Although work has begun on laying down track that would allow the 40-metre vehicles to be stored at the depot at Gogarburn, TiE said it was in discussions with undisclosed partners over temporary storage of the vehicles, at a cost of around £1200 per month per tram, until the facility was ready.
“We expect that the depot will have been completed to a sufficient extent to start to receive trams by the end of this year,” TiE’s spokeswoman said. In the meantime, she said, “a number of [storage] options are under review but no decision has been taken yet”.
Delays to the tram infrastructure works have meant the 12 trams (out of a total of 26) already built by CAF, have had to be stored at the firm’s plant in the Basque country. But TiE has denied that the cost of that storage is a specific matter of dispute with the consortium of which CAF is a member.
“The consortium has not advanced any cost estimates or claims for storage of trams to us to date, therefore we are categorically not in dispute. However, as we have also said, both parties have responsibilities for the consequential costs of delays arising from the fact that the depot is not yet ready to receive them. This does not mean there’s a disagreement, just that it has just not yet been discussed, negotiated and settled,” she said.
According to TiE, the consortium is contractually obliged to meet the costs of storing the trams now under production “until the depot at Gogar is ready”. As these newer trams are scheduled to be delivered in pairs every month from September, TiE is seeking storage that will protect the vehicles from weather and vandalism until the system is operational -- 2012 at the earliest.
