Work on the first Ion light rail vehicle to arrive in Waterloo Region is running behind schedule – and the arrival of the second vehicle has been delayed as well.

Regional councillors heard Tuesday that the second vehicle manufactured by Bombardier is now expected to leave Kingston for Waterloo Region in August or September.

It had been scheduled to ship in June, with the remaining dozen vehicles following it one at a time, every two weeks at a time.

“Bombardier believes it’s better for them to stay in Kingston for another month or two each,” Coun. Tom Galloway said in an interview.

All of the vehicles were expected to undergo work once they arrived in Waterloo Region.

Galloway says Bombardier has decided to perform some of that work in Kingston before shipping the vehicle, instead of following through with the original plan of sending workers to Waterloo Region to do the work there.

“We’d rather it not be shipped in order for the plant in Kingston to do more modifications and provide more functionality to the vehicle,” he said.

The vehicles will not arrive in Waterloo Region ready to hit the tracks, as GrandLinq will still have to install some specialized equipment.

The first Ion vehicle arrived in Waterloo Region in February. It has been inside a storage and maintenance facility in north Waterloo ever since. Galloway says it has been undergoing maintenance and testing, although the second vehicle is now considered closer to being ready for service than the first one.

“Bombardier continues to work on it to bring it to a functional point … but that’s not going as quickly as we had hoped,” he said.

According to Galloway, the LRT system is now expected to be up and running by spring 2018.

With reporting by Katarina Milicevic