The first vehicle was delivered to the Eglinton Maintenance and Storage Facility (EMSF) on February 16 and low-speed testing has been taking place within the depot site.
Speaking at the event, Metrolinx CEO and president, Mr Phil Verster, praised Bombardier for delivering the first vehicles “close to schedule.”
"I can only think back, about 18 months ago, this programme was far behind and deliveries were going to be about two years behind the targeted dates.” he says. “We took delivery of the first six vehicles a few weeks late.”
Metrolinx placed an order with Bombardier for 182 Flexity Freedom LRVs in 2010, including 76 vehicles for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.
As the Eglinton Crosstown LRT will be considered part of the Toronto Subway network (Eglinton Line 5), the vehicles carry the simple metallic silver livery worn by Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) subway cars.
The 19km 25-station line along Eglinton Avenue from Mount Dennis (Weston Road) to Kennedy is being built by the Crosslinx Transit Solutions consortium under a 30-year $C 9.1bn ($US 6.8bn) finance-build-maintain contract awarded by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario in November 2015.
Verster confirmed at the LRV unveiling that the project is on-schedule for completion at the end of September 2021.
