ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Rainrider22]

There's an active thread on Kitchener subreddit about the LRT, it feels like we went back in time to the last municipal election: https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comme...an_busses/

It's an /r/metacanada troll being chirped on by Perilaxe from The Record's comment section. I wouldn't give it much thought.

 I cant believe I went to the sight, that is 5 mins of my life I cant get back !!!

[KevinL]

The KCI steps are proceeding well:





And you can now clearly see how the ramp will be implemented:



Meanwhile, at King and Agnes, new signal poles are going up.

[Section ThirtyOne]

Well this could be a concern:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bombardi...-1.3451335

Bombardier to cut 7,000 jobs over 2 years

Bombardier says it will cut its workforce by 7,000 positions over two years, including 2,000 contractors.
Most of the job losses will be in Canada and Europe and will be partly offset by hiring in certain areas, such as its new CSeries aircraft program. The company has 64,000 employees globally.
The Montreal-based aerospace and rail equipment company says the job cuts will begin in the coming weeks and they will be completed by 2017.
The job cuts include:

• 3,200 jobs from its transportation division;
  
• 2,500 jobs from its aerostructures and engineering services division;
  
• 800 jobs from its aerospace product development engineering group;
  
• 500 jobs from its business aircraft unit.
  

The company said no jobs will be cut from its commercial aircraft unit.
...

Someone best be making some calls this morning to confirm delivery of our LRT trains will not be impacted; that is a lot of jobs lost specific to the transportation division of Bombardier.

[Viewfromthe42]

Does that mean fire sale? I keep hearing that the transportation division is the one part of Bombardier still making money, and you fire 3200 of them? But the one division tanking hard, commercial aerospace, you fire no one at all?

[timc]

Does that mean fire sale? I keep hearing that the transportation division is the one part of Bombardier still making money, and you fire 3200 of them? But the one division tanking hard, commercial aerospace, you fire no one at all?

Bombardier is betting big on the CSeries. I think this is what you might call "doubling down".

It also looks like they're lining up for another government bailout.

[jamincan]

Aerospace also has the prestigious factor that government is likely to get behind and support while the rail division isn't as likely to draw that sort of favour.

[tomh009]

Does that mean fire sale? I keep hearing that the transportation division is the one part of Bombardier still making money, and you fire 3200 of them? But the one division tanking hard, commercial aerospace, you fire no one at all?

The business jet division is in the worst shape.  The commercial jet division has an excellent product -- highly regarded by everyone -- but has struggled to gain customers.  Air Canada's order of 45 aircraft is the first order in two years.

They won't lay off people who are needed to build product.  If they are terminating production workers in the transportation division (not clear in which country) it's because they don't have enough orders to keep those people employed.

[Canard]

...ie, not Thunder Bay, which just received a third FLEXITY Freedom order.

[BuildingScout]

Bombardier has a long story of playing with public opinion to create political support. For example they enter a bid for a rail project and then a few months later announce that the production facilities in the country will be shut down because of lack of contracts. The government involved then rushes to skew the bidding contract in their favour. This is an important reason why they have assembly plants in so many different countries, so they can play this game. I wonder how many of those 7k cuts will actually happen if they don't get a bailout from the Feds. My guess is way less than half and nearly none in the railway division. After all they had already prepped the rail division for sale, why firings now?

[ookpik]

BBD's announcement may also have been an attempt to make a positive statement in the face of Airbus, Boeing announce $3-billion airplane deals at Singapore Airshow. While $3B may be a disappointment for Boeing and Airbus it doesn't appear that BBD sold any C-series at all there.

[Canard]

LOL, what? They just announced they sold 35 to Air Canada.

Cute conspiracy theory, too. Where's my popcorn?

[ookpik]

LOL, what? They just announced they sold 35 to Air Canada.

In Canada, to a Canadian audience. The linked article is about the Singapore Airshow. That's in Singapore. What has BBD sold there?

Cute conspiracy theory, too. Where's my popcorn?

No popcorn for you. But I'll happily give you some tin foil to make a hat.

[Canard]

LOL, better pass it over to BuildingScout, he/she's the one who suggested there's a conspiracy, not me.

[BuildingScout]

LOL, better pass it over to BuildingScout, he/she's the one who suggested there's a conspiracy, not me.

They've done it before, several times. That is a well documented fact. Assuming that they might be at it again is thus a reasonable assumption. No conspiracy there just stating facts. I used to own BBD-B shares so I followed them quite closely back in the day, which is how I came to see the repeated pattern of "oh no! jobs will be lost at the local plant/win the contract after". I sold the shares long ago when I realized how badly managed they are.

[kps]

For example they enter a bid for a rail project and then a few months later announce that the production facilities in the country will be shut down because of lack of contracts.

Sometimes they shut them down anyway:

In 2000, Bombardier announced it was to close the subsidiary plant BN Manage based in Manage, Belgium; the action attracted criticism from both trade unions and the Belgian government; perception was that Bombardier had used the 'jobs card' to win a Belgian double deck train contract worth 8.5 billion Belgian francs. The closure announcement came as a complete volte-face from Bombardier's previous statements which included optimistic statements about the Manage plant's future.

The little local tie-in (and the reason I knew of this instance) is that it was that ex-BN site in Manage that developed the low-floor Flexity bogies shortly before being closed.