August 28, 2015

CAF to City: First Streetcar delivered by end of October

Start of service remains the same and the project remains on budget

CINCINNATI – After a trip to Elmira, New York, City of Cincinnati Administration remains cautiously optimistic the first of five streetcar vehicle will be delivered by the end of October. The expected start-of-service date in 2016 remains on schedule.

City streetcar project representatives were in Elmira this week to observe testing and receive a general progress update from CAF USA, the company building the streetcar. One of the questions the City asked had to do with the delivery status of the first of the vehicles.

The October 2015 delivery schedule CAF provided as an answer is based on the expectation there will be no major issues arising during the remainder of the testing process and related production activities.

Cincinnati has ordered five streetcar vehicles, which are currently in various stages of production. CAF is implementing a recovery plan to reduce time lost in the schedule. The CAF plan includes:

• Adding shifts
• Performing certain testing activities concurrently using multiple vehicles
• Allocating additional engineering resources
• Monitoring and resolving material delivery issues with sub suppliers

While the first car was originally scheduled to arrive Sept. 17, 2015, the City does not believe the October delivery time will affect the planned start date of September 2016. The project also remains on budget with more than 95 percent of the track work complete.

CAF indicated during this week's trip that recent testing activities on the cars have provided good preliminary results. As with any project at this phase, the plan includes some level of risk. Testing activities are designed to identify issues and if major issues come up during this phase, additional time could be necessary to resolve them.

In Elmira, as has been communicated in writing, the project team made it clear it is expecting CAF to deliver safe, high quality vehicles to Cincinnati. This means no cut corners, sacrificed quality or rush work that will undermine reliability or safety of the Cincinnati vehicles.

The City, SORTA, and the City’s engineering consultant, LTK Engineering, are closely monitoring CAF’s progress on a daily basis. LTK and its in-house inspector are working with CAF to expedite review and approval of CAF submittals where possible. They’re also facilitating what will hopefully be the successful completion of the testing program and resolution of any open issues before vehicles ship to Cincinnati.

Mayor John Cranley and all nine City Council members received this information and additional technical details in a memo sent earlier Friday. You can read the memo by clicking here.