Which is good news for riders who made 60.6 million streetcar trips last year — up from 49 million in 2009 when the TTC signed the new streetcar contract.

If the entire new fleet was on the road, it could hold more than 50,000 passengers — or the crowd at a sold-out Jays game at home

They are a once-in-a-generation purchase — the last time the fleet was replaced was at the end of the 1970s into the early ’80s. The model before that was introduced in the 1930s. It’s a big deal when the TTC replaces its streetcars — the results will define downtown transit for decades.

We need those streetcars. And once we get them, we like them and so does the TTC.

In the meantime, the TTC has had to pay millions to keep its old fleet on the road while we wait, and has sometimes been forced to supplement overloaded lines with bus service that draws capacity from other parts of the city. When the old cars break down — sometimes disabling an entire line — people are left standing on street corners in the cold.

That’s the crux of the problem with the state of the TTC’s $1-billion contract with Bombardier for 204 low-floor Flexity streetcars to be delivered by 2019. Almost eight years into the deal, Bombardier has repeatedly failed to meet its delivery deadlines, demonstrated quality-control problems that have dragged on for years, and promised that improvements that would double or triple the speed of delivery were around the corner.

Toronto was supposed to have 121 new streetcars by now. We have received only 35.

“I know it is incredible that a car builder with decades of experience could not pull a credible schedule together,” Stephen Lam, the head of TTC’s streetcar department, wrote in an email to fellow executives in June 2015 obtained by the Star through a freedom-of-information request, saying the company had demonstrated itself to be “just incapable of sticking to a plan.”

And yet, at its plants in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Sahagun, Mexico, all of that experience and expertise seems to have escaped it.

When the TTC signed this contract, it was not supposed to be a risky proposition. This was the largest single order of streetcars in the world, placed with one of the world’s largest manufacturers of those vehicles. The model is customized for Toronto’s system and differs in many ways from others around the world — for example, it has a different track gauge, needs to climb higher slopes and is fully wheelchair accessible — but it is based on a successful product line. For nearly two decades, Bombardier has produced similar new-era, low-floor streetcars in Europe from its plant in Bautzen, Germany, with few detectable problems. Bombardier now boasts it is the most popular light rail vehicle in the world.

The questions are obvious: why should anyone believe they can now do what they have failed to do in the past? And how exactly has this gone so wrong for so long?

To meet its most recent delivery targets, Bombardier will need to deliver as many cars to Toronto in the next eight months as it has in the past six years combined. And if it succeeds, it will need to deliver almost twice as many next year as it did this year to stay on track.

And there were also design hurdles. For example, even though Bombardier had provided three internal layout options to choose from, the company told the TTC that its choice would take longer and cost more.

Components of the car were being produced at different sizes from what drawings specified. When assembled, the steel sidewalls were not flat, leaving gaps with mating parts. The parts needed extra attention when put together.

Most notably, workers at the Sahagun plant were failing at what one official calls the “black art” of welding.

Internal emails and interviews make clear, however, that some of the problems were not being addressed and fixed.

Many factors combined to cause these initial delays, say several people with knowledge of the order. Some were understandable. It’s normal for problems to arise during a prototype phase. After all, this is a complicated car, with some 10,000 parts.

All three prototypes were supposed to have been delivered by late 2011 but the first car arrived nearly a year late in September 2012. The second and third didn’t arrive until spring 2013. Each needed major retrofitting.

“It’s pretty fancy. It has big windows and is better than the old one. I do like it. It’s just perfect.”

TTC officials had been seeing problems with the first three prototypes for years. Many of their concerns emerge in internal emails obtained by the Star through a freedom-of-information request. The emails are largely TTC staff communicating amongst themselves and do not include Bombardier’s responses to the issues raised.

“The TTC is not pressuring Bombardier to ship more vehicles — while we expect Bombardier to meet its contractual obligations, further shipping is at Bombardier’s discretion once vehicles are of an acceptable quality,” it read.

Then, a little more than a week before the launch, Byford sent a memo telling staff to focus only on readying two cars for the ceremony.

For months, the TTC had been planning a bigger rollout and Bombardier had assured there would be five or six new cars for the launch.

Bombardier had long-ago blown past its initial promise to have seven cars in service by the end of 2013.

Behind the scenes, the picture was not so rosy.

The cars then headed to Queens Quay carrying customers to watch the Blue Jays play the New York Yankees. Two members from the committee that helped ensure the vehicle would be Toronto’s first wheelchair-accessible streetcar had driven their scooters aboard for the ride.

The TTC put the first new streetcars in service on August 31, 2014, starting with the 510 Spadina line — a welcome sight for the Chinatown BIA. David Cooper/Toronto Star File Photo

“The TTC is proud to bring to fruition years of hard work that has brought the newest generation of streetcar to the people of Toronto,” said TTC CEO Andy Byford. “It’s accessible, it’s modern, it’s air-conditioned and it’s the streetcar of the future.”

In a nod to the past, the sleek vehicles burst through a banner with a photo of a vintage Toronto PCC car, first introduced eight decades ago. There was a barbershop quartet. Politicians, including federal and provincial ministers, attended the launch.

Toronto’s first two new streetcars entered service on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2014, with a morning ceremony at Spadina station.

The problems were evident even before the very first day the cars went into service.

The biggest test is ahead, as the deliveries need to ramp up drastically over the summer and fall of this year. It seems possible they have finally figured out how to right the ship.

And Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency that had piggybacked large orders of Flexitys for its LRT lines, has completely lost faith — it was in court this spring fighting Bombardier’s attempt to prevent it from trying to cancel the contract altogether. Bombardier won the case, at least temporarily, after the judge ordered both sides to go before a dispute-resolution board.

“Where I live, there are a lot of new condos coming up and I can see how it’s going to be a complete disaster if those cars aren’t here by then.”

At a TTC board meeting in mid-April, TTC CEO Andy Byford said he had no reason at this time to doubt Bombardier would be able to meet its new deadlines. TTC chair Councillor Josh Colle, however, has said he’ll only believe it when he sees it.

“We believe we have the right plan,” Brossoit said. “And if it turns out that it’s not sufficient or something happens, we will immediately react, and I will work with TTC to make sure that in the end they’re all delivered in the time frame. That commitment stays.”

It’s worth noting that after years of delays, Bombardier has so far met its new targets in the year since the current schedule was devised.

Changes to the supply chain, welding processes and investments in production capability will begin paying off shortly, he said.

Bombardier Transportation president Benoit Brossoit, a former senior manager at United Technologies and Pratt & Whitney Canada, says he has committed his career to filling the TTC order by 2019. Graham Hughes Image

New Bombardier Transportation President Benoit Brossoit told the Star in an interview that the company has invested and made changes to meet the newest revised schedule (the fifth schedule since the contract was signed). “I have committed my career on this, pretty much,” Brossoit said.

The company maintains it will meet the final 2019 deadline for delivering all the cars. As a result, the newest revised schedule is by necessity more compressed than ever.

During a months-long Star investigation reporters spoke with current and former Bombardier executives and managers, line workers and union representatives in Thunder Bay and in Sahagun, TTC engineers and executives, Metrolinx employees, politicians, city hall insiders involved in the contract’s origins, and industry experts. We examined court documents, Bombardier’s contracts around the world, and filed freedom-of-information requests. While Bombardier has admitted the company had issues producing the streetcars, it would not respond to many questions about the details of production problems. “At this point we do not have the ability to chase down many of the technical questions, allegations or rumours,” said a spokesperson.

The electrical locker box was impossible to maintain because you couldn’t fit a screwdriver in to access wire terminal connections.

Bombardier’s first wheelchair ramp delivered a “roller coaster sensation” when exiting. Smoothing the transition required redesign of both the ramp and streetcar floor.

Electrical connector pins weren’t properly crimped, causing the cars to stop intermittently. The problem wasn’t discovered until the ninth car. Engineers had to go back and hand-check more than 5,000 pins per car.

The European style bogie paint needed to be changed to a more rugged corrosion-resistant type, causing a small delay.

Bombardier said the seating arrangement the TTC chose would take longer to pull off and cost more, despite offering the layout as one option of three.

The end plates at the opening of the car body segments were peeling apart and had to be repaired on the first vehicles, then redesigned for the rest of the order.

Mexico plant had problems welding and tooling steel sidewalls and undercarriages within the tolerance needed for assembly in Thunder Bay.

By year’s end, the TTC would have only three cars in service. Bombardier’s initial production schedule said they would have 37.

The next car in the production line (#4404) was “in just bad a shape as #4400 when it was delivered” and the chances of it meeting standards in time were “VERY low and not worth the distraction,” wrote Lam on August 13, two weeks before the launch.

By August, with Thunder Bay factory workers on strike, it was clear they would only have two cars ready — the now retrofitted first prototype car (#4400) and the first non-prototype, production car (#4403).

TTC officials were skeptical. Bombardier continued “to have major problems in managing supply chain. In particular, Faively who is struggling with door performance, ramp and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning),” according to a June 13 briefing note.

“I just spoke to (then head of Bombardier Transportation in America) Raymond Bachant,” Byford emailed on May 23. “He absolutely understands the need to provide us with six, reliable, acceptable units ready for our launch.”

In late spring 2014, Bombardier officials were assuring the TTC that, even with the threat of a strike in Thunder Bay, they would deliver six streetcars, ready for service, for launch day.

The TTC kept the second and third prototypes, despite their flaws, because they needed to train drivers.

After testing, the first prototype car was sent back to Thunder Bay in the fall of 2013 to be modified. It wouldn’t return until the summer of 2014.

Lam also wrote the company did not initially understand the “magnitude” of the alterations it would have to make to the floor of the vehicle in order to get the ramp right. This would not be simple.

TTC’s chief streetcar engineer Greg Ernst says the wheelchair ramps are deployed on average about four times a day per streetcar. The initial design made exiting the car feel more like thrill ride. Steve Russell/Toronto Star

“Bombardier has failed to appreciate accessibility is the raison d’être for the new low-floor streetcar project — its interpretation of the well-defined spec has been to simply provide a ramp,” Lam wrote.

Months earlier, during a demonstration at the TTC’s Harvey Shop, staff tested the ramp with a manual wheelchair, the email says. The transition from the ramp to the car floor at the door was uneven. There was a dip, causing a “roller-coaster sensation” when exiting and causing difficulty boarding.

Engineer Stephen Lam, head of the TTC’s streetcar department, pushed back against Bombardier’s characterization that TTC demands were slowing the process. “The delay was, in fact, caused by Bombardier’s resistance to take appropriate and timely action to address a technical problem,” he wrote. In three years, the company, he said, had not “submitted an acceptable design.”

“While I want ramp design to be as good as it can be, I am equally determined to get the new cars into service on time (during 2014) onto Spadina and Bathurst. We must not give (Bombardier) an excuse to declare a delay,” Byford wrote.

On Aug. 16, 2013, following a meeting with Bombardier executives, Byford emailed that discussions over specifications for the ramp were holding up production.

“I feel like streetcars are an antiquated form of transportation . . . It’s cute and represents Toronto, symbolizes Toronto, but it’s not the most efficient form of transportation.”

The wheelchair ramp, designed by French company Faively, played a particularly large role in the delays. Deployed from the second door of each car, it is housed inside the floor. The design allows the ramp to be deployed at two different lengths — shorter to reach streetcar platform level on Spadina Ave. or longer to extend to street level on Queen St.

When TTC engineers first reviewed the prototypes being built in Thunder Bay, they realized wire terminal connectors in the car’s electrical locker sat on an angle, making it virtually impossible to access with a screwdriver or to even allow for inspection. The locker would have to be redesigned, including wire harnesses that ran through the cab.

Any training was set back by the high turnover rate in Mexico, where skilled welders would leave to take higher-paying jobs — a situation that would persist until the end of 2016.

“It was not a lack of desire to invest. For me, it was not understanding how much a transfer of technology was required,” said Bombardier’s Brossoit in a recent interview. “We may not have totally understood that early on in the transfer process…It’s those little details that will hurt you.”

Eventually, Bombardier’s welding experts were deployed from Germany to Mexico to train. But, according to one source, they left too soon.

After the TTC contract was signed, Bombardier sent several Sahagun employees to the company’s “Light Rail Vehicles” competence centre in Europe. There, the Mexicans were trained how to manufacture and weld parts for the TTC’s custom version.

Bombardier is currently delivering light rail vehicles the Kelana Jaya Light Rail Transit Line in Kuala Lumpur. The initial contract was for 14 vehicles, and an additional 27 were ordered at the end of March for $388M (U.S.). Courtesy of Bombardier

More than 70 per cent of all passenger rail vehicles in Mexico were made at the 2,000-employee plant, which has also built tram and train parts for Kuala Lumpur, New York City and Minneapolis.

The “black art” of welding the streetcar sidewalls was not properly transferred from Bombardier’s German experts — though the TTC says Mexico’s work on the bogies was truly commendable. Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective Image

Workers at Bombardier’s 500,000-square-metre factory in Sahagun had never built this particular 100-foot-long, low-floor streetcar. But there was no reason to believe the technologically modern plant — acquired from the Mexican government in 1992 — wasn’t up to the job.

Throughout the saga of Bombardier’s delays, the company’s plant in Sahagun has been characterized as the source of all problems. Poor quality workmanship was “escaping” Sahagun and causing enormous problems in Thunder Bay.

Blakeman acknowledges that Bombardier has struggled with its supply chain but the problems “have been significantly reduced.” Six to nine months ago, the list of parts on back-order would stretch two or three pages at each production station in Thunder Bay, he said, but now each one shows only handful of items.

“It’s a very complex supply chain, internally and externally,” said Jeffrey Blakeman, who last November became Bombardier Transportation’s fourth vice-president for the Americas operations in three years. “We’ve got suppliers from China. We want to collaborate with those just as much as we do with the mom-and-pop supply chain that are here in the Ontario base.”

“In the morning, it’s pretty crowded (on the old cars). In the afternoon it’s empty but in the morning, maybe it would have been better to have the big ones.”

For production to hum, everything has to come together smoothly in a complex global ballet of container ships, tractor trailers and waybills. Otherwise part delays can trigger serious production problems, not only by causing delays but by forcing work to be done out of sequence which can lead to mistakes.

To correct the problem, Bombardier sent the supplier to Mexico and Thunder Bay to learn how to properly connect the wires. The TTC could not understand why the company hadn’t done this in the first place, said one TTC official.

“Workers in Thunder Bay had to take off 2,000 to 3,000 connectors and re-crimp them to the right size,” says Dominic Pasqualino, president of Unifor Local 1075, the plant’s union.

Electrical pins had not been properly connected, causing intermittent failures of some of the cars’ systems. Fixing this was a huge headache, requiring thousands of connections to be checked per car. Steve Russell/Toronto Star

Connections on every car had to be checked.

One baffling problem the TTC grappled with in the summer of 2015 was intermittent electrical problems on the cars. But with the arrival of the ninth car, the TTC discovered that the electrical harnesses — large bundles of wires that connect the streetcars’ complex electronic systems — hadn’t been properly installed. Some of the electrical pins that connected the wires to the car were loose.

A type of nut that could have corroded was mistakenly used and had to be replaced. Fiberglas frames arrived too thick and didn’t fit, creating a risk that the windshield would pop off. Side panels wouldn’t affix to the car body and had to be sanded to remove excess paint. The end plates on the opening of the car body de-laminated or peeled apart.

One Thunder Bay worker, who asked for anonymity because he feared losing his job, said that in the early phases of production the plant sounded like a “f------ dwarves’ forge” as workers used sledgehammers to bend misshapen assemblies from Sahagun into shape.

“Henry Ford came up with the idea that when you’re making cars you make every part identical. This is not happening here,” said a TTC official involved in the delivery of the first new streetcars. “The parts need extra attention.”

TTC and Metrolinx engineers and consultants and former Bombardier employees provided many examples of how workers in Thunder Bay compensated for flawed work from Sahagun but also the company’s many suppliers.

Thousands of hours of computer-assisted design in Germany were supposed to allow Bombardier producers in Europe, North America and Asia to fabricate parts that would snap together like Lego. But when these pieces arrived in Thunder Bay, workers found many didn’t fit.

“I have not experienced this degree of quality notifications on any project in my career,” Watkins said

Watkins swore in an affidavit that by December 2016, deficiencies had forced Bombardier to issue more than 400 “quality notifications” for just three builds. Watkins said between 15 and 50 notifications were typical in the early stages but he alleged that notifications had been issued for “every single welded and machined part” made in Mexico.

In June 2016, nearly two years later, Metrolinx consultant John Watkins told Bombardier that he wasn’t seeing improvements in Sahagun, and in fact, inspection methods had regressed.

He complained that parts were “out of dimension, patched, and clearly without the quality to meet … the required design life.” As examples, he cited underframes that had to be heated to be brought back into tolerance, car bodies that had to be forced together and riveted using 2,000-pound clamps, and inspections that revealed as much as 20 per cent of welds were flawed.

In October 2014, then-Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig wrote to Raymond Bachant, then president of Bombardier Transportation’s Americas division, warning that “we are losing confidence in Bombardier’s ability to deliver service-ready vehicles without a substantial change in approach.”

The government agency Metrolinx ordered 182 light rail vehicles from Bombardier back in 2010, and the Region of Waterloo hopped on the contract to order 14 of their own, pictured, for the new ION line. Randy Risling/Toronto Star

Documents filed this year as part of the lawsuit brought against Metrolinx show that Metrolinx had expressed concern about its order for 182 light rail vehicles for more than two years — concerns that echo those the TTC had expressed since 2012.

In early February 2017, Bombardier filed an injunction in Superior Court to prevent Metrolinx from cancelling its $770-million contract. Metrolinx had filed notice, saying that Bombardier had defaulted because the pilot was two years behind schedule.

Building Toronto’s streetcars was split between Sahagun, where the welding of the car’s different components was performed, and Thunder Bay, where parts from Mexico and elsewhere arrived for assembly. The two facilities were also building an order for Metrolinx light rail vehicles, which are similar to the TTC streetcar.

According to Bombardier workers, managers and executives, the company consistently failed to establish an efficient assembly line that didn’t require customization on each car.

In a modern, 21st-century global manufacturing corporation, shipping parts to a plant for “just-in-time” assembly was supposed to be the most basic of tasks. Managers, the worker wrote in his “C Bay Rant,” had assured workers that streamlining the supply chain “was the easiest problem to solve.” But it was little more than talk, he concluded, because “Here we are two years later STILL WAITING FOR PARTS!!”

“We have way too much of some parts and not enough of some other parts,” wrote an anonymous worker in his union newsletter. “How does this happen?”

Veteran workers complained that long-standing problems with the assembly of the TTC Rocket subway car, which was also being built in Thunder Bay, hadn’t been resolved in years.

In early 2014, the mood in Bombardier’s Thunder Bay assembly plant was grim. Production was at a standstill. Not a single streetcar had left the plant in more than six months.

The Thunder Bay plant has consistently failed to establish an efficient assembly line, requiring workers to basically build each car by hand because of missing and out-of-tolerance parts. Randy Risling/Toronto Star

“I would suggest at this time we have no confidence in their ability to accelerate.”

Doing the math, Lam added that in order for the company to deliver its 204th car by mid-2019 Bombardier would have to accelerate production to one car per week. The plan “may look good on paper but would not be able to be met; or at much compromise and risk of poor quality.”

In an email sent the following day, Lam noted there were 500 “snags to clean up” on the next production car in line.

On Oct. 8, 2014, Lam sent a photo of an unacceptable gap between a sidewall and underframe. “They are still learning how to fabricate and quality-control an under frame on Car #8,” Lam says in the email. The entire section of the car needed to be scrapped.

While the strike impacted delays, the internal TTC emails suggest quality issues played an even larger role.

“As of today, all of the contracts Bombardier Thunder Bay is working on are publicly funded by the taxpayers of Ontario. The intent of these contracts was to create good-paying jobs for hard-working Ontarians,” wrote local union member T-Jay Hook in a newsletter distributed during the strike in 2014. “Today, Bombardier is taking this money and investing it in Mexico. The new LRV streetcar contract is now completely fabricated in Mexico and only assembled here in Ontario. This is wrong.”

Increasingly, the dynamic between Bombardier’s Thunder Bay and Mexico plants appears to have been competitive and at times adversarial. In Thunder Bay, some workers resented having to work with parts manufactured in Mexico, parts they could have been making themselves.

The dark and stormy winter in 2015 crippled Toronto’s aging fleet and left riders stranded in the freezing cold. The three new Flexity cars continued unscathed — but there should have been at least 10 times as many on the streets by then. Victor Biro Image

“I think they were in a tailspin. They kept chasing false solutions. I don’t think they properly got to the bottom of root cause. So they kept tackling the symptom rather than the cause,” said TTC CEO Andy Byford in an interview with the Star. “They kept on telling us that schedules are being managed and they are putting in place resources, human resources and material resources, to improve the plan … (but) they didn’t materialize.”

In May 2015, the next car in line was held back after it leaked during a water test, suffered electrical control problems, and a door panel had to be replaced. TTC engineers reported that one of the vehicle’s five body segments alone had more than 60 defects.

Production after the two-month strike in the summer of 2014 at the company’s Thunder Bay plant “did not go well,” reported Stephen Lam, head of the TTC’s streetcar department, in an internal email.

By the end of 2015, the wheels would have fallen off the TTC’s $1-billion order for 204 ultra-modern, low-floor streetcars. At the start of the year, Bombardier had delivered less than one tenth the number of vehicles it was supposed to. In the coming months the problems that plagued the initial car builds would persist and multiply, prompting a fed-up TTC to sue the company for millions in damages. The two sides are still negotiating.

It was the beginning of what would be a very bad year.

Throughout the deep freeze, the new Bombardier streetcars ran without incident on the Spadina line. But there were only three of them.

A cold snap hit Toronto in January 2015. On two separate days at least 25 of the TTC’s aging streetcars, or more than a tenth of the fleet, were forced out of commission. The vehicles’ pneumatic brakes and doors seized up, and some couldn’t make it out of the garage. Others broke down in the middle of the street, blocking the streetcars behind them and stranding passengers in plunging temperatures.

Bombardier keeps pushing back the delivery schedule while asserting it will still meet the 2019 due date, now promising what some say is an impossible build rate. Click the arrows to see more.

Byford went public, detailing Bombardier’s struggles to produce quality parts to the media. And then he jumped on a plane. On Tuesday, June 23, 2015, Byford and TTC board chair Councillor Josh Colle flew to Thunder Bay for a reality check. Byford wanted to see the shop floor for himself. He also wanted Bombardier to know that its customer was not happy. The TTC was supposed to have 50 new streetcars. It had six in service. As Byford and Colle walked the production line, Byford dropped off to chat with workers. “Do you think you can stick to the schedule? Have you got enough tools? Do you understand the time frames that we need these streetcars?” he asked. “On the whole, the workers were very positive… but in some cases they confided there were problems with parts and the quality of build on arrival at Thunder Bay.” After a presentation from Bombardier engineers, Byford and Colle felt reassured that the company understood the gravity of the delays. It had undergone a managerial transformation and was committed to catching errors on the production line early. Plus, Bombardier pledged to ramp up and build four vehicles a month. Byford returned feeling more confident, but two days later, Bombardier revised the schedule downwards. “I felt humiliated,” Byford said in an interview with the Star. “I felt we had been completely let down.” TTC CEO Andy Byford, who grew up in the U.K. and joined the TTC in 2011, says he was taken by Bombardier’s assurances, only to get blind-sided by yet another revision. Nakita Krucker/Toronto Star File Photo Minutes of meetings between Metrolinx and Bombardier that were filed as part of the Metrolinx legal dispute capture Bombardier executives speaking bluntly about their factories’ capabilities. Martin Allen, Bombardier’s new vice-president of operations for the Americas, opened an Oct. 15, 2015, meeting “by acknowledging that BT’s (Bombardier Transportation’s) biggest past issue was their inability to produced (sic) quality cabs, trucks, and underframes” in its plant in Sahagun, Mexico. But he said changes had been made. In 2014, “there were parts laying all over the place and the production line was not moving in Sahagun. Now there is a notable improvement . . . like day and night,” Allen said. Six months later, Allen was gone and his replacement, Francois Minville, admitted the problems were not solved. He delivered this message to Metrolinx during an April 21, 2016, meeting. “Thunder Bay and Sahagun do not currently have the ability to produce, consistently repeat processes and ensure quality; therefore the end product has not been predictable.” Former VP of operations Martin Allen (top) said quality control in Sahagun was Bombardier Transportation’s biggest issue. He was soon replaced by Francois Minville (bottom), who pointed to a lack of strong manufacturing processes in both Sahagun and Thunder Bay. LinkedIn, Vanessa Lu/Toronto Star File Photo It was a remarkable admission. Minville, who came from Bombardier’s aerospace division, continued, saying he “was not impressed with the existing technical processes and systems” and that the teams in charge of designing the manufacturing processes at both plants were weaker than expected. He admitted it would “take a considerable amount of time and effort” to improve production, but he expected to have a plan by the end of the week. By Oct. 16, 2015, when 67 new streetcars should have been operational, just 10 were on the streets. The delivery schedule had been adjusted downward again, but the TTC no longer believed Bombardier could meet even its revised targets. “Given Bombardier’s failure to meet past commitments, the TTC has no confidence in its latest schedule,” the agency said in a public statement. TTC board members voted to pursue damages against Bombardier. The contract allows the agency to claim up to 5 per cent of the $1-billion contract for late delivery, or $50 million, money the TTC hopes to use to offset the $34.1-million it is spending to overhaul and refurbish some old streetcars while it waits for the new fleet.

The TTC has been forced to keep its old fleet on the road far longer than expected, costing millions in maintenance that it wasn’t planning to spend. Bernard Weil/Toronto Star File Photo

And still old problems persisted while new ones emerged well into 2016. Early in 2016, Byford learned that parts that the company had stockpiled and intended to use to speed up production were “out of tolerance” — that is, they did not fit. Most had to be scrapped. “I was at my most apoplectic,” said Byford in an interview. “I almost hit the roof when I heard that because that was their great get-out-of-jail card.” In an email to Raymond Bachant, president of Bombardier’s Americas division, dated Saturday, April 2, 2016, Byford fumed: “I have received briefing after briefing and assurance upon assurance that the quality issues that have dogged this project have been identified and overcome. We have been told about revised manufacturing practices, improved. . . procedures and we have seen a veritable merry-go-round of project managers, each of whom (we were assured) was the person to sort out the problems.” Bachant replied, agreeing to supply a revised delivery schedule by the middle of the week. Days later, Bachant was let go. No one from Bombardier called Byford to let him know. When the Toronto contract was signed in 2009, Bombardier had built more than 400 of the low-floor Flexity light rail vehicles (LRVs) for transit systems around the world, and it had never run into the problems that were turning up in Canada. “We thought we were buying a derivative of a proven product. And that’s important. It wasn’t a leap into the unknown,” said Byford. When the bids were submitted by Siemens and Bombardier, Bombardier came in at a shocking two-thirds the price of the competition. “Bombardier was $500 million cheaper; that’s a huge amount of money,” said a former senior TTC official, who spoke on background. “People were very surprised at the gap because Siemens had done a big push, they wanted to get a foothold in North America.” “The real shocker wasn’t that Bombardier’s bid was so low, but that Siemens’ was so high,” the former official said. “Maybe the people in senior offices (at Siemens) were squeamish about the risks. I don’t know.” David Miller, mayor at the time, recalls it differently. “We were obviously very incredibly happy about the price of the Bombardier bid,” he said in a recent interview. As to whether Siemens was high or Bombardier was low, he said the specifics are hard to be exact about after eight years. “But, broad brush, Bombardier was well under the price we expected.” David Miller says city hall was thrilled by Bombardier’s $1-billion bid which was considerably less than the price expected. Colin McConnell/Toronto Star File Photo In a recent interview, Ann Macdonald, Bombardier’s vice-president of sales, called the bid “very competitive. “It was dead on when we look at what was asked for, the type of product it entailed….We were definitely competitive on that one, but not to the point where we think we underbid.” Bombardier Transportation’s European division was called out for underbidding on a 2011 contract to replace obsolete signaling in the London Underground. In March 2016, the London Assembly issued a report replete with withering criticism of Bombardier’s “shameful” performance in replacing the obsolete signaling in the London Underground, which led to a $1.4-billion cost overrun. The report says the company “duped” the transit agency about its expertise and “by significantly underbidding the competition on price,” in order to win a contract it could not fulfill. “This is nothing short of a disaster for London,” it said. Bombardier’s TTC bid was kept low largely because the Mexican plant allowed for lower labour costs, even though the company eventually had to aggressively fix the problems. One former Bombardier executive explains it like this: “If you shift production of parts of these trains (back) to Canada, it would be so much more expensive. So Canadian taxpayers would pay more if the trains were made in Canada. The viability of Bombardier in North America depends on Mexican factories.” Throughout 2015, Bombardier was in serious financial trouble. Alain Bellemare, the new CEO, would later admit publicly that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and had a serious cash-flow problem.

“Find a new company to buy them from. I wouldn’t keep (Bombardier) if I were suing them. Why would I keep doing business with them?” Justin Smith, 31, Student