Faulty brakes, asbestos scares, production delays, safety recalls and accusations of worker exploitation have plagued the Chinese company that the Patrick administration just awarded a $566.6 million MBTA contract to build subway cars, a Herald review found.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the state’s evaluation team was fully aware of the China CNR problems before the contract was awarded.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority yesterday unveiled images of a new prototype Orange Line subway car due to be brought into service starting in January 2019 to replace decades-old rail cars.
Chinese-owned rail company CRRC MA Corp. will manufacture 152 Orange Line and 123 Red Line cars at a new $85 million Springfield factory under a $728.9 million contract.
Replacing the cars is part of a planned overhaul of the two lines that includes improvements to aging tracks, signals and other infrastructure.
The two-thirds-scale mock-up of the new Orange Line car will be shipped here from China within seven weeks.
Gov. Charlie Baker, MBTA General Manager Luis Ramirez, state Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack and others got a tour of new Orange Line cars at the T’s Wellington Station yesterday.
The T has contracted for 152 new Orange Line cars and 252 Red Line cars to be rolled out in the coming years.
Assembly of Orange Line cars is underway with the first production cars having arrived at Chinese contractor CRRC’s Rail Car Assembly Facility in Springfield in April and completion slated for this December.
The new vehicles will incorporate a variety of new features to improve reliability, accessibility, communications, safety and comfort that include wider door openings, four access locations per car, improved lighting and automatic passenger counters.
