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This would be a pretty major consolidation, at least in terms of rail transit vendors here in the US. I would hope we'd at least see more bids from some of the newer Chinese manufacturers mentioned, to avoid tenders with only one vendor.

supermop wrote:This would be a pretty major consolidation, at least in terms of rail transit vendors here in the US. I would hope we'd at least see more bids from some of the newer Chinese manufacturers mentioned, to avoid tenders with only one vendor.

That would be massive in the UK, as the majority of passenger stock built for British railways in the privatised era has been built by one of those two (Turbostars, Electrostars, Desiro's, etc.), though other manufacturers are starting to break into that market (CAF and Stadler).

I'm kinda dubious about anti-trust laws not stopping that. But that's sometimes hard to predict ^^;

No way this goes through under competition laws.

Dave wrote:No way this goes through under competition laws.

I've actually been wondering a bit about that - certainly federal antitrust laws here would be problematic for this merger (whether current administration would enforce is another matter), but neither company is American. Between one Canadian and one German company - who exactly has the teeth to to stop such a merger? The various US based ventures that actually assemble the trains to meet 'buy American' rules for federal funding are typically subsidiaries or joint ventures, rather than an organ of Siemens or Bombardier itself. There doesn't seem to be one country that would naturally have jurisdiction to approve or prevent a merger, and I am not sure the WTO would have any relevant mechanism. I could also seem them making a political argument that even if, say, the merger represents a total monopoly on new trams and associated service in Melbourne (which it sort of does), that globally there are indeed other rail manufacturers, so any one host nation attempting to prevent is actually hurting a local employer to the benefit of foreign competition.

The bigger the deal, the more countries involved. Bayer-Monsanto has about 30 commissions they need to convince. I suppose it's that kind of thing why those huge companies have swarms of lawyers

I think this case won't be quite so bad, but the European Commission might, and the Bundeskartellamt and whatever the Canadian counter-part is definitely will look at it. Apparently part of Bombadier Transportation is also state-owned, so I guess they'll look especially close as what they're getting out of this.

All that being said it probably wouldn't have been mentioned if it were impossible to happen. ^^

Not really sure about Siemens wanting Bombardier on board, been a fair bit of questionable quality issues, especially when it comes to Australian stuff. Not quite on the V250 level, but still...

Doorslammer wrote:Not really sure about Siemens wanting Bombardier on board, been a fair bit of questionable quality issues, especially when it comes to Australian stuff. Not quite on the V250 level, but still...

I'm sure they don't care as much about getting the rights to the Flexity product etc (afterall, most Bombardier rail products will have an analogue in Siemens' stable) so much as reducing one more competing bid for projects, and saving needing to build as many new local factories. Currently, it is almost impossible to win a bid for a heavy rail EMU in the US without a plan to assemble nearly all units in country. The state or local transit authority would additionally place strong preference on assembly being done locally if possible. The contract would likely require years of heavy maintenance commitments as well, again requiring a local shop or factory. If Siemens were to win a tender for a new batch of NYC Subway units, they don't have any suitable facility to offer, but bombardier does. The merger then lets them start from a base of twice as many places they can bid with 'local jobs' whereas a new entrant from China or elsewhere would need to plan for building a new factory.