By Jeanette DeForge
Source masslive. com (TNS)
SPRINGFIELD — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has agreed to modify its contract with the city’s CRRC rail company, giving them more time and more money, saving about 400 jobs in the city and ensuring the continuation of annual tax bills on thousands of dollars’ worth of cargoes.
The deal will extend the company’s timeframe to deliver a total of 404 cars from January 2022 and September 2023, which had been lost long ago, and increase the cost of the contract from $148 million to more than $1 billion.
The move is as cost-effective and effective as possible to ensure the long-suffering MBTA still has railcars to upgrade some that run more than 10 years after their useful life, said Phillip Eng, MBTA’s executive director.
If the government did nothing, officials estimated it would take until 2029 to order the 152 cars for the Orange Line and the 252 for the Red Line. If they terminated the contract and looked for a new company, it would take them until at least 2029. 2030 to get the first car. Both were too long, he told the board at a meeting on Thursday.
While CRRC has been delivering finished cars since October, state officials, at the request of Gov. Maura T. Healey, decided that the contract needed to be “thoroughly deepened” to find a way to make it work for Boston and the Chinese company. , said Eng.
“We continue to see that when we put those cars into service, they perform well and provide the improved reliability that travelers deserve,” Eng said.
But that wasn’t the case.
At the start of production, not only was CRRC very late, but the cars were shipped with quality issues, adding to the landing gear issues that prevented the cars from turning and led to excessive noise, battery failure, and brake issues.
The quality has improved, and CRRC officials are also committed to potency.
“We are pleased that after months of extensive discussions with the MBTA to drive the delivery of the Red and Orange Line subway cars, we have developed a balanced and well-thought-out mutual plan that outlines methods and modifications for production,” Wang said. Zhaofu, President and President of CRRC MA Corp.
As part of the new contract, more evaluations of the box will be conducted to ensure maximum power and increased communication with the MBTA, said Lydia Rivera, a spokeswoman for CRRC Massachusetts.
MBTA and CRRC officials agreed that one of the difficult situations the company faced in terms of the source of materials and materials, which they mistook for an increase in the price lists of Chinese products to 25% in 2018, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the new efforts will be to improve supplier relationships and improve inventory management, Rivera said.
The company also plans to improve production training, quality control and expand second-shift and weekend production, he said.
First, the MBTA contracted China’s CRRC in 2014 to build the new railcars in a $566 million contract, which increased to $870 million when more railcar orders were added.
State officials even rejected federal money for the program, so they simply insisted that the CRRC build a production facility somewhere in the Commonwealth.
CRRC spent $95 million and built a 204,000-square-foot railroad car production plant on a 40-acre site that was once a sprawling Westinghouse plant on Page Boulevard. Car bodies are manufactured in China and shipped to Springfield, where staff outfit them with wheels, controls, lighting, electrical systems, and seats.
For Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, the new contract is a relief because it means about 400 jobs, plus about 300 union workers, will remain here.
CRRC employs a total of 453 more people in Massachusetts, adding 297 unionized employees in Springfield. A small number of jobs are also found in his Quincy office. Rivera said jobs at the Springfield plant would pile up as needed.
“My number one goal is to get lots and lots of good-paying jobs for our running brothers and sisters,” Sarno said.
Sarno said he knew CRRC faced a lot of demanding situations to begin with, and then the pandemic “threw them a curveball,” making it difficult for them to get the materials and apparatus they needed.
The city also benefits from the taxes that the CRRC will pay each year. Although the city entered into a 10-year monetary incentive agreement with the company in 2015, in its first decade of operation, it will still pay $24. 7 million in asset taxes.
The city also sees other benefits from having the world’s largest railroad company operating in Springfield and Sarno said he hopes to see it grow to win more long-term contracts as interest in the rail continues.
The company already has contracts to build subway cars for Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
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