Article: Dandenong plant to build 50 trams

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Dandenong plant to build 50 trams

Dandenong plant to build 50 trams
Clay Lucas
September 28, 2010

FOR the first time in almost two decades, trams will again be manufactured in Melbourne's south-east, after the Brumby government awarded a contract to build 50 vehicles in Dandenong.

Each tram will cost $6 million - about $1 million more than for comparable orders for trams in other cities.

It is the first order for new trams placed by Labor in 11 years of government, and it is only half of Labor's 2006 promise to put 100 new trams on the city's tracks.

Canadian transport giant Bombardier, the world's biggest tram manufacturer, yesterday beat France's Alstom to win the $300 million contract.

Commonwealth Engineering (or Comeng) made hundreds of the city's existing trains and trams in the 1970s and 1980s at the Dandenong plant, which is now owned by Bombardier.

The last tram made at the factory rolled off production lines in December 1993.

All new trams and trains since then have been imported. Eleven new trains brought into service in Melbourne this year were made in Poland and assembled in Italy.

Public Transport Minister Martin Pakula, who is also Industrial Relations Minister, said most of the manufacturing work for the 50 new trams would be done in Dandenong.

''That'll include the manufacture of the body shells as well as the assembly,'' he said. Motors, braking systems, wheels and steering systems will be imported initially, but 51 per cent of the vehicles will be either built or maintained in Australia.

The new contract will create more than 100 direct jobs at Bombardier, and at least 400 more flow-on jobs in Melbourne's south-east.

Bombardier has already made more than 100 VLocity carriages for V/Line at Dandenong.

Australian Workers Union's Victorian secretary Cesar Melhem said awarding the contract to Bombardier sent a message that Victoria still had a future in manufacturing.

But the opposition said the government had taken too long to order new trams, and had paid too much. Transport spokesman Terry Mulder pointed to Krakow, Poland, which bought Bombardier trams arriving from March 2012 at a cost of $3.3 million each. Similarly, Toronto in Canada will get 204 Bombardier trams from 2013 at a cost of $4.9 million per unit.

The 33-metre-long trams will carry 210 passengers, but will not hit Melbourne's streets until mid-2012.

The tram order coincides with new figures from the Department of Transport's annual report that show tram passenger numbers in the 2009-10 year fell, from 178.1 million trips to 175.6 million. It is the first time since 2003 that patronage has declined.

Yarra Trams chief executive Michel Masson said passenger numbers had almost doubled since 1998, and the recent decline in numbers could be a ''stabilising of tram patronage'' after booming growth.

[#Metro]

This is good news! Now we will be able to get trams and light rail parts really quick from Victoria.
Less transport costs too!

210 passengers in one go! Come on Brisbane, why not get this and put them on the bus full routes.

[O_128]

Course they are going to cost more, manufacturing in Australia is prohibitively expensive, with high wages etc