China to build rail cars for US
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 23, 2014
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Chinese rail company China CNR wins a Massachusetts state contract on Oct. 22, 2014 to build 284 subway cars for the Boston subway. [China.org.cn] |
CNR MA intends to build a new manufacturing facility for final assembly of the Red and Orange Line Vehicles in Springfield, which will serve as CNR MA's U.S. headquarters. The facility will include over 150,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space will also feature a dynamic test track that will allow CNR MA to test the vehicles prior to shipping them to the MBTA.
CNR MA plans to invest US$60 million of its own resources into the facility. It estimates the new facility will create more than 150 new manufacturing jobs and 100 new construction jobs. The contract calls for at least 60 percent of the work to take place in the U.S. and for the company to offer Massachusetts workers salary and benefits comparable to those of similar jobs in the region. Construction of the new plant is expected to begin in the fall of 2015.
The total project budget is approximately US$1.3 billion, including the funds necessary to expand and improve the MBTA's rail car maintenance and storage facilities in Medford and Boston.
The MBTA's Request for Proposals was released a year ago, and six companies submitted proposals. Of the six proposals, four met the minimum requirements and were rated according to criteria ranging from technical and manufacturing experience, past performance, quality assurance, and price. CNR MA did its research and followed Boston potential bidding for five years, trying to enter the market. The company staff studied the public's demands, kept up with technologies, regulations and laws, evaluated the business risks and finally submitted the lowest bid of US$556.6 million.
China CNR Corporation now has a presence in markets on six continents. The company has gone from producing low-and mid-class equipment in developing countries to producing a full range of equipment and rail cars in developed countries.
The Boston deal is not the only big win for CNR. On October 17, the BBC Consortium (a group which brings together two Thai rail companies and the state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation) and CNR Changchun Vehicle Company formally signed a 115-meter gauge railway passenger carriages project contract with Thailand's national railway company, State Railway of Thailand, in Bangkok. This is the largest contract for railway passenger cars that Thailand's national railway company has ever signed, worth 4.6 billion baht (US$142.3 million), the Bangkok Post reported.
According to the world famous German consulting firm SCI Verkehr, the United States is the second-largest railway market in the world, second only to China, which means it has strong demands for transit cars. Boston, which has one of the oldest subway systems in the world (it was built in 1897), is likely the first stop for the Chinese company while New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia also have plans to upgrade their urban mass transit vehicles.
Separately, a CNR subsidiary, Tangshan Railway, and a U.S. company, SunGroup USA, have officially expressed their interest in supplying trains to California's US$68 billion high-speed rail project.
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