WATERLOO REGION — There will be no light rail train under the Region of Waterloo's Christmas tree.

Officials confirmed Thursday Bombardier missed a revised deadline of Dec. 21 for the first train to be delivered.

That deadline was put off last week to February, Coun. Tom Galloway said.

"The first one isn't really that critical, although … you can't get the second one until the first one comes and then it has the potential to back up all the others," he said.

This is the second delay for the arrival of the first vehicle and the delayed timeline has put off the launch of the light rail system to early 2018 from late 2017.

Bombardier informed local officials in May it would not meet its deadline for delivery of the first train. That was put off until Dec. 21, when the original deadline was August.

The final train isn't scheduled to be delivered until December 2017, about four months behind schedule.

Galloway said delivery of the final train is more crucial for the system to start operating.

"That's the one that really determines when actual fare-paying service can start," he said.

Bombardier spokesperson Marc-André Lefebvre said the company has assured the region the project is moving ahead and there is no change for delivery of the final vehicle at the end of 2017. Testing of the first vehicle is underway at Bombardier's Kingston facility.

"Delivery of the first vehicle will have no critical impact to the project," Lefebvre said.

The full financial implications of the delays are not yet certain. The region will pursue options to recover costs associated with the delay from Bombardier. Already the region paid for a $1.2-million contract extension for Infrastructure Ontario. It's assisting with contract administration and issues management.

In the contract, the provision for late trains is $1,500 per day, per train, up to a maximum of

$3.3 million. The region can also seek further damages.

Other costs are expected including lost revenue due to the delay in service and claims from GrandLinq, which is tasked with having staff ready to operate and maintain the system.

Construction consortium GrandLinq is required to have the light rail system ready to run by a certain date. July 1, 2017 is set as the substantial completion deadline.

On that date, the region must start making payments to GrandLinq for operations and maintenance.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

If the trains aren't ready and GrandLinq completes construction on time, the region still has to pay, but the government won't be receiving the revenue from fares it anticipated.

In early December, officials saw the region's first vehicle and met with Bombardier production staff.