[Jonny5]

The layoffs are suppose to be late this year just in time for Christmas. Ah Bombardier, the gift that keeps on giving.

Better to know now than in December. Though I doubt this is news to the employees working there. The fact there would be no more work was known months ago. It's already months too late to snap fingers and start up a new production run of something else. Now it's all politicians of every party blabbing and spinning and pretending it was someone else's job to pay attention to this.

 

[rbt]

... Ontario is only one market and BBD will now struggle to get sales in large markets like NYC and London for example.

An NYC or London order would not prevent layoffs in Thunder Bay; those vehicles would be assembled in facilities nearer to those cities (Plattsburgh NY and Plymouth UK respectively). Only a major order from Ontario would prevent layoffs in this specific location.

TBay is setup to do Toronto LRVs (we want 100 more of these), Toronto Rockets (Line 2 fleet renewal), and bilevel mainline cars which only Metrolinx orders in non-trivial quantities.

Metrolinx did order some additional GO equipment from the Thunder Bay location, otherwise the plant may have fully shut down.

 

[crs1026]

Meanwhile, 4560 is at Lambton for delivery, as is one car received from CN overnight. It is most likely a new car from Kingston, but could be a rebuild returning from La Pocatiere.
And 4561 has shipped.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

TBay is setup to do Toronto LRVs (we want 100 more of these) ...

We do, but they haven't even issued the tender yet, let alone chosen the vendor. And it's unfunded - with the $1 billion cut by the province of direct unallocated funding to TTC over the next decade, they are less likely to be ordered anytime soon.

Toronto Rockets (Line 2 fleet renewal)

A big driver for this was the Line 2 extension, but now that the Ford government has delayed that for years, and cut $1-billion in funding to TTC, then this is less likely to proceed either.

and bilevel mainline cars which only Metrolinx orders in non-trivial quantities.

With huge Ford government cuts to Metrolinx operational funding, there's less need for more cars.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The one thing the ford government could do fairly quickly is order more Streetcars.. TTC needs them, Bombardier could supply them. It would have to be a quick and dirty contract with quite a bit of new funding, but the feds have tons of infrastructure funding sitting around with nowhere to put it.. so..

The one thing would be that it wouldn't be a "competitive" contract, which honestly, wouldn't be the worst thing in this situation I don't think.

 

[KevinT]

The layoffs are suppose to be late this year just in time for Christmas. Ah Bombardier, the gift that keeps on giving.

So just to get this straight: We shouldn't be buying their trains because they suck, but they shouldn't be laying off their people even though there's no trains for those people to build? Wow. Someone's got a promising career ahead of them in the Dumpster Fire government...

 

[ssiguy2]

I didn't say ANYTHING about Toronto/Ontario should be buying more of their trains. My sarcasm was towards how Bombardier manages to constantly suck from the government tit and when they don't get enough orders they threaten to close the plants down. Bombardier not only wants tax payer money but every single contract to boot.

This is the reason why Bombardier is in the fix it's in. It has gotten a lousy reputation worldwide in the last few years due to the TTC ever late streetcar deliveries and faulty subway train ones. Bombardier couldn't possibly care less about Toronto if it tried because they know that no matter how late the deliveries are or how many problems there are with the trains, Toronto/Ontario will continue to buy from them nearly exclusively. This is why everyone {including Bombardier's competitors} considers it a farce when rolling stock goes out to tender..........everyone {competitors and the general public} knows who will get it and unfortunately so does Bombardier.

 

[crs1026]

^No one really expected the employment in Thunder Bay to remain at its current level. There were people hired for the streetcar order with every expectation that they would be laid off once that production line ended. What has happened is that the streetcar order has gone on so long that those jobs have come to be seen as ‘permanent’ when thy never were.
Of course, everyone hopes that more business will come along, but there has never been a guarantee of that. Just like how auto plants add a second or third shift when sales are good, but that may not last forever. It’s hard when that added shift gets laid off, but it’s the reality of a cyclical business.
What makes this announcement noteworthy is the realisation that the GO bilevel, TR subway, and Flexity product lines are all hitting a soft market at the same time. That’s closer to a ‘perfect storm’. There may be good reason to try to keep the facility afloat, as once it closes there may be no way to reopen it, and being able to reorder those products is in the povince’s interest. But one must think about parity with North Bay, and Kingston eventually. Only so much can be propped up by government, especially when others (eg Alstom) are able to open new plants.
I feel for Thunder Bay, but I think this may be a reality that everyone has to swallow.
- Paul

 

[ssiguy2]

"This may be the reality everyone has to swallow" would be true if we were talking about life in the real economy but Bombardier doesn't have to deal with such issues. Bombardier is Canada's posterchild of government interference and political influence. Any help to the good people of TB will have absolutely nothing to do with financials or economics but rather politics and that is a game that Bombardier excels at.

 

[nfitz]

The one thing would be that it wouldn't be a "competitive" contract, which honestly, wouldn't be the worst thing in this situation I don't think.

Why wouldn't it be competive? The option price is lower ... about $3.5 million for the TTC cars (about $5 million for the original cars) and compared to the $8.5 million that Metrolinx sole-sourced for the Alstom cars (not counting the $1 million or so per car Metrolinx paid in penalties to get out of the Bombardier order).

 

[dowlingm]

I'm curious about the new streetcars. I can't recall if I have ever asked this question but whatever.

Since the new trains are articulated is it possible for the TTC to add more articulation sections to the middle of the train? Right now there are 4 "parts" to the train so could they add a couple more in the middle to respond to rising demand? I'm don't know if this would be a challenge with turning stations or garage capacity but I am just interested in the trains themselves. Could it, even hypothetically, be done with the current trains?

In theory they could, and in the case of Crosstown almost certainly could. I'm hedging on downtown as they are more heavily customized for grades and curves. The issue would be the degree to which power issues would come into play, and the degree to which stops, loops, storage ,and maintenance tracks are optimized around 28m lengths.

 

[drum118]

4558 was off loaded Monday and 4576 is at Lambton, Will 4560 be off loaded before 4576??

I can't speak to BBD cars, but Alstom 5 car section could see sections added or removed and sure the Crosstown and other lines can be done also. Other manufacture cars could have the same thing done as well to meet customers needs down the road.

 

[smallspy]

I'm curious about the new streetcars. I can't recall if I have ever asked this question but whatever.

Since the new trains are articulated is it possible for the TTC to add more articulation sections to the middle of the train? Right now there are 4 "parts" to the train so could they add a couple more in the middle to respond to rising demand? I'm don't know if this would be a challenge with turning stations or garage capacity but I am just interested in the trains themselves. Could it, even hypothetically, be done with the current trains?

Can absolutely be done. Has been done elsewhere. The car isn't designed for it per se, but because all of the components are modular they can be exchanged with other units if required/necessary.

Will it be done? Nope. The TTC feels that a 100 foot long car is as long as they want to go considering the layout of the downtown core.

The one thing the ford government could do fairly quickly is order more Streetcars.. TTC needs them, Bombardier could supply them. It would have to be a quick and dirty contract with quite a bit of new funding, but the feds have tons of infrastructure funding sitting around with nowhere to put it.. so..

Actually, the only thing that could be ordered quickly from Thunder Bay is the GO Bilevels - they are the only product line where the supply chain is almost entirely North American-based, and capable of quickly ramping back up - and even then, it still takes time for them to accumulate the components necessary to build them, so there would likely be a short layoff necessary of a couple of months.

Some estimates that I've heard is that if a streetcar order was put in tomorrow that there would still be a layoff necessary of almost a year as they ramped the production lines of all of the requisite components - many of which are based in Europe - back up first.

Dan

 

[White Pine]

Its possible for the plant to get a shot in the arm if they win calgary's contract. Will be a delay, though and no guarantee they'll win.

 

[DSC]

Its possible for the plant to get a shot in the arm if they win calgary's contract. Will be a delay, though and no guarantee they'll win.

The fastest way to give them more business is to add numbers to existing orders - GO, TTC etc (though, as noted above) the TB plant is more of an 'assembly operation' and it will take time for most suppliers to add additional production.