BOSTON — The delivery schedule for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority subway cars being built by Chinese firm CRRC remains undetermined, but MBTA and Massachusetts officials believe the company will eventually complete its troubled order for the railcars.
CommonWealth Magazine reports that MBTA CEO Phillip Eng told a Thursday board meeting that he, MBTA Deputy General Manager Jeffrey Gonneville, and three state officials including Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandana held a virtual meeting on Aug. 16 with CRRC Chairman Sun Yongcai to “hear directly that they are committed to this project,” and called it productive.
The MBTA ordered 404 cars from CRRC — 152 for the Orange Line and 252 for the Red Line — in two batches of contracts in 2014 and 2016, after the Chinese company underbid competitors by $200 million. But those orders were to have been completed by September 2023. The most recent estimate had the last cars delivered by September 2026, but even when that estimate was announced in January, Gonneville — then the acting general manager — said CRRC would not meet it [see “CRRC won’t be able to meet schedule …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 26, 2023]. At that point, just 90 cars had been delivered, with no new cars arriving for seven months from the factory of CRRC’s Springfield, Mass., affiliate.
Eng told the meeting that CRRC is still working on a revised schedule. He also said that, after significant effort by CRRC and the MBTA, the quality of the cars coming out of the Springfield plant has improved to the point that the CRRC cars in operation are exceeding expectatons. Currently, they are averaging about 114,000 miles between failures, beating the 90,000 miles required by contract.
And SEPTA is still waiting for their CRRC coaches, too.
MBTA officials were recently notified that CRRC could face “daily fines of $500 for each late car,” according to a Boston Herald report.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
The “price of low price”. No mention of a performance bond in the contract resulting in financial penalties for non-compliance with delivery date parameters. Interesting tilt to the coupler on the car in the picture.
There is a reason why they were 200 million less than other bidders. The mentioned coupler is probably falling off. You always get what you pay for!