Canadian transportation firm will open shop to refurbish rail cars for UTA

Canada-based Bombardier Transportation, one of the world's largest train makers, announced this afternoon that it has opened a temporary shop in Salt Lake City to refurbish old rail cars for TRAX and commuter rail.

Repair work has already begun on some train cars and is anticipated to end sometime in 2010. Bombardier plans to hire at least 35 local engineers, mechanics and electricians to work on cars that are now being delivered to the Utah Transit Authority's commuter-rail maintenance facility at 900 North and 500 West.

The cars will be used on four new TRAX lines in Salt Lake County and a commuter-rail line from Pleasant View to Provo. That "could be the beginning of greater things to come," said William Spurr, president of Bombardier Transportation Group.

"We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial collaboration with the people in this state for years to come," he said during a news conference today.

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.

Utah elected leaders and Bombardier officials are hopeful the company will expand operations in the state to refurbish cars from surrounding Western states. Right now, West-Coast transit agencies that contract with Bombardier ship their cars to the East Coast to be refurbished.

"The chances are we're going to get more opportunities to do this kind of thing with states in the surrounding region," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said today at the news conference.

For more information about Bombardier, log on to: www.bombardier.com.

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