Article from today's Gazoo:

Transit specialist rents at ex-CN yards

American Motive in Point St. Charles

ROBERT GIBBENS, Freelance
Published: Thursday, November 22, 2007

American Motive Power Inc., a specialist in locomotive and passenger transit car overhaul and rebuilds based near Rochester, N.Y., said yesterday it is negotiating to rent about 200,000 square feet in the former Canadian National Railway Point St.Charles maintenance shops.

AMP, which has a 500,000-square-feet plant in Dansville, near Rochester, would, in effect, be taking over shop space that was rented by Alstom Canada up to 2003. CN later sold the land and repair shops extending over more than 3 million square feet to a Montreal property development group.

"We're negotiating for 200,000 square feet in the north complex," said Pierre Desrosiers, AMP's executive vice-president of operations, who has worked in management for CN and for Alstom in the past.

Desrosiers, who divides his time between AMP's office in Montreal and the Dansville plant, said the North American rail industry has entered a growth phase and his company sees significant overhaul and rebuild market opportunities in Canada.

The Montreal operation would also handle business from the U.S., he added. He would not say what stage the negotiations have reached or estimate the number of jobs that might be created.

The massive Point St. Charles train yards were considered the cradle of the Canadian railway industry. There are 12 separate buildings and Via Rail uses a small area.

The developers who bought the yards from CN have floated plans to convert part of the property into a mega shopping centre with housing.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

oh that's interesting.. I thought this was gonna have something to do with the new metros they are about to build or something...

More and more speculation on the reopening of Alstom. VIA Rail could also use the place to renovate their 120 locos they plan to fix in the upcoming years.

The place is now partly a recycling facility.

really? I heard that bombardier offered to replace via's train cars for cheaper then alstom would repair them (I heard that years ago and heard that was the reason for alstom closing their PSC plant)