Under scrutiny from MBTA, CRRC tries to get back on track

“Our vision for 2023 is to continue to: improve our planning, communication, and performance; further develop our workforce; bid and win additional transit contracts; and work with our transit partners to ensure the introduction of modern transit vehicles to the riding public.”

Delays, quality issues put future of plant in question

By JIM K INNEy jkinney@repub.com

Unless there are major changes, about the best anyone can expect from CRRC MA and its massive rail car factory in Springfield is four new cars a month.

That’s about half the production CRRC promised when it first got the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority contract in 2014. That contract is now 17 months to two years behind schedule. And the Springfield plant has not yet restarted shipping new cars to the T after a series of delays and quality control issues are now coming to a head.

Gov. Maura T. Healey, under pressure to fix troubles at the beleaguered T, and the MBTA have hired an independent team to evaluate and possibly improve CRRC’s operations.

Neal

CONTINUES FROM PAGE J4 provide more electric vehicle charging stations, update our airports and, of course, modernize our eastwest rail system across the commonwealth. Because of this legislation, we have the money, the support, and I have secured the commitment from the incoming Healey-Driscoll administration to keep this train literally and metaphorically moving forward.

This is an opportunity that will not avail itself again, and now is the time to move on an east-west rail project that will be transformative for all of Massachusetts. I remain committed to working together as elected leaders, an engaged business community and an involved public. Together, we can create the transportation system that our entire state needs for its economy and people to thrive.

As I reflect on these achievements and look ahead to 2023, I am optimistic for what we can achieve in the 118th session. Thank you for your continued support. It is an honor to represent the people of western and central Massachusetts in the United States Congress.

Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, is the congressman from the 1st Congressional District of Massachusetts and chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. You can learn more about the congressman and his work online at neal. house.gov. His district office in Springfield is located at 300 State St., Suite 200, 413785-0325.

But CRRC, the largest railcar maker in the world and an enterprise of the Chinese government, says it’s confident it can get production in Springfield back on track.

“Our vision for 2023 is to continue to: improve our planning, communication, and performance; further develop our workforce; bid and win additional transit contracts; and work with our transit partners to ensure the introduction of modern transit vehicles to the riding public,” said spokeswoman Lydia Rivera.

In 2014, CRRC received a $566 million contract from the MBTA to build the cars for the Orange and Red lines. In December 2016, the MBTA upped the order, requesting another 120 new Red Line cars, with production then set to begin in June 2022 at a cost of $277 million.

The state went without federal aid in that deal so it could mandate that the cars be assembled here in Massachusetts. The idea was to create an industry here that would outlive the contract.

It’s a revived, not a new, industry. Wason Manufacturing Co., which was one of the largest makers of railroad cars and locomotives in the country, operated here from 1845 to the Great Depression. The Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum has a Wason trolley car.

For CRRC, 78 Orange Line cars have been delivered to Wellington Yard car house, according to a report T management gave its board of directors last month.

All 152 Orange Line car shells have been produced. Seventy-eight are at the MBTA’s Wellington car house, 48 are in the production line in Springfield and 26 are being stored waiting to enter the production line in Springfield.

Twelve Red Line cars are on site at Cabot car house, six are in production in Springfield, 14 are being stored in Springfield waiting to enter the production line, and 12 are in Changchun, awaiting shipment to Springfield. Two hundred and eight remain to be fabricated in China.

The T said CRRC stopped Red Line car shell production in November 2022 due to a surplus of 40 car shells currently stored in Springfield — 26 Orange and 14 Red waiting to enter production. But the T has asked that CRRC work on both types of cars concurrently.

Also, CRRC said projects for the Los Angeles Metro and the Philadelphia-area’s SEPTA are proceeding with shells for those cars on the way. CRRC in Massachusetts has a current workforce of more than 397 employees.

The manufacturing facility in Springfield employs 348 employees, including 241 union

LYDIA RIVERA, SPOKESWOMAN

production employees made up of Sheet Metal Workers Local 63 and Electrical Workers Local 7. Of these 241, 158 of these employees live in the city of Springfield, with 90% of the staff living in Greater Springfield.

Rivera said the company has been hamstrung by tariffs, import duties imposed after CRRC signed its contracts have cost it $18 million on the MBTA work and are expected to cost CRRC $44 million in total on the T, SEPTA and the Los Angeles work.

Rivera also spoke of CRRC’s new training initiatives and a program of quality control audits that began in January.

The $80 million CRRC factory in East Springfield has a larger problem. CRRC hasn’t booked any jobs after the T, SEPTA and Los Angeles.

Federal law bars transit agencies from using federal money to buy from CRRC unless they have already established a relationship, said Erik Olson, executive director of the Rail Security Alliance. And with customers unhappy, they likely won’t line up to do more business. Even Los Angeles is rebidding part of its contract with CRRC.

That means the plant might sit empty. “I don’t know what it means for the future,” Olson, who lobbied in favor of the ban, said. “Our purpose is to raise these issues.”

But there are other international players looking for factories. And Springfield is well positioned. Another operator, such as Siemens, Huyndai, Kawasaki, or Alsom, could take over.

“That would be great,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s in the cards.”

Rail

CONTINUES FROM PAGE J4 will be built in Grafton that will improve the efficiency and capacity of freight interchange with Grafton & Upton Railroad while also minimizing the freight impacts to passenger operations.

The application is noteworthy especially because of CSX’s cooperation. CSX, notoriously unwilling to allow passenger expansion on its freight lines, agreed under pressure as it sought federal permission to merge with Pan Am Southern. The Pan Am Southern deal was approved in April.

In June, the state transportation agency received $1.75 million from that same CRISI program for track improvements near Springfield’s Union Station. The state has already purchased property near the station to add more track for train storage.

In October, the state announced that Amtrak’s Valley Flyer, a north-south train from Springfield to Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield, would be a permanent service.

The train began in 2019 as a pilot project.

The Valley Flyer, which primarily serves passengers traveling from Western Massachusetts to New York City , is on track to provide 24,000 annual trips for fiscal year 2023, Amtrak said.

Springfield Union Station saw 1 million passengers in the second half of 2022, said Nicole Sweeney of Appleton Corp., property manager at Union.

The bulk — 84% — of those passengers were Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus riders. Amtrak saw 70,573 riders in that time period and CTrail 10,845 riders from Union Station for its Hartford Line service.

Passenger volumes vary, but overall among all carriers there were 1,000 more people in Union Station in December 2022 compared with pre-pandemic 2019. But Sweeney said much of that volume might have been driven by a fare-free period of PVTA and the state’s other regional transit bus lines.