Passenger Trains > Nippon Sharyo Pulling out of US market

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=13pxhttp://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201808080007.htmlNAGOYA--Nippon Sharyo Ltd., a rolling stock manufacturer, will exit the U.S. market after six years of failure, hardships and losses.The subsidiary of Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) will close its only U.S. plant in Rochelle, Illinois, at the end of August, the Nagoya-based company said July 24.The plant opened in July 2012 with initial plans to manufacture 198 double-decker passenger train cars and diesel engines for U.S. and Canadian railway operators.

Article from Railjournal.com:

Nippon Sharyo to close US plant
Railjournal.com
Written by  Keith Barrow
August 10, 2018

Nippon Sharyo to close US plant

NIPPON Sharyo announced on July 24 that its US subsidiary will close its rolling stock assembly plant in Rochelle, Illinois, at the end of this month due to a lack of orders.

The plant opened in July 2012 and initially supplied 160 double-deck EMU cars for Chicago commuter rail operator Metra. The facility also assembled DMUs for Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit in California and Metrolinx in Toronto, as well as double-deck coaches for Virginia Rail Express.

In September 2012 Sumitomo Corporation of North America won a $US 371m contract to supply 120 double-deck inter-city coaches to California and Illinois. These coaches were due to be assembled at Rochelle for delivery between the end of 2015 and early 2018. However, in 2015 a prototype bodyshell failed a mandatory crash safety test and in November 2017 California Department of Transportation confirmed Sumitomo would instead work with Siemens to deliver the fleets.

No production has taken place at Rochelle since October 2017, although staff have remained on the payroll. The 230,000 sq meter site had capacity to assemble 120 double-deck coaches a year, but has built just 220 vehicles during its six-year existence.

Nippon Sharyo says it now plans to sell the plant to a third party.

What a loser outfit. Fail!

Posted from Android

Somewhere in the TO archives there's an extended discussion about the failed 'crush' test, including the history of the test and how this may have been an unexpected requirement. Apparently they almost passed it, but not one of those places where 'almost' made any difference.

The cab car missed by 2,000 pounds.
If you underpay your credit card balance by $0.01, you still get a finance charge.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/18 06:08 by joemvcnj.

And it is insanely dumb for CALTRAINS to go with new single-level cars after building their fleet to double-deck standards and passenger expectations.  

 

coach Wrote:
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> And it is insanely dumb for CALTRAINS to go with
> new single-level cars after building their fleet
> to double-deck standards and passenger
> expectations.  

And it is insanely dumb for you to bring this argument up since it has already be discussed to death.

Short answer: THERE IS NO US MANUFACTURE of double deck cars at this time.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,4413463,4413463#msg-4413463
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,4369071,4369071#msg-4369071
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,4512822,4512822#msg-4512822
 

Actually, non-center-silled double deck cars. 
We can build center-silled commuter cars that are Gallery or bi-level.
 

Of course, Superliners may be available for corridor services under some scenarios of the Anderson restructuring concept.

stash Wrote:
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> What a loser outfit. Fail!

LOL! Which one is the loser, Sumitomo, Nippon Sharyo, or the country that initiated the deal? You aren't using plural ("outfit") so I have to ask. Funny how Bombardier (too-wide Acela train set, BART's new cars) and Rotem seem to have "problems" with manufacturing train sets here in the U.S. Nippon Sharyo won't be the last loser outfit, if you see the big picture.

Those who've been watching how we do diplomacy and global trade deals will see numerous issues mentioned between the lines in the Ashai.com article link posted by the OP, but I don't expect anyone here to comprehend it - TO's brain fail won't suddenly fix itself.

I've been watching this development for many months, and hinted in various threads about their future, and if people were paying attention, I was foretelling this official announcement. I'm surprised SMART (and Toronto) didn't plan on ordering additional train sets, but I was told (by a few sources) that Nippon Sharyo already told SMART they were shutting down... and that was last year as in 12 months ago. 
 

Building railroad cars shouldn't be so difficult. In fact there are companies that build them every day. If Nippon cannot do it then why not another firm? Must be a corrupt system and somebody's not getting paid. Building the equipment cannot be impossible.

Posted from Android

What amazes me is why N-S decided to "re-invent the wheel" in designing their double deck car. Blueprints and many examples of these cars are already in hand from several manufacturers, and N-S had built the CalTrain cars some years back, Granted, those commute cars aren't low entry level, but frame strength is hardly an unknown!

I think their weight limit in the specs was difficult given the buff strength requirements. 

They should've learned from Budd, they built the toughest passenger cars in town!

Posted from Android

Budd's legacy designs wouldn't hold up to these crush specs.

The US doesn't have any passenger railcar maufacturers, and it's goin got be more difficult to find anyone to commit.
All those who build for Amtrak, or just about any state agency, have gone bust in the market, or have lost money on the deal. Now we have difficulty in trade; wonderful.

For the T, we had Breda, then Rotem; SEPTA, also Rotem, MARC and NJT, keep ordering different spec cars, Bombardier, Kawasaki. How about Talgo?...well.  CAF..?  They have a large order of heavy rail cars outstanding. Budd and P-S are long gone (lack of orders), Alstom was a mess with the CalCar order initially, but that got hammered out.

Nippon-Sharyo cars are in service by the dozen, in this country, every day.  MARC's single level fleet, VRE an dCalTrains bi-levels, SMART DMU's, how many cars are left on the CSS? MBTA type-7 cars, CDOT(formerly VRE) single level cars, they're all out there.
Kawasaki is still seemingly interested, but it's always a mess with the US specs for cars. 

The Siemens single-level Viggio US variant, seems to work, but this is early in the game. Time will tell.


ProAmtrak Wrote:
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> They should've learned from Budd, they built the
> toughest passenger cars in town!
>
> Posted from Android

Yeah I know it's sad, but still, Budd, ACF and Pullman made great passenger cars when they were in existence!

could it be the new standards arn't attainable, in computer simulations, thAT'S WHY THEY QUIT?

ProAmtrak Wrote:
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> They should've learned from Budd, they built the
> toughest passenger cars in town!

There's another outfit competing with Nippon Sharyo in Japan, who BOUGHT the license from Budd in the 1960s, for manufacturing stainless steel rail cars, and their business is doing very well (significantly larger marketshare) compared to N-S. Don't expect them to bid on any U.S. projects - why mess with success?