Despite delays, frustrations, Springfield-based CRRC promises faster pace on new MBTA subway cars

By Jim Kinney, MassLive.com

The MBTA now has 60 Orange Line subway cars delivered from the CRRC factory in Springfield.

A six-car Red Line train built in Springfield was introduced into passenger service at the end of December 2021, said T spokesman Joe Pesaturo. Two new Red Line cars were expected in January 2022.

That’s progress, but far from where the Chinese-owned CRRC and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority expected to be by this time.

In 2014, CRRC received a $566 million contract from the MBTA to build 152 Orange Line cars and 252 Red Line cars in Springfield. In 2016, the state upped the order with another 120 Red Line cars, with production on those set to begin in June 2022 at a cost of $277 million.

The T had said that it expected the Red Line cars to be completed and delivered by 2024. The Orange Line project was expected to be done in 2022.

“We are definitely working on the schedule,” said Billy Jim, CRRC’s project manager. “As you may know the COVID situation is coming around and we are putting our employee safety as the highest priority.”

Besides the pandemic, CRRC has faced a succession of other frustrations, from design flaws, difficulty getting and training a workforce, harsh Trump-era trade policies against China that have not abated under President Joe Biden, and Washington’s animosity toward having a Chinese government-owned enterprise manufacturing transit and rail equipment for the United States market.

In Boston, a key issue is the continuing fallout from the March 2021 derailment of a new Springfield-built Orange Line car in Boston.

The MBTA said in June that a switch in the tracks where the subway car derailed likely contributed. But also the Springfield-built car had problems with its undercarriage. The more it and cars like it travel, the harder it becomes to turn the assembly that attaches the wheels to the rest of the car, an assembly called the bogie or the truck.

In an email, Pesaturo said the MBTA is in the final phase of qualifying a new side bearer pad, a part of that undercarriage identified as the problem. Once the process is completed, all the trains will be outfitted with the new part.

CRRC’s Jim said the company is working closely with the T.

“We are confident that we are going to be able to return to service and optimize the performance,” he said in a phone interview. “We are working closely with the MBTA to support the whole project.”

Jim said CRRC is also working through difficulties getting its materials, including those sourced here in the United States. It’s a problem made worse by the omicron wave of COVID.

“As we were on the right path toward stabilization of productivity, we took steps backward,” he said.

But CRRC is adopting new Lean manufacturing techniques, a worldwide system of waste reduction and efficiency developed from Toyota’s principles.

CRRC has 403 employees in Massachusetts. The factory in Springfield employs 332, including 239 union production employees. The company continues to prioritize training and development of its workforce, spokeswoman Lydia Rivera said.

It has hired 24 staff members since November, including two electrical and 12 mechanical assemblers in Springfield. It plans to hire as many as 25 new assemblers in the coming months, bringing the production workforce as high as 263.

Jobs were the priority in 2014 when the administration of Gov. Deval Patrick went without federal funding on the Red and Orange Line projects. That allowed the state to require that the cars be at least assembled in Massachusetts.

The goal was also to reestablish a passenger rail car industry here in Massachusetts.

Springfield’s Wason Manufacturing, which was one of the largest makers of railroad cars and locomotives in the country, operated here from 1845 until the Great Depression. The Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum has a Wason trolley car.

CRRC was one of the bidders that identified Springfield as a site, eventually building a $95 million factory on a former Westinghouse parcel in East Springfield cleared for a casino development project that never happened.

In June 2021, CRRC moved in to a new, 42,000-square-foot warehouse on the site filled with at least a month’s worth of materials for the running projects.

CRRC also signed deals with transit agencies in Philadelphia and Los Angeles to manufacture passenger cars in Springfield.

The Los Angeles Metro ordered 64 subway cars at a cost of $230 million.

In 2017, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, SEPTA, ordered 45 double-decker rail cars — 11 cab cars and 34 trailer cars — at a cost of $137.5 million. Today, the cost is up slightly to $138 million.

Both projects are in the testing and design stages, CRRC said. Parts for the first of the LA order, which consists of many models, are due to arrive here in the middle of 2022. Other cars for the order are being tested both here and in China.

For the Philadelphia order, the pilot cars are at the final assembly and inspection phase in China. Despite the pandemic and resultant increase in material costs and time for executing the project, CRRC plans deliver the cars in the middle of 2022.

Once the pilot cars are delivered and tested in Philadelphia, the mass production of the cars will last for a year and a half in Springfield.

“The new Multi- Level Cars will remind passengers of classic Keystone designs from previous generations and, meanwhile be equipped with modernized devices to facilitate currently available networks to support communications,” Rivera said. “Subject to the limited space envelope requirements that consider usage on Amtrak track in addition to SEPTA’s lines, the new multi- level cars will still maintain high comfort and safety levels to please local ridership and Pennsylvania authorities. ... Current technology, including remote video and virtual inspections are also used to carefully monitor the manufacturing process to ensure quality and conformance.”

CRRC is also still dealing with trade disputes. The Trump administration slapped 25% tariffs on rail cars and parts.

“While in 2018, CRRC MA submitted an exclusion request to (the United States Trade Representative) citing various reasons why as a U.S. rail car manufacturer (we) should not be deprived from competing in a fair and open market — we were ignored and not heard,” Rivera wrote. “We continue with the support of our D.C. lobbying team to explore all the options to address the tariffs and legislative issues.”

Fears the Chinese government is seeking to create a monopoly in the worldwide transit car industry — or that the government might use the cars to spy on Americans or threaten national security — led some lawmakers to call for a ban on the use of federal money to pay for rail and subway cars built by Chinese manufacturers.

In 2019 CRRC received a two-year grace period allowing it to bid for any transit contract other than the Washington Metro. That grace period has expired, and CRRC has signed up no new customers.

Rivera said transit ridership fell by about 30% nationwide during the pandemic, hurting demand for new transit vehicles.

“Again, due to COVID procurements throughout the country have been delayed and put off. It is not clear when this situation will change,” she said. “CRRC MA is prepared to pursue rail car procurement opportunities as they become available.”

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