Go Transit contract establishes Ontario Northland: ONR shop crew rebuild go Transit cars.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: NORTH BAY - Ontario Northland Railway

It was a "huge learning curve" for Ontario Northland Railway shop crews to get up to speed on how to rebuild GO Transit's bi-level passenger coaches.

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But its fleet manager of the Toronto transit authority can't argue with the result.

In making comparisons with other outsourced refurbishment work done by other companies, "this is the best car," said Peter Lloyd, GO's manager of rail equipment.

He wrote a glowing testimonial posted on Ontario Northland's website challenging anyone to notice the difference between a new coach and one refurbished.

The $81 million GO Transit contract was signed in 2004 to refurbish 121 bi-level commuter cars. The contract was structured to give Ontario Northland the first 71 with the option of adding 50 cars if GO Transit was satisfied with the work.

The first car arrived in November 2005 with the 59th delivered back to GO in early February. The contract expires in July 2011.

The refurbishment was basically a full-scale re-build of the 18- to 20- year-old coaches.

The contract has kept 100 employees working in Ontario Northland's Refurbishment Division, a vast 61,000-square-foot rail car shop complex, which added a new paint shop in 2004.

The project involved the cars being torn down to the frame, re-constructed, and re-painted.

GO Transit has maintenance facilities of its own at its Willowbrook yard in Etobicoke, but only for running repairs such as fueling locomotives, cleaning coaches, inspections and fixing any minor work.

The Toronto transit authority were the first owners of the sturdy bi-level cars. In previous refurbishment contracts they worked with experienced rebuilders such as Bombardier in Thunder Bay and Canadian Allied Diesel in Lachine, Que.

With Ontario Northland's business faltering earlier this decade, the North Bay shop needed more diversified work.

"Everything was looked at to make the operation more lean, and to operate at capacity" said spokeswoman Tricia Marshall for the provincial Crown agency. "Every division was under scrutiny to be the best we can be."

They successfully landed the GO contract but there were initial bumps in the road.

"Maybe that was going out on a limb a little bit," said Lloyd. "We did suffer at the beginning because there was a large learning curve."

The ONR's service bays were geared to handle their own locomotives and rail cars. The process of rebuilding a coach to a customer's specifications was completely different than a "running shop...