culture The Complete List of Bombardier’s Excuses for the Delayed New Fleet of Streetcars

Honestly? We just assumed the TTC was not overly concerned with streetcars arriving on time.

Relief Line is your not-so-serious glance at the city we love.

Last week Bombardier announced there was going to be further delays on the delivery of their space-age Flexity Outlook streetcars. The announcement has led John Tory, TTC CEO Andy Byford and everyone stuck on the morning 501 to finally lose patience with the company. But what exactly is the hold-up? To help clarify things Torontoist has compiled a comprehensive list of all of Bombardier’s excuses for the delays.

Building a fleet of streetcars is a complicated, international operation that requires coordinating construction at our plant in Mexico, quality checks in Thunder Bay and general mismanagement and excuse-making from the Head Office in Quebec.

Last time he called, TTC CEO Andy Byford forgot the transaction number for the $1.25 billion dollar purchase, so Bombardier customer service could not help him process his request.

It takes time to convert all of our unsold C Series Jets into streetcars.

Windows!? You guys wanted streetcars with windows? Well, that changes everything.

When we said our Flexity Outlook model was the “future of light rail in Toronto,” we meant some distant, utopian future that none of us would ever live to see.

We may be behind schedule with our delivery of streetcars but we prefer to look at it as being timely, consistent and efficient with our announced production delays.

Spraying the floor of every streetcar with mountain dew and chocolate milk to ensure each one achieves the TTC’s mandated level of stickiness is particularly time-consuming.

Okay, so we’ve installed those “windows” you absolutely insisted on having, but here’s the catch: they shatter on contact with human skin. Problem?

It’s important to make sure these streetcars are strong enough to withstand the punishing, year-round criticism they will receive from Torontonians when it becomes obvious they won’t solve all of the city’s transit problems.

Everything was running smoothly until some assholes launched a $50 million lawsuit against us.

Time is but an artificial construct and Bombardier refuses to be bound by your “calendars” or “schedules” or “mutually agreed upon delivery dates as defined by this legally binding contract.”

We resolved that pesky “shattering windows problem” you highlighted in our last meeting but, long story short, now there’s no doors.

Sure, you complain, but do you have any idea what goes into making a streetcar? Let alone 204 of them? Seriously, we are asking. We have no idea what we are doing.

We want to make sure the final product does justice to the sexually-charged source material: Tennessee William’s 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire.

Bombardier’s grandmother died last week.

We need more time to come up with better excuses.

Sorry, one last time: Can you explain what “windows” are?

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Honestly? We just assumed the TTC was not overly concerned with streetcars arriving on time.