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State to likely go with cheapest bidder to replace Orange, Red Line trains
By adamg on Tue, 10/21/2014 - 5:23pm
Chart by state transportation staff.
State officials are leaning towards a company owned by the Chinese government to replace aging subway cars with new cars to be assembled in Springfield that will feature wider doors, the ability to carry 15 additional passengers, computerized and LED station announcements and a dramatic jump in reliability, although with the possible loss of fake wood-grain paneling.
Gov. Patrick and Transportation Secretary Richard Davey willl formally ask the MassDOT board tomorrow to approve the $567-million contract - almost half the price proposed by Canadian company Bombardier.
If MassDOT signs off, CNR MA - a joint venture of China CNR Corp. Ltd. and CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd. - will build a 150,000-square-foot facility in Springfield to assemble the vehicles out of parts shipped over from China.
The plant will put together 152 new cars for the Orange Line and 132 for the Red Line - with an option for 58 more Red Line cars. Construction of the plant would begin next year, with the first small batch of cars expected to roll off the assembly line in winter, 2018 for the Orange Line and fall, 2019 for the Red Line. After deliveries of four cars a month, the T would have all the new cars by spring, 2021.
The state itself will invest several hundred million dollars in expanding and updating Orange and Red Line yards and repair facilities in Medford and South Boston. The new cars and the yard work will be paid for through state bonds approved by the legislature last year.
The MBTA contract would be the company's first in North America, but in a report to the MassDOT board, MBTA planners said that won't cause the sorts of problems the T has had in the past with similar contracts for the Green Line:
China CNR Corporation Limited is the largest rail car manufacturer in the world, with a production capacity of 1,000 high speed trains, 1,200 mass transit vehicles and 500 railway vehicles. CNR’s facility in Changchun, China covers 53 million square feet and is one of the largest transit vehicle facilities in the world. CNR has indicated that two manufacturing lines at the Changchun facility will be dedicated to the MBTA Orange and Red Line project. The Changchun facility also features four test tracks for mass transit vehicles, with additional test tracks for high speed rail.
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 State evaluation of the CNR bid | 257.97 KB |
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Comments
There's no possible way this
There's no possible way this could end badly, said absolutely nobody.
Ligthen Up Scratchie
Oh wait. You are 100% correct.
Unions
keep them as far away from any project if you want it to be successful...
- The Original SoBo Yuppie
...what?
Yeah, because the furthest thing away from organized labor is a workforce organized under Communism.
(I'd keep going here, but I can't actually tell if you're you're taking an ironic shot at UHub's "we'll take any chance we get to make inane anti-labor comments" tendency, or if you are actually so face-meltingly stupid as to imply that using unionized American workers is a worse idea than giving the project to the lowest bidder, who comes from a country with no minimum wage or worker-safety laws, state-organized labor pools, and a rich and storied history of fucking over the Commonwealth on these kind of contracts. I'll come back after another cup of coffee.)
I'd make a joke about a
I'd make a joke about a Southie newcomer, self describing as a yuppie, not understanding the working class, but I'm not really needed. The joke makes itself.
Working Class?
I work and have class.
I totally understand!
- The Original SoBo Yuppie
Muffy shouldn't you be
picking up your yoga pants at the dry cleaners?
A $1b-plus contract
For a critical infrastructure purchase, orchestrated by a hugely competent lame-duck Governor, who's given us a failed health care web site at roughly the same cost...
Yeah, this should work out just fine....
And for all you folks who voted for this most compassionate of governors, what do you think working conditions are like where the actual fabrication of these things takes place?
Where was the computer you
Where was the computer you typed this on made?
It's probably an Apple. Those
It's probably an Apple. Those are made somewhere in Brooklyn, right? With components that were ethically killed and free range I'll bet.
To be fair, some Macs are assembled in the US
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-18/apple-s-cook-kicks-off-made-in-...
I love the look of the cars on their website...
...they look like coal cars...wait, they ARE coal cars...no wonder they can get 15 extra people on em
Yeah, that top picture is a freight train
You have to click on the links in the list below that to see the subway trains.
Making a funny
/u/teric was. Literally.
"The MBTA contract would be
"The MBTA contract would be the company's first in North America, "
WHAT COULD GO WRONG????
Seriously. I mean, why would
Seriously. I mean, why would we, a country not known for making trains, want trains from them, a country known for some of the most advanced trains in the world! We're special snowflakes!
Well...they aren't putting
Well...they aren't putting the pieces together. We are (or Springfield is).
So we better be some pretty fucking special snowflakes - if this goes sour, it'll probably go sour on our soil.
I can't think of any time that's happened before...
...oh
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/01/29/problems-plague-new-hyundai-...
Reputable manufacturer is screwed up by assembling stuff in the US? The order hasn't even been completed and they are starting the exact same debacle. And CNR doesn't have SEPTA to screw up even worse with on the trial run.
Are there 50+ year old models
Are there 50+ year old models they built rolling around we could look at to judge durability?
Because everything on their website looks recent.
There are actually
CNR will produce these at Changchun, which has been manufacturing rolling stock since the mid 50's. Here's a photo of a DK2 from the Beijing Subway (https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwdemery/5025598754/) Pic is in 1983, but the DK2 model comes from the sixties. Apparently a derivative model (or maybe a refurbished old model, idk for sure) lasted more 30+ yrs.
Combine Chinese quality with
Combine Chinese quality with Massachusetts efficiency and we're sure to get our $567 million worth.
Chinese quality? Who made
Chinese quality? Who made your TV, phone, computer, and other high end electronics?
Japan
And South Korea.
Better check that label again
Better check that label again.
Japan
... South Korea, and Singapore.
Might as well complain about
Might as well complain about Springfield since unless they are specific products assembled in China, they are not chinese designed
They could get the rail gauge
They could get the rail gauge wrong like Breda did, for starters.
Did the T provide them with the proper track info?
.
I never heard that Breda got
I never heard that Breda got the gauge wrong.
I heard that a requirement for an articulated low-floor design small enough to fit in our tunnels led to a 3-section design with not enough weight in the middle, which is what caused the derailments.
It wasn't Breda
It was the first Kawasaki double decker commuter rail coaches that had the wheel gauge slightly too wide (as opposed to wrong). But that was corrected on subsequent production coaches before they left the plant.
I'm confused
The T went with the lowest bidder, which also happened to be the most qualified (by their report, and the qualifications in a bidding process are evaluated before the prices). In fact, the price came in 30% less than they had expected, allowing them to exercise the option to replace the only-27-year-old Red Line equipment. If the T had chosen anyone else, everyone would be screaming about how they chose a less qualified, more expensive option. So now we nitpick and say "well, it's the first US contact."
Could it go awry? Absolutely. By requiring assembly in Massachusetts, the state is hamstringing itself in to a scenario where qualified companies with stateside production (such as Siemens, which built the Blue Line cars, and Kinki Sharyo, which built the Type 7 Green Line cars, both of which perform well) didn't bid because they didn't want to have to build a new factory stateside. The only bidder who has previously built MBTA rolling stock is Bombardier, which built the newer Red Line cars, but their bid was rated lower and the cost came in nearly twice as high.
Having required assembly in the Commonwealth, the state has pretty clearly made the right choice here. The potential downside is pretty big: that you'll get crappy equipment (although still probably an improvement over the 30- to 45-year-old rolling stock being replaced). The potential upside: you get decent equipment for quite a bit less money than you'd planned (the T penciled in $800m, so this is a 30% discount).
The other potential upside is that if CNR builds a plant in Springfield, they might build other equipment there for other transit agencies. A Siemens or Bombardier or someone with stateside facilities already would likely build a pop-up assembly plant and then leave town. If CNR can deliver a decent product and acquire another contract, it might mean longer term manufacturing jobs in Springfield, which could use them.
Would it be nice to have a US-based manufacturer for rail cars? Sure. But we don't. The highway lobby helped to drive them all out of business decades ago. So now we have foreign firms assembling the cars on US soil.
Basically, there's a reasonable chance that we'll have crappy new equipment in 10 years. But there's also a chance we'll get something decent, at a good price. But, in the long run, if the government makes a good decision we won't hear about it. It wouldn't give the commenteriat something to bitch about.
I don't know if CNR is better
I don't know if CNR is better quality than Bombardier movias (certainly cheaper by a long-shot), but I've heard no bad reports of any of other CNR projects. It's better than Breda, then again a blind cow pulling a cart with square wheels would be better than a Breda.
I think we can agree - the plan succeeds or fails in Springfield. Rotem had a horrendous time controlling their plant in Philly, let's hope CNR learns from that lesson. I'm not as hyped on the "buy Mass" program - particularly considering firms like Bombardier have facilities in Plattsburgh, Kanona, and Alstom somewhere in upstate NY - so production is MA is a needless expense for them. However with CNR it's different and if Springfield pulls it off, it would an excellent jumping off point for CNR to expand. The Connecticut River Valley is also home to one of the US' densest concentrations of high-skilled machinery manufacturing so there's certainly the glimmer of hope in this succeeding.
By far the biggest market for
By far the biggest market for passenger railcars in the U.S. is the NYC area. And NYS already requires in-state assembly for their contracts, so a Massachusetts factory wouldn't get any of that business.
Buy America Act
While most assembly will be in China, the bodies will be shipped here and must have final assembly done int he USA with US Labor as a matter of the "Buy America" Act. The fact that MA added a requirement that they be done here is just that - an add on.
This is not new. When the Bombardier bi-level rail coaches were built the final assembly took place in a building just off the NEC in Hyde park next tot eh Westinghouse Building.
The Hyundai-Rotem coaches are being built (to start) in SK with the final assembly being done in PA, then they are rolled up here for final testing and acceptance.
The reason that Motive power is building the new locomotives is that they invoked the Buy America Act. The T had a foreign manufacturer spec'd but they had no plants here. Motive Power, is only one of two I believe in the USA and MP is the only one building passenger locomotives right now.
Am I doing the math right?
$567 million for 184 subway cars is almost 3.1 million apiece. Just on the face of it, that seems like an awful lot, given the amount of materials, technology, and labor I imagine go into a subway car. But then again, I'm pretty ignorant about the amount of engineering involved.
It is for 284 subway cars,
It is for 284 subway cars, 152 Orange Line and 132 Red Line (74 car base order and 58 car option). Note that the MassDOT blog says Red Line is 132 cars plus 58 car option, but the 132 number includes the 58 car option.
You are doing it wrong
For one thing, you lost 100 cars in your addition. Also, I believe you want to use $430.2 million for the numerator, as the remaining amount is for the optional second order of Red Line cars. Therefore: $1.514 million.
On the second question, is that a good price? Depends on how you decided to measure value, but as a comparison, diesel buses cost about $400,000 for off the shelf models. A subway car can hold more than four times the passenger capacity of a bus, so on a per passenger basis, it's a good deal. I'd say that overall, it's a very good deal. If we get the same kind of quality found in their other production runs, this will be a great contract.
10¢ per mile
By the time all is said and done, the current 45-year-old Red Line cars will have run close to 3 million miles. (They've run 2.3 million now, but back in the day the T only ran two-car trains outside of rush hour, so many more sat idle midday and weekends).
The total contract cost is $566 million for 284 cars. That's a capital cost of just about $2 million per car. Let's assume they last 2/3 as long as the current cars and rack up 2 million miles (about 30 years of service). That's a capital cost of $1 per mile. Your car has a capital cost of 10¢ per mile (if you're lucky and get 250,000 miles out of a $25,000 car). But your car usually holds one person and maxes out at five; a Red Line car holds 50-60 seated, and close to 200 at crush capacity. If we assume an average load of 30 to 50 passengers (the packed-to-the-gills rush hours balancing out Sunday mornings) you're looking at a capital cost of 2-3¢ per passenger mile. That's a pretty damn good deal.
How much to set up a shop in Springfield?
$50-100 Million? It needs to be big in area, with many massive overhead cranes and other gear to turn and rotate cars, plus all the regular assembly tools. Add in all the hiring, training, housing of Chinese workers and translators, and its a huge overhead put upon bidders. So, subtract off the cost of the assembly plant and its overhead prior to calculating cost per car.
Do you really want to pay twice as much for Canadian jobs?
Note that none of these bidders are US companies. Bombardier is Canadian, Kawasaki is Japanese, Hyundai is Korean. Getting the "final assembly" in Massachusetts is going to be the best deal at creating home-grown jobs we can get.
China has excellent, incredibly fast, well-built trains that have completely transformed the transportation system in that country. I can't wait to see these new cars replacing the 35 year old Orange Line cars - which, by the way, weren't built in the US either.
Hyundai Rotem
is an immensely accomplished engineering shop, but there inexperience in the American market torched the CR multilevel procurement process. That was a clusterfuck if I've ever seen one; CNR embarking on its first North American project doesn't bode well from prior experience.
Key to success? CNR has to make sure the Springfield plant staffs well trained workers who know how to put together CNR's equipment. The Dirty does this well, I'll vote for them to have as many casinos as they so want, no questions asked.
Parts to be built with "heroic courage"
CNR video.
Fantastic trains, anyway
I don't want them making our movies, but I'd be happy to ride on those trains. I just wish we could take one of those bullet trains to New York. The trip would take about an hour.
The Most Eerily Disturbing Video I've Seen In A Long Time!
Yes, they seem to know how to build rail vehicles (although their styling is still a little funky), but the whole "Communist pride" overtone of the video came across as very creepy to me. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember when things were quite different, but I'm saddened to see that our country has fallen so far behind the rest of the world with rail technology. In a weird way, it also feels like now we're buying subway cars from Wal-Mart.
Well anyway, let's get on with it. Hopefully, the badly needed new trains will arrive soon, and perform well. Michael Jackson was creepy too, but he also had some endearing qualities. He was certainly a renowned performer!
Wait --
Michael Jackson was Chinese? I had no idea!
I have a feeling this will
I have a feeling this will not only go waay over budget, and much like the commuter rail cars become a giant debacle.
Is there any other reason why they wouldn't use say Kawasaki?
They seem to make a really high quality product, I got to experience firsthand with riding the Yamanote Line in Tokyo a lot, and a few trips to Osaka via the Shinkansen, also built by Kawasaki.
Just remember, this is a wonderful country that loves to cut corners with safety and counterfeit anything everything under the sun... ex. the toxic drywall that was causing issues a few years back (and corroding copper piping), melamine in baby formula and dog food.
I wonder what kinda wonderful chemicals will be outgassing from whatever plastic they use on the MBTA trains?
Remember we aren't buying off
Remember we aren't buying off the shelf, Kawasaki would have to design or reformat their heavy rail standard to meet MBTA specs and that's a very costly expense and a potential disaster (re: AnsaldoBreda).
Substandard materials? You got me, I imagine there will be some heavy quality control duties at the Springfield plant.
It looks like there are 340
It looks like there are 340 million reasons why they didn't go with Kawasaki
You fooled me
I thought you were talking about the U.S.
Don't forget the Industrial Revolution...
Slater built his first mill using stolen plans.
I just noticed this
Do you have a car? Like that new-car smell?
Here's a handy top ten / bottom ten list of gassy cars. Yeah, I know outgassing in cars doesn't excuse it in trains, but if you're concerned about one, you might want to think about the other, too.
Wow, when did this become the Herald?
Between this and the recent Olympics article, the comments seem like they could have been lifted directly from there.
More than half, almost twice.
More than half, almost twice.
Yeah, because cheap is working out so well for the new buses
The new buses the MBTA got are awful, and now we can get some matching trains to go with them..
The new buses had problems
The new buses had problems because the T insisted on specially made things instead of just buying proven off the shelf products. In fairness to the T, low floor buses weren't really a common product then. Heavy rail cars though, like what we're buying now, are common, and the T will be buying products more or less off the shelf.
TL;DR: the comparison to the bus issue is apples/oranges.
The Neoplans and NABIs are
The Neoplans and NABIs are crap. Then the T bought some New Flyer buses, which proved to be excellent. Then for once, the T did the right thing and placed an order for more New Flyers, instead of starting from scratch with the lowest bidder.
The Cheapest Is Seldom The Least Expensive
Here we go..
"Chinese manufactured products suxorz!!!!!!
Sent from my iPhone."
Remember when?
Most of you are probably too young to remember when "Japanese-made" was a prescription for cheap, shoddy goods. Then they made Detroit look bad. I think China is now where Japan was in the 1980s, in their relative grasp of quality manufacturing and engineering. Sadly, the U.S. is not even in the picture.
That's probably our best hope
I, for one, do know that there was a time Japanese-made (or Korean or Singapore - basically repeated for every Asian 3rd world that has made the transformation to 1st world) was viewed as crap. Despite being too young to exist in that time.
Which leads to our best hope if we pick CNR. If they are at the verge of making that switch, then we are about get quality for a bargain of a price. But then again, Hyundai was a disaster even though they have proven themselves in the past. So cross your fingers hard.
Certainly
Since we offshored almost all of our manufacturing so we could all be baristas in the Service Economy, it's always a crapshoot whether the foreigners we hire to build stuff are going to deliver on their promises.
IIRC, there were problems with the cars we got from Bombardier, for instance.
Design is not assembly.
Design is not assembly.
The trains in Beijing are pretty sweet
I rode at least one CNR train and it seemed very well built with lot of built-in LCDs and other advanced features. China is spending billions on trains and they are getting very good at it, just like they are on cell phones and other products they make en-masse. Total guess, but I would assume the subway designs in the US are more in line with other country designs, unlike our commuter rail which has a bunch of unusual rules not seen elsewhere. I'm sure some train geek can correct me.
I wonder why Bombadeer came in so high? I assume they didn't want the contract for whatever reason.
Springfield, MA, right?
Not Springfield, AL, AR, OH, IL, TN CA, CO, UT, MN, MI, MS, IN, NH....etc.etc
Can they build a monorail?
In Springfield?
I hear
those things are awfully loud
Not true
Just ask the people in North Haverbrook (where the monorail is king).
good shot in the arm...
...for the local economy...they could run mono-trials at the Big E