Trains will be delivered on time, top Bombardier officials tell region

KITCHENER — Top Bombardier officials travelled to Kitchener on Monday and gave assurances the region’s light rail vehicles will be delivered on time.

Benoît Brossoit, Bombardier president for the Americas, and other Bombardier staff met with five regional councillors and several staff members at the Region of Waterloo’s request.

Regional officials received a presentation about the company’s plans to get back on track.

“It was all very impressive, but at the end of the day we all agreed that the only thing that counts is delivery and they agreed that was the only measure as well,” Coun. Tom Galloway said.

Launch of the region’s light rail project is already off schedule, after Bombardier informed officials in May it would not meet its deadline for delivery of the first train.

That’s been put off until December, when the original deadline was August.

The final train isn’t scheduled to be delivered until October 2017, about four months behind schedule.

The delay has put off launch of the local light rail system until 2018 instead of late 2017 as planned.

Bombardier has been taking heat for production problems related to light rail vehicles and quality problems for Toronto streetcars.

The region chose in 2013 to piggyback on a Metrolinx contract for more than 170 vehicles from Bombardier.

On Friday, Bombardier announced 7,500 people would be laid off as part of its five-year turnaround plan, which was launched last year.

Marc-André Lefebvre, Bombardier’s head of communications and public relations for Canada, said production of the region’s 14 light rail transit vehicles won’t be affected.

“We’ve assured all of our customers that throughout these actions Bombardier Transportation will still have all of the human and material resources to honour its commitments,” he said. “To that effect, we will be strategically hiring employees in some of our sites as we ramp up manufacturing activities on some projects.”

That includes Bombardier’s Thunder Bay and Kingston facilities.

Expansion is underway at the Kingston site, where part production for the region’s light rail vehicles is underway. At the La Pocatière, Que. facility, parts for the local project are also in production, Lefebvre said.

Galloway said he and a staff member will travel to the Thunder Bay plant in November to check in on production.

“We’re being very proactive in trying to stay on top of Bombardier and we’re trying not to be difficult … We’re not sending legal letters and threatening lawsuits at this point, but that obviously is something we may have to consider down the road if things don’t come together as good as they say it will now,” Galloway said.

The financial implications of the delays are not yet certain, but there is expected to be some additional cost. The region will pursue options to recover costs associated with the delay from Bombardier. In the contract, the provision for late trains is $1,500 per day, per train, up to a maximum of $3.3 million. The region can also seek further damages.