Brighter Future for Thunder Bay With Contract Signing

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Thunder Bay – “Today’s announcement is more great news for our local Bombardier plant, for Thunder Bay, and for Northwestern Ontario.  The commitment of our Government to mass transit in Ontario continues to provide huge economic benefit to our city and region,” enthused Bill Mauro, the MPP for Thunder Bay Atikokan.

“Bombardier is proud to be part of this very important expansion of public transit in Toronto and greatly appreciates the confidence Metrolinx has placed in us,” said Raymond Bachant, President, Bombardier Transportation, North America. “This order further solidifies our presence in Ontario and highlights Bombardier’s proven state of the art light rail technology, which is available to all cities in North America.”

The vehicles are BOMBARDIER FLEXITY 100% low-floor light rail technology. The five-module bi-directional vehicles are more than 28 meters long and 2.65 meters wide. These vehicles will provide reliable performance along with a wide range of features, including a step-less interior allowing easy access at street level; car capacity for more than 280 passengers; efficient heating and air conditioning; comfortable interior; enhanced accessibility and safety features; locations for wheelchairs and strollers; active leveling system to ease boarding and exiting; enhanced communications features; and a regenerative braking system that feeds power back into the Metrolinx network.

“This is great news! Securing manufacturing contracts is tremendously important for Ontario. This investment will create long term employment for hundreds of Bombardier workers which will contribute to the growing vitality of the Thunder Bay economy,” added Michael Gravelle, the Minister for Northern Development, Mines and Forestry.

Residents of Thunder Bay and area now have a brighter future thanks to a contract signed between Metrolinx and Bombardier state Gravelle and Mauro.

Funded by the province, this contract is worth $770 million to build 182 light rail transit vehicles (LRVs) with an option to purchase up to 118 additional vehicles.

Part of the deal with Bombardier includes a 25 per cent Canadian content requirement to make sure manufacturing jobs stay in Canada and keep people working. Final assembly of the vehicles will be done at the Bombardier facility in Thunder Bay.

This contract will create 4,000 direct and indirect jobs across the province.

This investment builds on the $1.22 billion contract with Bombardier to build Toronto’s next generation streetcars, which included roughly $400 million of provincial funding, and a $700 million contract between Bombardier and the TTC that was supplemented by $200 million of provincial funding.

Bombardier’s FLEXITY low-floorvehicles meet the individual needs of numerous cities, such as Geneva and Zurich (Switzerland), Linz and Innsbruck (Austria), Lodz (Poland), Eskisehir (Turkey), Brussels (Belgium), Marseille (France), Valencia and Alicante (Spain), Palermo (Italy) as well as in the Rhine-Neckar Region, Berlin, Augsburg and Krefeld (Germany).

Final assembly of these additional vehicles for Toronto will take place at Bombardier production facility in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

There remains no mention of the promise by Premier Dalton McGuinty made on in September 2007 that “Ontario will lead the world in the development of hydrogen rail technology”.

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James Murray
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