The Utah Transit Authority said late Wednesday that Bombardier Transportation, one of the world's largest train and airplane manufacturers, is coming to Utah to help repair old rail cars for use on TRAX and commuter rail.

Bombardier plans to open a rehabilitation facility in Utah to refurbish dozens of used rail cars. The company will begin work at UTA's commuter-rail maintenance facility at 900 North and 500 West in Salt Lake City.

Today at 11 a.m., UTA and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. are scheduled hold a press conference to announce details about the company and its plans for Utah.

The governor "is pleased to have a company of (Bombardier's) capability bringing a significant portion of their business to the Beehive State," Huntsman spokesman Mike Mower said Wednesday. "This move should result in additional high-paying jobs for Utah workers."

The press conference will be held at UTA's Warm Springs Rail Service Center in Salt Lake City.

Bombardier Transportation is a division of aircraft and rail transportation manufacturer Bombardier Inc., which is based in Montreal, Canada. The transportation division has 29,100 employees worldwide and operates 42 production facilities, including three sites in the Eastern United States

The company specializes in making rail vehicles, regional aircraft, business jets and smaller-scale vehicles such as ATVs. UTA purchased 12 Bombardier BiLevel commuter-rail vehicles from the company in 2005 and plans to have Bombardier refurbish at least 59 rail vehicles for TRAX and commuter rail.

The rail cars will be used on commuter rail from Pleasant View to Provo and four new TRAX lines in Salt Lake County. Voters approved funding for much of the commuter-rail line and for the TRAX lines in November. The rail lines are scheduled to be built within the next seven to 10 years.

UTA spokesman Justin Jones declined to give any specifics about how long Bombardier would be in Utah or how many jobs it would bring to the state.

"The fact is, we have an aggressive rail build-out in the next seven to 10 years, and it's going to mean a lot of jobs in Utah," Jones said. "This is the start of that."

UTA plans to house commuter-rail vehicles in the Warm Springs center once the first phase of its FrontRunner commuter-rail line is completed from Pleasant View to Salt Lake City in 2008. Work on an extension of the line from Salt Lake to Provo is expected to begin within the next two years.

The rail cars that will be refurbished come from San Jose, Calif., and New Jersey. The San Jose cars have been used along UTA's north-south TRAX line since 2004. Residents have referred to them as "ghetto TRAX," because they appear run-down and old compared to newer TRAX cars that were purchased in 1999.

---

E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com