New Red and Orange Line Cars

www.wcvb.com

New MBTA subway cars could be delayed even longer

Transportation officials said they'd explore options, including triggering a contract clause that would require the company to pay hefty damages for late completion.
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MBTA Deputy General Manager Jeff Gonneville said Thursday, the Chinese locomotive giant projects it will deliver the last batch of Orange Line cars to the T in summer 2023 and the final Red Line cars in summer 2025. That would represent 17 months past the contract's due date for the Orange Line and 21 months late for the Red Line.
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Jahvon09 said:
This is ridiculous!! :mad:
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These companies are probably short staffed. Plus an ongoing recession will make delivery of these trains even longer. I’m not saying that I don’t feel your frustration. I promise you. I understand. But they way you go about it is reactionary. I love trains too. But you have to understand that the MBTA isn’t the MTA. We’re not New York.

The way that we neglected the T is criminal, but things are getting better, believe it or not. There’s more accountability from the top down over the past decade. There are more expanded Silver Line and bus routes. And just as I got off the N.E Regional at Back Bay, I saw and smelt that the Orange Line was cleaner and more pleasing to the eye.

My suggestion is to buckle in and shift your attitude towards the ascension, because if you’re looking for anything other than incremental change, then you’ll probably be disappointed.
 
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Point of note from tonight's BSRA meeting: there have been no new Orange Line 1400-series deliveries from CRRC since June; they will need to exceed their goal of 4 cars/month and get to 8 cars/month delivered to meet the goal of completing deliveries by next summer. That seems.... questionable. Currently there are 74 CRRC trains in service, 2 in testing, and 2 OOS and awaiting repair (1400/1401, likely to be repaired by CRRC at the end of the contract under warranty if I had to guess).

They also said that we should expect at least some Hawkers to operate, mainly during rush hour, once an increased winter schedule takes effect in December or so. There are 66 Hawkers that are still able to run, should they be needed.
 
nbcoram said:
Point of note from tonight's BSRA meeting: there have been no new Orange Line 1400-series deliveries from CRRC since June; they will need to exceed their goal of 4 cars/month and get to 8 cars/month delivered to meet the goal of completing deliveries by next summer. That seems.... questionable. Currently there are 74 CRRC trains in service, 2 in testing, and 2 OOS and awaiting repair (1400/1401, likely to be repaired by CRRC at the end of the contract under warranty if I had to guess).

They also said that we should expect at least some Hawkers to operate, mainly during rush hour, once an increased winter schedule takes effect in December or so. There are 66 Hawkers that are still able to run, should they be needed.
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At least the T learned from this and gave the Green Line contract to an established factory. The fiasco here was the "Buy Massachusetts" nonsense.
 
Equilibria said:
At least the T learned from this and gave the Green Line contract to an established factory. The fiasco here was the "Buy Massachusetts" nonsense.
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CRRC is an established builder (though it is a new factory)

I think a big negative to this contract was how much US-China relations have detoriated since the contract was originally assigned. To the point that CRRC likely won't get any new customers in the states. So CRRC isn't going to invest more here to please the MBTA.
 
tysmith95 said:
CRRC is an established builder (though it is a new factory)
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Yeah I think the new factory is the big issue here. The Buy Massachusetts stipulation, if you will, set the MBTA up for this as CRRC had no factory in North America despite their international experience. Of course, CRRC has to start somewhere in North America and I can't really blame them for taking advantage of a golden opportunity to break into the US market, but the MBTA and the riding public should not have been essentially forced by the state's political leadership to be the guinea pig for a new factory -- for a vitally important order no less.

The fact that CRRC is Chinese is used to unfairly dump on them a lot. The reality is that the requirement to set up a factory in a particular region of the state (iirc they were steered to western MA by Gov. Patrick's office) likely would have hobbled a lot of other companies (regardless of North American experience or lack thereof) and set this up to be problematic. Without that stipulation, companies with established factories in the US (of varying international origin) would have been much more competitive in the bidding.

The trade war, as well as long-term COVID restrictions in China resulting in issues exporting shells and other parts, have not helped matters whatsoever.
 
nbcoram said:
Yeah I think the new factory is the big issue here. The Buy Massachusetts stipulation, if you will, set the MBTA up for this as CRRC had no factory in North America despite their international experience. Of course, CRRC has to start somewhere in North America and I can't really blame them for taking advantage of a golden opportunity to break into the US market, but the MBTA and the riding public should not have been essentially forced by the state's political leadership to be the guinea pig for a new factory -- for a vitally important order no less.

The fact that CRRC is Chinese is used to unfairly dump on them a lot. The reality is that the requirement to set up a factory in a particular region of the state (iirc they were steered to western MA by Gov. Patrick's office) likely would have hobbled a lot of other companies (regardless of North American experience or lack thereof) and set this up to be problematic. Without that stipulation, companies with established factories in the US (of varying international origin) would have been much more competitive in the bidding.

The trade war, as well as long-term COVID restrictions in China resulting in issues exporting shells and other parts, have not helped matters whatsoever.
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It's somewhat unclear, at least to me, what the precise combination of issues leading to the various delays have been. It definitely seems like CRRC in China has had (at least partially pandemic and stupid trade war-related) difficulties at times maintaining the supplies of shells and parts (how much of that is specific to CRRC falling down on the job and how much of that is events beyond their control is one of the things I don't know enough to judge). The trade war, and China's particularly-stringent Covid restrictions mean that CRRC might well be facing greater difficulties than a non-Chinese manufacturer, but that's hardly grounds for criticism of them specifically given that it wasn't feasible, when the contract was signed, to foresee the pandemic (or such a particularly stupid trade war). It is worth discussing whether CRRC's design choices and management, here or in China, might be contributing to delays, because it's easy to blame events even if the actual answer is a combination of events beyond their control and potentially their own internal issues.

That said, the state was asking for extra risk when they implemented the Buy Massachusetts stipulation. Of the bidders in the final decision, CRRC (well, CNR) was the only one that didn't already have a US factory. Rotem, Kawasaki, and Bombardier were never particularly likely to build additional factories for one contract (they might have been willing to, but will have priced that in as an additional cost because of its inefficiency), meaning that we were always going to have to deal with new factory, and likely one with a new manufacturer. It's possible that CRRC has mis-managed the standing up of the Springfield plant, it's also possible that it's not terribly easy to get a transit equipment factory off the ground (i.e. maybe they botched it, maybe it's just hard), and it was an unnecessary requirement introducing extra risk into the process. It doesn't mean that a different manufacturer wouldn't have had their own issues (Kawasaki clearly delivered derailment-happy lemons to WMATA, and the MTA's basically blacklisted Bombardier over the R211s), but it was an extra requirement that at best was extraneous and certainly seems to have contributed to the delays, which was predictable.
 
If we're listing the headwinds facing the manufacturing, we should not forgot CRRC is the merger of CNR and CSR. CNR was the company the MBTA selected with ratings of not just "Acceptable" but "Good" for some Categories - most notably Manufacturing. CSR was rated as "Unacceptable" in not just one but three categories - namely Technical, Manufacturing, and Quality Assurance (and Past Performance was only rated as "Potential to Become Acceptable"). And when you look at CNR's and CSR's history, you find stories like CSR botching deliveries for transit systems for cities like Singapore - so it's pretty understandable for CSR getting outright rejected.

But after the MBTA selected CNR, they merged to become CRRC. Is this new incarnation more akin to CNR or CSR in ability and culture? I don't know. But it's another possible compound to the situation just like how COVID, US-China relations, and Supply Constraints has not helped.

I remember (and various members of us) were all worried about the company selection back in early part of this thread. IRRC correctly, I viewed this as a gambit. Maybe it can work out that we can get well-built trains but at a great price. A combination of that CNR has a good history and also arguably China was at a position similar to 60's/70's Japan was it was once known at cheap, low-quality stuff, but made the jump with prices lagging behind. And western Mass gets an economic boost in the process too. I think we can safely say the gambit has not worked out to the ideal outcome.
 
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Brattle Loop said:
It's somewhat unclear, at least to me, what the precise combination of issues leading to the various delays have been. It definitely seems like CRRC in China has had (at least partially pandemic and stupid trade war-related) difficulties at times maintaining the supplies of shells and parts (how much of that is specific to CRRC falling down on the job and how much of that is events beyond their control is one of the things I don't know enough to judge). The trade war, and China's particularly-stringent Covid restrictions mean that CRRC might well be facing greater difficulties than a non-Chinese manufacturer, but that's hardly grounds for criticism of them specifically given that it wasn't feasible, when the contract was signed, to foresee the pandemic (or such a particularly stupid trade war). It is worth discussing whether CRRC's design choices and management, here or in China, might be contributing to delays, because it's easy to blame events even if the actual answer is a combination of events beyond their control and potentially their own internal issues.
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Yeah, the COVID and trade war stuff is obviously well outside the control of CRRC. We have no way of knowing for sure how things would have gone if neither happened. All we can do is speculate, which only does us so good. I try to cut CRRC themselves some slack - even though there may well be some internal issues on their end that we don't know about (very possible), it's not easy to stand up a railcar factory and there have been a lot of events since production began that have muddied the waters globally.
 
nbcoram said:
Yeah, the COVID and trade war stuff is obviously well outside the control of CRRC. We have no way of knowing for sure how things would have gone if neither happened. All we can do is speculate, which only does us so good. I try to cut CRRC themselves some slack - even though there may well be some internal issues on their end that we don't know about (very possible), it's not easy to stand up a railcar factory and there have been a lot of events since production began that have muddied the waters globally.
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CRRC is the Chinese Government, so I'd argue that COVID response and trade policy is actually well inside their control. Obviously this is not their first priority.
 
Equilibria said:
CRRC is the Chinese Government, so I'd argue that COVID response and trade policy is actually well inside their control. Obviously this is not their first priority.
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CRRC is owned by the Chinese government, not synonymous with it. COVID response and trade policy (at least on the PRC end) are controlled by the government, that much is true, but not by the railroad equipment manufacturer. You're entirely correct that CRRC and by extension its American contracts are not the first-priority consideration of the government, but that's the kind of decision that's made far above CRRC's pay grade, and the kind of thing that they the equipment manufacturer does not have actual control over.
 
Brattle Loop said:
CRRC is owned by the Chinese government, not synonymous with it. COVID response and trade policy (at least on the PRC end) are controlled by the government, that much is true, but not by the railroad equipment manufacturer. You're entirely correct that CRRC and by extension its American contracts are not the first-priority consideration of the government, but that's the kind of decision that's made far above CRRC's pay grade, and the kind of thing that they the equipment manufacturer does not have actual control over.
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I get the distinction, but while I'm sure the middle management at CRRC doesn't have any influence on government policy, the MBTA still made the choice to do business with an arm of a hostile foreign government that is currently committing two genocides and opresses its own people. When this is all over, they will have got a spectacular bargain, hopefully decent vehicles, lots of delays, and a whole lot of bad karma. They will probably not have made a meaningful long-term economic difference to Springfield, which was supposed to be the whole point of going with a pop-up factory.
 
Other oblique reasons why CRRC trains are going to be late: Checks might be bouncing in China.
The quasi-state owned financial company Evergrande, in the midst of collapsing after a decade of untethered bankrolling of mega-development, and everybody is mortgaged waaaay beyond their means.
Also, massive flooding in many industrial cities. Fuel prices hurt harder when you're scraping by.
Things are not good for anyone over there right now. Engine components for the Orange Line might not be the first thought on their minds.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Other oblique reasons why CRRC trains are going to be late: Checks might be bouncing in China.
The quasi-state owned financial company Evergrande, in the midst of collapsing after a decade of untethered bankrolling of mega-development, and everybody is mortgaged waaaay beyond their means.
Also, massive flooding in many industrial cities. Fuel prices hurt harder when you're scraping by.
Things are not good for anyone over there right now. Engine components for the Orange Line might not be the first thought on their minds.
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What had seemed like an easy task in the beginning, has turned sour & into a complete nightmare as far as the orders for the new trains, what with the covid pandemic & all. I hope that this cancer doesn't invade the new order for the new Type 10's, as the Type 8's are beginning to look pretty bad. Like the old Hawkers on the Orange Line, they, also, had no midlife rehab at all to speak of. It's a sad state of affairs to see that years later after ordering new cars for the Red & Orange Lines, that we are still dealing with Relics of the Dinosaur Age. Hopefully, CRRC can make good by speeding up the orders to get the new railcars here a little faster. :unsure:
 
In addition to what's already stated above, since the MBTA contract, CRRC has also won contracts with the LA Metro and the CTA. Pre-pandemic, they were probably on track to ramp up hiring and supply chain to accommodate them but now they have to proportion out scarce resource to fill the demand of three contracts
 
CRRC is fulfilling the CTA contract out of another factory in Illinois. They're probably having the same problems the Springfield factory is having though.
 
No real specifics on the situation in Chicago, but their roll-out also appears to be going slower than anticipated. Some detailed conversation about which lines new cars are assigned to (and speculation about manufacturing) here: https://chitransit.org/topic/4316-7000-series-delivery/page/32/#comments

FWIW, the new CTA trains are getting a lot less press (positive and negative) than the CRRC cars in Boston. Most of that likely boils down the CTA doing more frequent car procurements, so they're not dealing with the same rust buckets that the MBTA is and therefore there's less pressure to replace the aging fleet ASAP.
 
From what I've been reading as of late, there are more car shells here for Boston than was previously thought. Supposedly, just about all of them are here for the Orange Line & are being stored at the Springfield plant. Several more Red Line shells are there as well. CRRC has also started making railcars for Lax so that they can start testing them on the tracks. I think that they should concentrate on assembling the ones for Boston first. We were the first ones to order, so why can't they get them done, instead of ridiculously putting us on the back burner for so many damn times?!!


www.boston.com

More new T cars? Not so fast. New Red, Orange Line trains face more delays.

New Orange Line cars are now delayed to next summer, while Red Line cars may not be ready until the summer of 2025. Read more on Boston.com.
www.boston.com


:eek: :unsure:
 
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