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The MBTA has contracted with Springfield-based CRRC to design and manufacture a fleet replacement encompassing 152 new Orange Line vehicles and 252 new Red Line vehicles. MBTA photo
MBTA engineers joined China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. officials this week in China to take a ceremonial ride on a pilot MBTA subway car and announce plans to ship four pilot cars to Boston from the port of Shanghai on Nov. 18.
The event, held thousands of miles away at CRRC’s Changchun manufacturing facility, marked another milestone in the transit agency’s long journey to provide relief to MBTA riders who have become accustomed to frequent underperforming subway service.
The MBTA has contracted with CRRC to design and manufacture a fleet replacement encompassing 152 new Orange Line vehicles and 252 new Red Line vehicles.
“These state-of-the-art vehicles provide improved passenger comfort and incorporate technology, including solid state microprocessors, LCD passenger information displays, CCTV cameras, platform gap mitigation, automatic passenger counts and computer-based training simulators,” Jia Bo, vice president of CRRC MA, said in a statement on Wednesday.
CRRC is building a Springfield facility where assembly of the MBTA subway cars will occur. The facility will also include a test track and staging area.
The MBTA on Monday approved a $21.3 million contract with Barletta Heavy Division for test tracks and a vehicle shed to test new Red Line cars in South Boston. J.F. White Contracting Co., McCourt Transit and LM Heavy Civil Construction LLC submitted bids between $22 million and $23 million.
The MBTA in December 2016 scrapped plans to overhaul railcars that date back to the 1990s and agreed to replace its entire Red Line fleet by 2024 by purchasing from CRRC an additional 120 to 134 cars at a cost of up to $280 million.
The MBTA estimates its Red Line fleet replacement, along with speed code changes, will boost capacity by 50 percent, raising the number of trains per hour from 13 to 20. With fewer disabled trains and breakdowns, the new cars will reduce customer wait times, the T says.
CRRC, which has been awarded contracts in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, says it’s the first Chinese company to enter the U.S. rail car manufacturing market.
