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The factory secured its future when it won orders in 2007 for 480 subway cars for Toronto. Then in 2009 Toronto ordered 204 low-floor, air-conditioned light rail vehicles — also known as streetcars — from Bombardier for $1.2 billion, for delivery by 2018.

On a visit to the Thunder Bay plant early in December, about 875 workers were toiling on the lines, turning out about two subway cars a week, and assembling rail cars and streetcars. Another 250 people worked in the offices. But the tour guides seemed oddly skittish. When a reporter stopped to interview a worker in the “marrying station,” where workers put the parts of the vehicle together, project director Bill Williams told the reporter, “Please make it quick. They are on the clock right now and they are working.”

All is not well at this facility. Bombardier did not disclose it to a visitor, but the company is laying off 49 people here in December and January. Upon later inquiry, the company confirmed that it cannot keep these workers busy because of challenges getting parts to the plant from the Bombardier factory in Ciudad Sahagun, near Mexico City, among other places.

Problems have badly delayed the shipment of streetcars to Toronto. Six years after placing an order, Toronto says it should have 43 low-floor streetcars by this point. Instead, it has just three in service.

“The delivery is far behind from the original schedule,” says Brad Ross, a spokesperson for the Toronto Transit Commission. “We are still working with them on meeting their original schedule. If not, there will be liquidated damages and the like.”