I sent David’s post to a few other fans, and Jack May, a well-travelled America, replied as follows.
“I've ridden them in Ukraine and found them to be acceptable in that milieu/realm, but I don't know about where higher standards are common. I also don't know about breakdown rates and maintenance issues. If they are reliable, I have a feeling they will be quite successful in Craiova”
As a regular visitor to Melbourne over the years one thing which is apparent in quite a few suburbs, especially in the south-east, is that there seems to be very little sign of high-rise housing replacing the single houses each on their blocks of land. And with no foreseeable increase in housing density, there is not likely to be much of a change in tram patronage.
Also apparent is that where a tramline crosses a railway, many people catch the much faster train and just use the tram for the last few kilometres to get home. Even South Yarra on the 58 route and comparatively close to the city sees a considerable mode change to take advantage of the faster train ride. Thus a smaller tram suffices.
Perhaps unlike Sydney, Melbourne has always preferred to run smaller trams more often.
Regards,
>> On 11 Aug 2020, at 12:06 pm, TP historyworks@...> wrote:
>
> After the takeover of Bombardier by Alstom, it's really up in the air whether the Flexity Swift (and its spare parts) will even be available in the future as a model from the manufacturer. Several other manufacturers offer this type of tram (including Tatra-Yug as noted above) and many of them will be in on any future call for tenders under an open tendering regime. Standardisation of spare parts is a great ideal but not really practicable under open tendering.
>
> As I've mentioned before and would express again more strongly here, Melbourne would be absolutely stark raving nuts to order smaller trams in the future. When a mega-city (which is what Melbourne is) is growing in leaps and bounds, the last thing you do is reduce the capacity of its public transport. Look at what's being done in Sydney and you get the idea (apart from the STA's stupid one-size-fits-all bus purchase policy, soon to be dead I hope).
>
> Tony P
>
>> On Tuesday, 11 August 2020 at 11:28:16 UTC+10richt...@... wrote:
>>
>>> Feel like we are going around in circles here. Any new tram would be a smaller version of the E class, with parts able to be interchanged between the E class and their smaller counterparts. No more buying of odd trams for the fleet
>>
>> Melbourne has learnt the hard way about keeping so many spares at the store at Preston Workshops, at one stage there was A1,A2,B1,B2 C1,C2,D1,D2,E1,E2, W, Z1,Z3 parts in store. They all need different qualifications to drive, and maintain.
>>
>> The Victorian budget will be wiped out for years. The W class conversion into W8 has almost ended, with no additional cars being done. Downer EDI have been pushing on with the mid life refurbishment of the B2 class (almost complete) Z3 midway through and C and D class. No A class have been started yet but will be before years end. Expect the timeframe for these trams operating to be pushed out further than the projected 2030.
>>
>> I believe the last tram built for Melbourne will be E2.6090 until the state recovers.
>>
>> AR
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TramsDownUnder" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email totramsdownunder+unsubscribe@....
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tramsdownunder/fbdd0203-0e48-4de4-a284-d80dc1189fb1n%40googlegroups.com.