their contract as they can get.

Greg

From:tramsdownunder@... [mailto:tramsdownunder@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Matthew Geier
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2019 11:23 AM
To:tramsdownunder@...
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] Green Track for Parramatta Light Rail

On 17/5/19 10:39 am, Greg King wrote:

Hardly the first! They love their spin but so glad to see this happening. Are they going back to CAF Urbos cars for this line?

The consortium of which CAF is the vehicle 'partner' won the bid. TfNSW didn't chose the rolling stock - they chose a Build/Operate consortium. Vehicle type/vendor is a detail for the consortium.

If so, would it not make sense to use the IWLR cars for this and standardise on the Citadis for the city lines? Wonder why they are not using the Citadis for all the lines??

Because TfNSW have a policy of leaving things like rolling stock and even infrastructure up to the 'partner' in the bid. Apparently they don't want to stop the 'market' from offering 'innovative' bids.

Just count our selves lucky they didn't select a bid containing CRRC's guided electric bus as the vehicle of choice!.

NSW won't support local industry either - our city route buses are now made in Malaysia and the local bus factory recently closed due to lack of work. I do wonder what our so called 'support economy' is supposed to support is there is no primary industry.... I guess all those sheet metal workers and mechanics now on the dole are not a state cost.