A snowmobile maker's engine purchase accidentally launched a global train giant
Bombardier bought an Austrian firm in 1970 for the engines it made for Ski-Doo snowmobiles, and got a tram business thrown in. Five decades of acquisitions later, that side venture had become the Western world's largest rail manufacturer, before costly contracts and an ailing aircraft programme forced its sale to Alstom.
The Austrian purchase was Lohner-Rotax. Bombardier wanted Rotax, but kept the trams, and in 1974 won an order for Montreal Metro trains. Buying the Montreal Locomotive Works in 1975 gave it a proper rail plant, and with it the LRC tilting train, which sold only modestly. In 1987 it acquired the assets of the American railcar builders Budd and Pullman-Standard, then sold the locomotive works to General Electric in 1988 to exit freight. By then it had supplied 825 subway cars to New York City.
Expansion into Europe followed: a stake in a Belgian builder in Bruges in 1986, France's ANF Industrie in 1989, Mexico's Concarril in 1992, and German factories in Aachen, Bautzen and Gorlitz later in the decade. The biggest bite came in 2001 with Adtranz, bought from DaimlerChrysler. Adtranz was twice Bombardier's size, and European regulators approved the deal only if some products went to Stadler Rail to preserve competition. Bombardier soon complained it had been misled about Adtranz's finances; in 2004 it announced eight site closures and won a refund of 209 million dollars, cutting the final price to 516 million. Its head office moved to Europe.
The 2010s went badly. Contracts worth 600 million to 1.8 billion dollars each, for New York's R179 subway cars, San Francisco's BART fleet, Toronto streetcars and London Overground trains, demanded bespoke designs, and many carried penalties for late delivery. Software and reliability problems delayed them all, and the penalties ate profits. Meanwhile the parent company was pouring money into its CSeries airliner. In 2015 Quebec's pension manager, the CDPQ, injected 1.5 billion dollars for a 30 percent stake, heading off a planned stock market flotation. By 2018 the company had slipped to fourth globally behind CRRC, Siemens and Alstom.
Alstom agreed to buy the division in February 2020, when it had 36,000 employees, and completed the deal on 29 January 2021 for 4.4 billion euros. Its trains still run on London's Elizabeth line and Singapore's Downtown line.
Source: Bombardier Transportation
