ATLANTA – The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority has signed a $146-million contract to refurbish 118 of its railcars. Kinkisharyo International, the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Kinki Shayro Corp., will do the work at its factory in Piscataway, N.J., a former plastics factory converted by the company in 2015.
The contract, part of MARTA’s Rail Car Life Extension program, has an option for 94 more cars.
Kinkisharyo has produced light rail vehicles for systems throughout the U.S., including Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, and Boston.
PHILIP…. Philip writes, “we don’t have enough American companies producing passenger cars”. We don’t have enough? Do we have any at all? The dominant American players, Budd and Pullman-Standard, are long gone, along with the smaller ACF and St. Louis Car. Early this week, we discussed Rohr’s unsuccessful attempt. Who else is there? Bombardier is a Canada-based multinational. All the others seem to be based in Asia. Anyway, we live in a global economy. Regardless of corporate ownership, the railcars are built in USA, and components from seats to windows to air conditioners are largely sourced to factories across America. Just like automobiles: Subaru automobiles built in Indiana have increasing parts percentage from American suppliers, at least according to Subaru propaganda. Companies like Toyota and Honda claim that some of their USA-built cars have more USA content than some cars built by Ford, GM, and the former Chrysler in America.
And the sad part is that we don’t have enough American companies producing passenger rail cars for American railroads.