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| Re: AC Transit Van Hools: Hayward BART (208142) | |||
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Re: AC Transit Van Hools: Hayward BART |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Wed Sep 22 15:17:42 2010, in response to AC Transit Van Hools: Hayward BART, posted by 167T on Tue Sep 21 20:57:31 2010. I've never understood the whole hate affair with the Van Hools over at AC Transit. Van Hool A3 series are used in many different countries, on three different continents, and have been for many years,and are generally loved by all those working with them. The one exception seems to be AC Transit. And there, pretty much all of the complaints I've seen can be traced back to AC Transit's specifications of the vehicles, not to some inherent Van Hool thing. The complaints I've heard of:-the 'pedestals' to get to some of the seats: inherent to a true low-floor design, I don't know of any true front-to-back low floor bus that doesn't have them; -narrow front door: AC Transit specification. All Van Hools in Europe (except for some in the Netherlands), and those running in Canada, have much wider front doors (much wider even than any transit bus in the US, and wider than the back doors on the AC Transit Van Hools); -'bumpy' ride: consequence of the true low floor design, and thus AC Transit spec. Van Hool low-entry buses are considerably less bumpy; -people being injured because of the 'jerky' attitude: consequence of the AC Transit demand for a third door, which means a smaller wheelbase. If similar to the Brussels A330s, injuries were a consequence of the buses pulling up too fast. Van Hool solved this in Brussels by simply derating the engines a bit. Problem solved. Those are the main complaints I've heard, don't know if there are others. The thing is, Van Hool builds you exactly what you ask for, as long as it's technically possible. They go to great lengths for this. The C3045 is an example of just how far they'll go. These were not cancelled because AC didn't like them, but because they couldn't get them certified in the US. Only one was built, series production had not yet started. The A300L is another example: designed specifically to deal with a number of the complaints at AC Transit. |
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