Bombardier Thunder Bay Looks Forward To The Next 20 Years
by Scott A. Sumner
On site for the recent celebrations at Bombardier Thunder Bay was Raymond Bachant, President Bombardier Transportation North America. He toured the plant, spoke at the plaque ceremony and answered questions from the media.
“ The light rail vehicle is a long-term project for us. We follow the readiness of city and their infrastructure and are doing 4 prototypes, which we will test and then go into production. This will be a long-term project.” “ The plant has been here for 100 years with more or less 5 different phases of 20 years in this factory. We will do 20 years at a time. Thunder Bay is part of our portfolio of 45 manufacturing plants in transportation around the world not counting our aerospace division.” “ There has been quite an increase in the volume of business here thanks to the Ontario government and the city of Toronto. We have been able to increase the required work force in Thunder Bay to 1300 and are still hiring and training. We have also invested over $20 million in this plant over the last five years.” “ It is exciting and we hope to build on this good foundation. At Bombardier transportation we recently secured additional business. We have signed New York City for 300 Metro and also 410 Metro for the San Francisco Bay area. In North America we have a record backlog volume of $5.8 billion.”