Passenger Trains > MBTA recommends subway car contract with Chinese firm

http://progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/news/MBTA-recommends-subway-car-contract-with-Chinese-firm--42336

Thank you for supporting North American businesses.

Interesting general background information on the global transit railcar industry:

http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/GlobalCompetitiveness-Rail.pdf

The cost of labor is getting too expensive in China.

In our "race to the bottom", why don't we have the cars built in Bangladesh by child laborers?

We could save a few more bucks.

And that's all that matters, right?

"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." -- Vladimir Lenin

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> The cost of labor is getting too expensive in
> China.
>
> In our "race to the bottom", why don't we have the
> cars built in Bangladesh by child laborers?
>
> We could save a few more bucks.
>
> And that's all that matters, right?
>
> "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which
> we will hang them." -- Vladimir Lenin

At least we sold them the tractors they used to starve the Ukrainian and Russian peasants in the Great Famine.

By many reports, about ten million peasants died or were killed by Lenin's successor in one of the many failed agricultural initiatives. The civilian death counts rivaled those of the Great Patriotic War in the next decade.

I suggest they check with New Zealand and Argentina as to the quality of Chinese trains. Of course in the latter case some bakeesh changed hands in the transaction.

Despicable decision by the liberals who run Massachusetts--what ever happened to "Buy American"?

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

There is no American to buy. If a Chinese Co. wins the bid, they will have to open a US assembly plant and, just like all the others, buy enough made in USA components to meet Federal standards. I hope Siemens get the contract so they will be built in California with solar power.

livesteamer Wrote:
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> Despicable decision by the liberals who run
> Massachusetts--what ever happened to "Buy
> American"?


Name one American subway car manufacturer. Get really tired of having to say that...

Additionally, the level of procurement will be met as they will be produced in Springfield, MA at an abandoned manufacturing plant. It has been dormant for many years. This is no different than any other passenger car purchase or production in the past.. 30+ years?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/14 10:28 by tmurray.

tmurray Wrote:
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> Additionally, the level of procurement will be met
> as they will be produced in Springfield, MA at an
> abandoned manufacturing plant. It has been dormant
> for many years. This is no different than any
> other passenger car purchase or production in the
> past.. 30+ years?

The report I provided a link to in my post above is quite clear about this: when you have one of the lowest rates of investment in rail public transport in the industrial world, you may get some short-term low-level assembly jobs with these contracts, but the real high-value stuff is all done elsewhere.

Ray

tmurray Wrote:
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> livesteamer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Despicable decision by the liberals who run
> > Massachusetts--what ever happened to "Buy
> > American"?
>
>
> Name one American subway car manufacturer. Get
> really tired of having to say that...

The reason was quite apparent when I worked on the Mexico Buenavista - Huehuetoca commuter rail startup in Mexico. Railroads in Mexico and in Canada are AAR members. Standards look like AAR/FRA standards. There is no market for cars built to AAR/FRA standards anywhere outside of North America. Potential bidders showed up with their catalog of standard off-the-shelf vehicles that they sell all over the world except North America. Several manufacturers have no problem keeping busy with orders for thousands of vehicles. They objected to having to design a new vehicle from scratch for the relatively small Mexican order and objected to Bombardier being the only qualified vendor as a result because they couldn't match Bombardier's off-the-shelf price with their custom-build short-run offering. Ultimately, Mexico changed the infrastructure design we developed (which allowed shared operation of freight and passenger) and allowed UIC (European) standard cars, which caused CAF to be the winning bidder.

There is precious little business for passenger vehicles built to North American standards. Bombardier (and they're uh...Canadian) was the only manufacturer to show up with ready to go North American vehicles (easy to figure out since they are the only rail passenger vehicle manufacturer in North America). What few orders are placed for North American passenger vehicles are still generally not standard. Many agencies have their own favorite. Try selling agency A's design to Agency B. Bombardier pulls it off with new starts, but notice that big, established markets (e.g., Metra and MBTA) don't have any of their off-the-shelf cars. Boston, Chicago, and New York have their unique subway cars. That's a perfect market for guerrilla car manufacturing by vendors who have established facilities and a big market somewhere else.

There is a big market for North American freight cars. They are generally standardized and there is demand for a lot of them. That makes North American manufacturing companies worthwhile. As a result, there are several freight car manufacturers in the US.

With no similar market for North American passenger equipment, there is not enough business to keep the doors of a US passenger car manufacturer open and the lights on (e.g., Budd and Pullman-Standard). That's why established manufacturers do guerrilla passenger car construction in the US. They make most of the vehicles in their established factories in other countries and ship the kits to the US for assembly (calling it construction), just squeaking into the definition of made in America.

TAW

If they turned down the low bid Chinese contractor, they'd blame MBTA of wasting public funds for a domestic sweetheart deal.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> If they turned down the low bid Chinese
> contractor, they'd blame MBTA of wasting public
> funds for a domestic sweetheart deal.


Yup.
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3557338


And on a humorous note, the Via Renaissance cars weren't manufactured in Canada.

wait until the Chinese start building new 1232 compliant oil tank cars.

The current US and Canadian makers are looking at two year back logs. The Chinese (and Koreans, etc) could pump thousands of new cars built to US standards. And torpedo Greenbrier, Trinity, National Steel, etc

livesteamer Wrote:
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> Despicable decision by the liberals who run
> Massachusetts--what ever happened to "Buy
> American"?

Yeah, why didn't they just go to Osgood-Bradley right here in Worcester for the new cars? Oh, right, the free market spoke about sixty years ago and, poof, no more domestically-owned passenger car builders....but at least the cars will be assembled by Americans in Springfield.

Dave

livesteamer Wrote:
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-what ever happened to "Buy American"?

Do some research about a firm in your state, the St. Louis Car Company, which was once the one of the largest producers of rail transit vehicles in the country.