Hawker Siddeley Canada

Hawker Siddeley Canada was the Canadian unit of the Hawker Siddeley Group of the United Kingdom and manufactured railcars, subway cars, streetcars, aircraft engines and ships from the 1960s to 1980s.

History

Founded in 1962 as the Canadian division of British Hawker Siddeley Group, the company assumed the assets of the A.V. Roe Canada Company Ltd.
Hawker Siddeley Canada focused on manufacturing heavy rail cars and transit vehicles. Major clients included:

Toronto Transit Commission – H series (Toronto subway) cars
GO Transit – bi-level coaches Series I to II
Soo Line Railroad
CN Rail Cabooses
Canadian Wheat Board – cylindrical grain hoppers
Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation – grain hoppers
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority – Orange and Blue line transit cars
National Railways of Mexico – passenger coaches

Hawker Siddeley Canada headquarters was in Mississauga, Ontario. Its formation in 1962 saw the company acquire control of several A.V. Roe Canada subsidiaries including the Canadian Car and Foundry as well as the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation conglomerate, which included various steel mills, coal mines, manufacturing plants, and Halifax Shipyards. Consequently, Hawker Siddeley had two primary railcar manufacturing plants:

CC&F factory in Thunder Bay, Ontario, for manufacturing railway transit cars, and
DOSCO factory in Trenton, Nova Scotia, for manufacturing railway freight cars, along with the Trenton Forge - the largest forge in North America.

Hawker Siddeley forced its DOSCO subsidiary to close money-losing coal mines and steel mills, subsequently expropriated by the federal and Nova Scotia governments. Likewise, CC&F was forced to shed various assets. Halifax Shipyards was sold to Irving Shipbuilding Inc., a subsidiary of J.D. Irving Limited, in the 1990s.
Hawker Siddeley Canada's operations were then acquired by Kingston-based UTDC. SNC-Lavalin purchased the railcar business but mothballed the TrentonWorks plant, which was later acquired by the Government of Nova Scotia and sold to Greenbrier. SNC-Lavalin sold the Thunder Bay plant to Bombardier Transportation and the Hawker Siddeley Canada name was ultimately dissolved in 2001. Bombardier Transportation was later sold to French rail manufacturer Alstom including the former Hawker plant in 2021.

Products

A partial list of products made by Hawker Siddeley Canada:
;Transit

Subway cars - for the Toronto Transit Commission
Automated Expo-Express surface metro cars - for the Expo 67 World's Fair
PA3-type rapid transit cars for Port Authority Trans-Hudson and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Blue Line and Orange Line

;Aviation
Hawker-Siddeley Canada also manufactured aircraft engines for Avro Canada's Orenda Engines and other aircraft manufacturers:

;Rail
Hawker-Siddeley Transportation also produced railway freight cars primarily for Canadian railways and leasing companies during the 1970s and 1980s at plants in Thunder Bay, Ontario and Trenton, Nova Scotia. Today the Thunder Bay plant is owned by Bombardier Transportation. The Trenton plant was sold in 1988 to Lavalin Industries and renamed TrentonWorks. The Greenbrier Companies acquired the plant in 1995 but during a serious contraction within the railcar sector in the mid 2000s closed the plant. The Thunder Bay plant primarily built passenger rail and transit equipment, while the Trenton plant built freight cars.

Covered Hopper Cars - for grain and other dry bulk commodities
Tank Cars - for liquids and compressed gases
Box Cars - for paper and general freight
Flat Cars - for lumber, steel, vehicles and large bulky freight
Gondolas - for steel, logs, stone, other bulk freight
Passenger cars
* RT85 lightweight "Tempo" passenger cars for CN and NdeM.
* RTC85/RTC-85SP/RTC-85SPD lightweight commuter cars for GO Transit.
* BiLevel coaches.

;Ships
See Halifax Shipyard - through the purchase of A.V. Roe Canada