Bombardier to Temporarily Lay Off 145 at Quebec Railcar Plant

By Paul Vieira 

Bombardier Inc. said Friday it will temporarily lay off 145 workers at a railcar plant in Quebec, citing a delay in getting a component that is required in the construction of subway cars for the Montreal transit system.

Workers at a factory in La Pocatière, Quebec, which is about 220 miles northeast of Montreal, will be laid off from late April to late October, Bombardier spokesman Marc Laforge said. He said a supplier acting for Alstom SA, Bombardier's partner in the subway-car contract, has been delayed in providing the automated control system needed for the trains.

Bombardier and Alstom are part of a consortium that received the 468-car Montreal subway contract in 2010. The company said at the time that the contact was worth 1.2 billion Canadian dollars ($966 million at current exchange rates).

A spokeswoman for Alstom said there was an "unfortunate" delay at the company contracted to build the automatic control system-- Ansaldo STS--but that the consortium is working to secure delivery later this year.

A representative for Ansaldo, based in Genoa, Italy, wasn't available for comment.

To date, the consortium has delivered 40 of the 468 cars that make up the Montreal subway system order, Bombardier said.

The layoffs come as Bombardier experiences difficulties in its aerospace division. The Montreal-based company has struggled to reach its delivery timetable and sales goals for its CSeries aircraft project and said earlier this month that it would halt development of a new Learjet model. The halt in the Learjet program will trigger 1,000 job losses and a $1.4 billion charge.

Bombardier is set to unveil fourth-quarter results on Feb. 12.

Write to Paul Vieira at [e-mail]

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