mook Wrote:
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> Because of the traffic and the hills, SF has
> always been hard on vehicles and vehicle systems.
> Think those brakes will last 100K miles on your
> car used mostly in town? Think again. But ever
> since LRVs replaced streetcars it seems to have
> gotten worse on the rail side. Political decisions
> (such as forced purchase of the Boeing cars rather
> than Siemens/DuWag, and probable shenanigans in
> the Breda deal) haven't helped matters.
>
> Sacramento looks like it comes out smelling like a
> rose, but it really doesn't if you look at the
> passenger miles. And Sac has the advantage of a
> fleet of old Siemens cars that are still the most
> reliable things they have at almost 30 years old
> (except for the a/c that was added on and can't
> handle summer temps), a fleet of modern CNG buses
> that are regularly replaced and serviced, and
> probably lower unit staff costs than SF. And Sac
> has NO HILLS and little stop/go traffic affecting
> bus & rail lines. The other cities in the study
> that look much better than SF are also much
> lighter-duty environments. Houston? Give me a
> break - one short LR line and a few social service
> bus lines - everybody drives.
>
> You also have to note the definitions (yes, I did
> read TFA and also the audit report linked from
> there). The 617 miles is ALL FAILURES including
> those that cause a vehicle to be taken out of
> service by policy, not because it stops running.
> The policy part can get interesting - an area
> might get a good total failures number by reducing
> policy requirements for taking a car out of
> service due to some minor failures. That said, SF
> also has the highest major failure rate at about
> 2500 miles per - not a good number in a place that
> has the most vehicles running and the most
> passenger miles carried, resulting in the
> probability that there will be one or more
> failures taking a train or car out of service
> every day. The SF ratio of total failures
> (including policy-related) to major actually seems
> to be a bit less than many of the others, though.

This is a thoughtful response. Thanks for posting it.
>
> Who else has the Breda cars?

Greater Cleveland Regional Transportation Authority.