#14 Orange Line Cars 1400-1551 (From Red/Orange Procurement discussion)

[MBTA3247]

Would the cost be any lower if they re-bid the contract & dropped the MA assembly plant? Probably no.

It almost certainly would be lower. Even with CNR taking a gamble on getting more orders in the future to cover the full cost of the factory, they are still charging the T millions on this order to cover part of that cost. Eliminate the requirement to assemble the cars in MA, and you completely eliminate the need to pay for a brand new factory. The long term cost of the cars will be lower, too, because they'd be built at an existing factory by experienced workers, not novices.

[Finch]

Would the cost be any lower if they re-bid the contract & dropped the MA assembly plant? Probably no.

It almost certainly would be lower. Even with CNR taking a gamble on getting more orders in the future to cover the full cost of the factory, they are still charging the T millions on this order to cover part of that cost. Eliminate the requirement to assemble the cars in MA, and you completely eliminate the need to pay for a brand new factory. The long term cost of the cars will be lower, too, because they'd be built at an existing factory by experienced workers, not novices.

CNR underbid the more established North American players by hundreds of millions of dollars. Do we know if they even factored in the cost of a new factory at all?

I think it's a bit early to be making predictions about the long term reliability (cost) of the new cars. A new factory may well have quality issues, but over 30 years you are more likely to get into fundamental design weaknesses. Quality issues don't help, but they can often be worked out before the warranty period is up.

[Bramdeisroberts]

Would the cost be any lower if they re-bid the contract & dropped the MA assembly plant? Probably no.

It almost certainly would be lower. Even with CNR taking a gamble on getting more orders in the future to cover the full cost of the factory, they are still charging the T millions on this order to cover part of that cost. Eliminate the requirement to assemble the cars in MA, and you completely eliminate the need to pay for a brand new factory. The long term cost of the cars will be lower, too, because they'd be built at an existing factory by experienced workers, not novices.

From my own work experience bidding on contracts in a totally unrelated industry, etc, there's three ways you do it.

There's the way you bid for a contract when you're desperate for any new business, so you don't just underbid, you lowball so hard they wonder when you'll put down the crack pipe while offering the sun, moon, and everything in between and acting with minimal regard for how you'll actually be able to carry out the contract. It's the "meh, we'll figure everything out once we win" method.

Then there's the way you bid when you're a comfortably established player, with a name, a reputation, and the means to carry out the contract. You submit a strong proposal, with an appropriate pricetag, and you let your reputation do the rest. This is how BBD bid on the 1800s, just as Hawker/UTDC bid in the 80's, as well as how CAF and Siemens bid on their respective recent car deals.

Finally, there's the way you bid when you see the RFP and realize either that the game is stacked against you, or that the client has thoroughly unreasonable expectations of you, or usually both. So you highball, and submit a bid that you almost plan to be non-competitive from the get-go, because you don't really want to win, but you don't want to make it look like you don't care either. If, by chance, the client chooses your bid somehow, you've priced your bid to allow for their unreasonable demands so you'll be able to meet the requirements and still make money doing so.

Rotem played the first gameplan, between the Philly factory, the pricing, etc, and we all saw how that played out for SEPTA and the T. CNR played that game so hard that they made even Rotem look like they didn't care about winning, so we can only speculate on how the CNR bid will pan out. Past experience doesn't leave things looking too promising though.

But I think that it's also equally important to look at how ALL of the "big 4" of Alstom, BBD, Siemens, and Kawasaki choose to bid on the T's RFP. They all pretty clearly submitted those "tell the client to pound sand without being too overt about it" bids, highballing the state on purpose so that if in the unlikely event that they were chosen, they'd have the extra money to deal with the headaches of the state's bid requirements with new factories, etc.

I think that it's very telling how the key bidders chose to deal with the T's requirements in the way that they did, and it speaks volumes about just how ridiculous Deval's bid requirements were, especially for an order that numbers-wise is a drop in the bucket compared to what WMATA/MTA/CTA/TTC/Montreal all order.

[YamaOfParadise]

I guess this is the best place to put this: CRRC is going to break ground on its new factory in Springfield on September 3.

Link: http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/pas ... setts.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MBTA earlier in 2015 awarded a $566.6 million contract to CRRC to design and manufacture 152 new Orange Line vehicles and 132 new Red Line vehicles for Boston’s rail transit system. To assemble the railcars locally, CRRC purchased a 40-acre industrial parcel located on Page Boulevard in Springfield, a former Westinghouse manufacturing center that once also housed the Stevens-Duryea automobile plant.

CRRC’s new plant, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2016, will also have 2,240-linear-foot test track.

[NH2060]

Rendering of a Red Line car. Looks not too far removed from the London Underground S Stock. Looks very sharp!
http://www.boston.com/business/news/201 ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[korax]

And rendering of new orange line cars

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/busin ... ansit.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jwhite07]

Even if they used the same "station", at least they didn't use the same cars with different colors in each rendering.

[pjw1967]

The company from which I retired has a long history of carrying rail equipment by ship. We did most of the shells for the NYC R160 program built by Alstom in Brazil. To brag a little, I personally have been involved in the booking of the first Class 59 EMD's that went to the UK and the King of Morocco's Royal Train. One of the issues that foreign manufacturers conveniently overlook is the requirement to use U.S. flag vessels to carry up to 50% of the cargo if Fed money is involved. The wording in the press release I saw said the factory will assemble the cars, indicating that the shells will likely come from China. I alerted my still-working colleagues to this order. I'd like to be the fly on the wall when the Chinese realize that they didn't budget for the usually higher cost of using American ships instead of their own slave labor fleet.

[houseman86]

The company from which I retired has a long history of carrying rail equipment by ship. We did most of the shells for the NYC R160 program built by Alstom in Brazil. To brag a little, I personally have been involved in the booking of the first Class 59 EMD's that went to the UK and the King of Morocco's Royal Train. One of the issues that foreign manufacturers conveniently overlook is the requirement to use U.S. flag vessels to carry up to 50% of the cargo if Fed money is involved. The wording in the press release I saw said the factory will assemble the cars, indicating that the shells will likely come from China. I alerted my still-working colleagues to this order. I'd like to be the fly on the wall when the Chinese realize that they didn't budget for the usually higher cost of using American ships instead of their own slave labor fleet.

The acquisition of the these does not invole federal money it is being completely paid for by the state of Massachusetts. That is why they are being finished in Springfield it was required that the project be worked on in state

[pjw1967]

The company from which I retired has a long history of carrying rail equipment by ship. We did most of the shells for the NYC R160 program built by Alstom in Brazil. To brag a little, I personally have been involved in the booking of the first Class 59 EMD's that went to the UK and the King of Morocco's Royal Train. One of the issues that foreign manufacturers conveniently overlook is the requirement to use U.S. flag vessels to carry up to 50% of the cargo if Fed money is involved. The wording in the press release I saw said the factory will assemble the cars, indicating that the shells will likely come from China. I alerted my still-working colleagues to this order. I'd like to be the fly on the wall when the Chinese realize that they didn't budget for the usually higher cost of using American ships instead of their own slave labor fleet.

The acquisition of the these does not invole federal money it is being completely paid for by the state of Massachusetts. That is why they are being finished in Springfield it was required that the project be worked on in state

Thanks for the clarification about no fed money.

[Bramdeisroberts]

Rendering of a Red Line car. Looks not too far removed from the London Underground S Stock. Looks very sharp!
http://www.boston.com/business/news/201 ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After spending a great deal of time riding the S-stock, all I'll say is that if the Chinese can even halfway match the technology and the fit and finish of the the S stock, I'll eat my hat.

Personally, they remind me of a less-angular version of the WMATA 7000 series trains that Kawasaki has been building.

[BandA]

The company from which I retired has a long history of carrying rail equipment by ship. We did most of the shells for the NYC R160 program built by Alstom in Brazil. To brag a little, I personally have been involved in the booking of the first Class 59 EMD's that went to the UK and the King of Morocco's Royal Train. One of the issues that foreign manufacturers conveniently overlook is the requirement to use U.S. flag vessels to carry up to 50% of the cargo if Fed money is involved. The wording in the press release I saw said the factory will assemble the cars, indicating that the shells will likely come from China. I alerted my still-working colleagues to this order. I'd like to be the fly on the wall when the Chinese realize that they didn't budget for the usually higher cost of using American ships instead of their own slave labor fleet.

The acquisition of the these does not invole federal money it is being completely paid for by the state of Massachusetts. That is why they are being finished in Springfield it was required that the project be worked on in state

So the shells can be shipped on a Chinese junk, lol.

Isn't fed money usually available for replacement cars?

[Finch]

So the shells can be shipped on a Chinese junk, lol.

Isn't fed money usually available for replacement cars?

Yes, Fed money is usually available. MA elected to procure that cars using 100% state money in order to get the process they wanted.

[Disney Guy]

This could be a loss leader for the manufacturer to feel out doing business in the U.S. and then determine whether it is worth going after more contracts. Also the risk to the manufacturer may be reduced because some problems may need to be resolved in esoteric ways to maintain good international relations.

Is there any real difference between a "U.S." manufacturer (such as Boeing) getting up to 49% of the content (e.g. LRV body shells and more) from foreign sources versus a "foreign" manufacturer required to get at least 51% of the content from U.S. sources?

How do they value the content to come up with 49%, 50%, 51%, etc? U.S. dollars? If the body shells, etc. can be made overseas for fewer U.S. dollars compared with in the U.S. then the amount of foreign content could look amazingly high even though it is less than 49% in terms of dollars spent.

Wouldn't the (Chinese) manufacturer import its own experienced laborers to do final assembly in Springfield compared with hiring novices locally? Lots of Chinese rural dwellers up and leave their families to get better jobs in cities. They will be signing up in droves to up and leave the country to get yet better jobs the U.S. (and similarly send money home to their families).

[Bramdeisroberts]

Wouldn't the (Chinese) manufacturer import its own experienced laborers to do final assembly in Springfield compared with hiring novices locally? Lots of Chinese rural dwellers up and leave their families to get better jobs in cities. They will be signing up in droves to up and leave the country to get yet better jobs the U.S. (and similarly send money home to their families).

The same exact thing could have been said of Rotem when they built their equally politically-motivated Philly assembly plant. We all know how that turned out...

Let's hope that the current administration's desire for quality rail products wins out over the last administration's desire for a another political pandering jobs program.

The new designs look as sharp as any of CNR's Chinese products (I actually like their cars they built for Harbin, they're funky looking and remind me of some of the more adventurously modernist-looking stuff that Kawasaki, Hitachi, etc have built for the Japanese lines), and it'll be interesting to see what the quality's like. The Chinese manufacturers love to cut corners, but they will build as high-quality of a product as the client demands of them (as long as the client keeps a close eye on them), and let's hope that quality-wise, these things are more in line with Chinese-built iPhones than they are with Chinese-built iPhone knockoffs.