Toronto will get the final streetcar in a much delayed $1-billion order next week, missing Bombardier’s end-of-year delivery deadline by just a few days.

It’s a turnaround that many transit watchers might not have believed a few years ago, after several setbacks and a revision to the original deadline in 2012.

The company tweeted a photo of employees at their Thunder Bay factory with one of the final cars on Monday.

The tweet said car 203 was being shipped this week, and the final car, number 204, would be completed on New Year’s Eve and shipped next week.

“This completes the delivery of all 204 of the TTC streetcars, and we continue to work with the TTC to ensure service excellence to Toronto and TTC passengers,” added Bombardier spokesperson Kaven Delarosbil in an email to the Star.

Bombardier has been plagued by years of production problems.

In October 2015, the TTC board authorized taking legal action against the company for delays. The company was supposed to have provided 73 cars by the end of 2015, but the target was cut to 27.

TTC staff said in 2016 the agency would need to spend $34 million to keep the older models around longer due to the delayed new streetcars. The TTC has also blamed Bombardier’s delays for making them put buses on some streetcar routes, which adds to costs because they carry fewer people.

In April of 2019 Bombardier and the TTC reached a settlement over the delays and in July the Quebec-based manufacturer announced it was on track to deliver the final cars by the end of the year.

At the time the company told the Star it had made “significant investments” and “doubled the number of TTC’s streetcars manufactured in Thunder Bay and Kingston” for the second year in a row to make the turnaround.

“By the end of day tomorrow, we expect to have 202 of the 204 streetcars shipped to TTC and 198 approved for service,” TTC spokesperson Stuart Green told the Star in an email Monday.

The rest of the cars (with the exception of one that was returned for welding repair before it could be commissioned) will be shipped and commissioned for service by the end of January, he added.

The city’s older Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) streetcars are being decommissioned as the new ones arrive. The public’s last chance to ride the red rockets was Sunday. A couple will be kept in the city’s heritage collection, and will be back on the streets for special occasions, according to the TTC.

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The new models are more accessible and fully air-conditioned.

A report that went to the board last year said the TTC would require 60 additional streetcars on top of the 204 from Bombardier to meet demand until 2023.

The agency is in the process of deciding where it will get that next order from.

With files from Ben Spurr and Bloomberg

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