Bombardier: Encyclopedia II - Bombardier - Global expansion

Bombardier - Global expansion

Under the management of Laurent Beaudoin, Bombardier's son-in-law, the company took over the Canadian government-owned Canadair aircraft manufacturing company in Montreal that had recorded the largest corporate loss in Canadian business history. Bombardier became a leading manufacturer of business jets, regional aircraft, and trains. Besides the Challenger and Global business jets, in 1990 Bombardier acquired the Learjet Company of Wichita, Kansas, builder of the Learjet business aircraft. The aerospace arm, Bombardier Aerospace, accounts for over half of the company's revenue and is reportedly the third-largest aircraft manufacturer in the world behind the giants Boeing and Airbus. In 2003 it spun off as a separate company the Bombardier Recreational Products division, whose snowcats and snowmobiles had been the origin of the company.

In 1970, Bombardier acquired the Viennese company Lohner-Rotax, a manufacturer of snowmobile engines and tramways, and thus became involved in rail business. This section started to grow important in the mid-1990s in the renaissance of tramways or 'light-rail transit'. Bombardier acquired the assets and designs of American Locomotive Company/Montreal Locomotive Works, who continued in the locomotive business until 1985. They built the Class 170 Turbostar and Class 357/375/376/377 Electrostar trains which are widely used throughout Britain. They also built the Croydon Tramlink and Nottingham Express Transit trams and parts of Alstom's Eurostar trains. They are one of the companies which took over British Rail's R&D facilities after privatisation (the remainder largely being absorbed into AEA Technology and Alstom). They were part of a major consortium in the construction of the Eurotunnel railway cars, and also built new metro trains for a wide range of customers including the Toronto Transit Commission, the Commission de transport de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal, and the New York City Transit Authority (R62A, R142), and developed the Las Vegas Monorail system.

Bombardier is a UK Notified Body, under The Railways (Interoperability) (Notified Bodies) Regulations 2000, in one TSI area: rolling stock.

Bombardier Transportation also leads the development and production of the Acela Express train in a 75%–25% arrangement with Alstom. The train runs between Boston, New York City and Washington, DC. Bombardier provided carbody design and tilting mechanisms from its LRC ("Light Rapid Comfortable") line of passenger trainsets, and integrated a variant of Alstom's TGV propulsion system. This is the first high-speed rail line in North America, running at a top speed of 240 km/h (150 mi/h). To meet U.S. government "Buy American" regulations, final assembly of these trains was performed at Bombardier's U.S. rail car assembly facility in Barre, Vermont. Bombardier also provided seller-arranged financing to allow Amtrak to lease the trainsets rather than purchasing them outright as the railroad had previously done.

They were, until recently, a major Canadian defence contractor. With the latest restructuring the company sold off nearly all of its military related work in Canada. However it continues to participate in military contracts in other countries, such as in the United Kingdom, with the ASTOR (Airborne Stand-Off Radar) conversion of the long range Challenger Global Express jet. The actual conversion is carried out by Raytheon.

In 2001 Bombardier Transportation acquired Adtranz, making it the second largest manufacturer of railway rolling stock in the world. Depending on how one defines industrial activities, it is sometimes considered the largest in the world in this category.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Global expansion", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki