MONTREAL — VIA Rail Canada is reportedly prepared to award its contract for new equipment to German’s Siemens, to the dismay of officials in Quebec, the home of Bombardier, which is also competing for the project.
Montreal’s French-language La Presse reported, citing unidentified sources, that Siemens will receive the contract to build new equipment for VIA’s Quebec-Windsor corridor, an order worth about $1 billion Canadian ($753 million U.S.) VIA is planning to award the contract by the end of the year, a spokeswoman told Bloomberg News, but declined comment on the La Presse report.
In Ottawa, Transport Minister Marc Garneau told reporters that the Canadian government could not force VIA to choose Bombardier. “Our commitments with respect to free-trade agreements with Europe and other countries don’t allow us to favor Canadian companies,” Garneau said, according to the Bloomberg report.
Garneau’s stance was not greeted favorably in Quebec, Bloomberg reports. The province’s premier, Francois Legault, said “it makes no sense” for the federal government to allow VIA to award a contract without ensuring it creates jobs in Canada. Speaking to reporters in Quebec City, Legault said there should be, at a minimum, a 25 percent requirement for local content.
Garneau, however, said that while Quebec can require local content when it makes acqusitions, that cannot be done at the federal level.
Bombardier announced earlier this month that it will lay off 5,000 workers worldwide, half of them in Quebec. The majority of the Canadian job cuts are in the aerospace division, although a factory in La Pocatiere, Que., has begun laying off workers as it completes a contract for equipment for the Montreal subway.
In June, VIA identified Siemens and Bombardier as two of the four manufacturers competing for the contract. [See “Four companies will vie to build new VIA equipment,” Trains News Wire, June 28, 2018.]
Mr. Narita, you are exactly right about Quebec politicians. They do whine plenty while getting the feds to pass out more corporate welfare to Bombardier.
Mr. Narita, the commuter cars were not designed by Bombardier. Bombardier bought the design when they bought the company. ( Hawker-Sidley I think.)
As a regular user of Siemens passenger cars in Europe, on ICEs, Austrian Railjets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet) and Eurostar, all based on a similar design, I can attest they are among the best – in my view the best – intercity trains in Europe. I can’t wait to sample their American cousins on Brightline -Virgin Trains USA.
Having the misfortune to have worked with the LRC equipment when new, I understand VIA rail’s reluctance to buy more trouble from Bombardier. Once bitten twice shy.
Mr Waldron what about all the lozenge shaped bilevel commuter cars Bombardier has built over the years. Also Nippon Sharyo, if I remember correctly, built the gallery bilevels used on the San Francisco – San Jose commute.
I’ve kind of gotten the impression that Quebec politicians tend to whine when a Canadian contract this large does not go their way.
Mr. Gonzales: the fact is that Sumitomo/Nippon Sharyo were dishonest by not revealing that their low bid grabbed by the feds was to be a Beta site for trial and testing to meet the federal requirements.
As a result, instead of securing intercity bi-levels for California and the Midwest, these state corridors must now be content with single level cars for the same dollar.
Bombardier is going to get the contract for the X Train from LA to Las Vegas…….is the rumor. Though I can’t see those tri-level cars running at very high speed……have to confess I am not an Engineer.
M.E Singer,
I wouldn’t completely trash talk Sumitomo/Nippon Sharyo. Yes, they certainly had their issues that became major problems with the most recent attempted order. However, It wasn’t as if they were a completely unknown builder. At the very least, they successfully delivered quite a fleet of double deck cars for the Capitol Corridor/San Joaquin/Surfliner trains. Those cars are now over 20 years old and still running and looking good. The problem was the new crashworthiness standards as dictated by DOT/FRA.
Bombardier’s rail group seems to be doing well outside North America but they made a mess of the Toronto streetcar contract with delivery and quality problems. They lost part of the cross town LRT order for similar reasons. With Bombardier’s current track record in Ontario, I am not surprised that Via decided to select a different company for its trains.
While I would have liked the contract to have gone to Bombardier for various reasons I can only assume that on its merits the award committee feels that there is better value in going with Siemens.
You can make such a decision on a ten dollar item and get away with it. But when you are talking about a billion dollars (Canadian or American, I don’t care because I run out of oxygen at about the fifty dollar mark) you better believe that politics will be brought into the issue.
I really don’t like it when I am dragged into such a fray, to be used as a pawn by one side or the other. When this happens, the dragging party does not care what happens to me, I am just collateral damage in the battle. I wish all the best to those people who did their best to give a good technical and economic decision based on the merits of each proposal (Siemens and Bombardier) and who are now about to be sacrificed on the battlefield of billion dollar politics.
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
Charles – Many of your posts, which I enjoy, don’t get me wrong, start out with a fact recitation which is arguably true, and then close with a political rant as if one were staggering down a street and then fell off a cliff. So many of these railroad news stories end up with numerous political posts. I guess there are lunatics on both sides. It’s all in the individual perception of truth.
Bombardier rail is on the ropes. Bombardier jet liners have failed in the market; Airbus will go only so far to bail them out. GM is closing Oshawa. Progress Rail closed London and moved to Muncie, Indiana. Sadly, high-wage Canada is paying the price for being the most expensive nation in the world for heavy industry. It’s a shame but it’s reality.
Trump’s lunatic trade war will in the end hurt both nations, Canada and US; and will ensure the election of a Venezuela-like US president and extreme left Congress in 2020.
As far as is now known, Ford and Fiat Chrysler’s plants in Ontario are safe.
Importantly, note how Canada quite intelligently allowed for a free market decision; however, with the caveat of whoever was to be picked actually existed as a proven builder of passenger cars.
Certainly, this beats the total ignorance of the USDOT/FRA giving the contract for bi-level intercity cars for California and Midwest to an unproven Beta site established by Sumitomo and is pals at Nippon Sharyo.
For us, in the end the tax paying stakeholders are expected to pick-up the tab!
Bomber built 400+ multilevel cars for NJ Transit and are poised to deliver over 900 more vehicles to the Garden State. Going forward they will do just fine.