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| Re: CBTC installation begins on the Flushing Line (1107407) | |||
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Re: CBTC installation begins on the Flushing Line |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Tue Oct 4 16:36:48 2011, in response to Re: CBTC installation begins on the Flushing Line, posted by Terrapin Station on Tue Oct 4 15:56:36 2011. if it is obsolete, that doesn't mean they need to replace it immediately.Here's the first problem with the RF-DCS. It's a proprietary design that the MTA agreed to as an exception to the original contract. There were supposed to be 3 suppliers. One of the suppliers dropped out, when the proprietary RF-DCS was substituted for the off-the-shelf unit that was originally specified. The second supplier offered to reverse engineer the proprietary design. The TA said NO - buy them from Siemens. Here's the second problem with the RF-DCS. It wasn't exactly Siemens' proprietary design. Siemens bought them from an outside vendor. The outside vendor designed them for the electronics market. When anticipated sales in the 100K's did not materialize, they scrapped the device. That outside vendor does not want to be bothered with special orders of 20 to 50 at a time. Here's the third problem with the RF-DCS. The signals that connect the RF-DCS with the central computer or the on-board computer are proprietary, unlike the off-the-shelf RF-DCS it replaced. To replace the RF-DCS they will have to reverse engineer the entire Siemens system not just the RF-DCS. The RF-DCS isn't really a discrete subsystem; it's integral to the entire on-board and wayside equipment. Here's the fourth problem with the RF-DCS. It cost approximately 10 times the cost of the off-the-shelf RF-DCS it replaced. The off-the-shelf RF-DCS cost approximately 10 times what commercially available RF Digital Communication Systems cost that did exactly the same thing. At the time the RF-DCS was specified, it cost $100K when ruggedized commercial equipment cost around $1K. Since the RF-DCS is no longer available, special orders have pushed the cost up towards the $1 million mark. You can get complete on-board and wayside equipment that includes the RF-DCS that is based on commercial products for approximately 1/4 the cost of the RF-DCS alone. |
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