Bryce Lee reports from Canada -

GO Transit - lambasted for delays in recent years - plans to hire Montreal-based transportation giant Bombardier to crew most of its trains, a move intended to improve customer service and help the locomotives run on time. Under the terms of the five-year contract, Bombardier - which beat out SNC-Lavalin and Veolia Transportation Rail - will charge GO Transit C$23.9-million a year to operate 169 GO Trains. GO officials say that will save them millions over the course of the deal, which goes to GO's board this week for approval, but they wouldn't say precisely how much.

GO Transit, a provincial Crown agency, has blamed its long-standing problems on aging locomotives, winter weather and on the complicated set of 40-year-old arrangements it had in place that saw the country's two big railway firms, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, actually operate GO's trains.

In 2006, with increasing scrutiny from customers upset about late trains, GO managing director Gary McNeil announced that a contract to operate the trains currently operated by CN crews - all but those on the service's Milton line - would be put to competitive tender. GO Trains were plagued by labour strife last winter, after GO asked CN to reduce the number of crew members from four to three, which upset some workers and resulted in delays. The system also suffered with frequent absenteeism on Fridays in the summer, which led to cancellations and delays.

While the new workers will be unionized, just like CN's, the deal will be better structured to satisfy commuters, Mr. Jenkins said. For example, one worker will be solely dedicated to customer service. And if a train cannot run because a crew member does not show up for work, Bombardier would have to pay a financial penalty.

Mark Hallman, a spokesman for CN, which decided not to bid on the GO contract, said that CN had done "a solid job" since GO's inception in 1967.