I have a hard time seeing how this is a good purchase rather than a one-time job for a third party. What happens to our $76M after the tunnel is bored?

I agree with Dan. I would also like to know whether The Boring Company was considered.

A follow-on article could clarify these points.

Thanks!

My son and I were discussing thais at lunch. He looked up the SF Muni central subway machine. STANDARD STOCK (20 ft or so tunnel). Bought and paid for - resold when 'the boring'
part of that project was done (a few years - 3 maybe) and HAD MANY INTERESTED POTENTIAL BUYERS. Now, with a Once in The World Machine / what is the resale market? $0 or Zero, sell for scrap, I''ll take it Out Your Hands for only a million????

/ In my R&D engineering opinion / not a great decision. Fine though, if Money No PROBLEM! and Delays NO PROBLEM!

Folks, you're looking in the wrong place. The whole project is now expected to cost over $10 billion. This machine costs less than 1% of that. At any rate, once VTA chose the type of tunnel, they didn't have a lot of choice left for the type of machine.

If you want to figure out how to save money on rail projects, ask where the rest of the $10B is going.

BART has a huge design flaw in that it uses wide (Indian) gauge. This means that they need all-custom equipment.

Bart to Santa Clara through downtown San Jose underground was already a bad idea.

But where there once would have been few riders, now there will be hardly any riders. It's a recipe to burn money with no benefit. But, that's all VTA does anyway in a lot of ways.

@ivg. The problem isn't just the tens of millions for this one (unique) machine. By designing the entire system project - to use a non-standard and uniquely large equipment, they have builtin additional delays and cost overruns. That sort-of-stuff compounds. What are their project carry expenses, once the clock starts? Or since it has been 'ticking'?

Getting this one unique machine going / The Whole Project depends on Just This Machine. IF A SINGLE POINT FAILURE, it becomes an obstruction in the timeline for finishing and Carrying Passengers. That is, because there will be NO SPARE PARTS anywhere else in the world!

Here is the link to see how the SF Central Subway project bored tunnels under the middle of The City.
SFMTA link: Web Link

They bought and then resold TWO boring machines!