$17M for Quebec rail R&D facilities

MONTREAL: Bombardier Transportation is investing $17 million to create a Product Design and Development Centre for North America in Saint-Bruno, Que. and it’s building a new state-of-the-art test track at its manufacturing plant in La Pocatière.

“The Design Centre is a unifying project that will encourage greater involvement by our customers, suppliers and partners in the research and development of pioneering technologies that could be included in our manufacturing processes,” said Raymond Bachant, president of Bombardier Transportation, North America in Montreal.

The Saint-Bruno facility will be used for designing and prototyping passenger rail vehicles that will be manufactured at Bombardier’s North American plants.

Construction is to begin at the end of summer with the centre opening in the spring.

Bombardier said the rolling stock test track at its La Pocatière site will allow engineers to perform qualification tests on the new metro cars Bombardier is building for the Société de transport de Montréal, but it will also be multifunctional enough to test all its units powered by a third rail, including those with rubber tires.

The one-kilometre, under-cover trackwill include dynamic brake testing and maximum speed testing, and there will be a static site built beside the track.

Construction is to begin at the end of the summer.