Exo rejuvenates its locomotives for 153 million

The exo network, which operates suburban trains in the metropolis, announced on Friday the acquisition of 10 new diesel locomotives which will be built by the multinational Siemens in its California factory. The cost of acquiring the Charger locomotives totals 132 million and the total contract, including taxes, will amount to nearly 153 million.

Bruno Bisson
The Press

Siemens Mobility was the only manufacturer to respond to the call for tenders launched by exo in March 2021. The new locomotives will be delivered from 2025 and will replace the current F59PH locomotives, which date from 1989 and which had been acquired by the defunct AMT with GO Transit in 2011.

Less polluting

The new exo locomotives will give operators more flexibility in managing their trains, since they can pull up to 10 cars, instead of 8 for the machines they replace. Less polluting and built in accordance with “newer and stricter emissions standards”, they will also allow exo to reduce the annual greenhouse gas emissions of its network.

In a statement, the CEO of Siemens Mobility in Canada, Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, assures that the Charger locomotives will integrate “the latest sustainable and intelligent rail technologies” and will offer exo passengers “a sustainable travel option as well as than a safe, reliable and enjoyable travel experience.

No Canadian content

The Charger locomotives acquired by exo are from the same family as the 32 trains ordered from Siemens by VIA Rail in December 2018. They will be built entirely in California, and no Canadian content obligation has been imposed on the manufacturer. No one builds locomotives in Canada, it should be said. Moreover, in the international market, an order for 10 new locomotives is not precisely the type of contract where the buyer can dictate his terms.

In an email to The Press, exo’s spokesperson, Catherine Maurice, states that “exo does not make an exception to the law on the requirement of Canadian content in its bid solicitations. Exo has made every effort to encourage the submission of submissions including Canadian content, and this, in a context where few producers are known to be able to do so”.

“However, she adds, in the context where the number of locomotive manufacturers is limited and that no manufacturer manufactures them in Canada, the Ministère des Transports du Québec authorized us to proceed with a call for tenders which plans to assess the proportion of Canadian content as a selection criterion according to a weighting system. »

Since only one manufacturer responded to the call for tenders, such a selection criterion did not prove necessary.

At the end of the day on Friday, the Quebec Ministry of Transport specified, in an email to The Press, that the Canadian content of the Charger locomotives was 3.65%.

For its part, Siemens has indicated that it “will incorporate Canadian content into its manufacturing and commissioning process for exo locomotives. As Siemens Mobility pursues and wins major transit infrastructure projects in Canada, it is committed to developing and integrating more Canadian suppliers into its already well established North American and global supply chain. established”.

With the collaboration of Julien Arsenault, The Press