just_planning_ahead t1_jedg8ek wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:25 AM

Obligatory link explaining the timeline of how we got here.

I have to note that the line "even the ones that already had factories in the USA" sounds off to me. I believe Manufacturers that have already factories in the US are even more disinclined to build a factory in MA, not less disinclined. Any bidder already in the US means the cost of another factory that is ultimately set to be a one-off barring a company that happens to be looking to move. Meanwhile anyone without a factory in the US needs to build one somewhere anyways - including CNR.

This newest development rubs me the wrong way. Some may just dismiss it as my "politics" (though I guess few would here), but given how the delivered trains have questions how long it will stay "new" and even if we'll even get more deliveries at all, concerns how "American" the trains are pretty low in my concerns list. Particularly getting all worked up if the trains are "American" ups the likelihood that CRRC really have checked-out and gave up on even fulfilling existing contracts in any form.

and_dont_blink OP t1_jedhs4b wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:43 AM

>I have to note that the line "even the ones that already had factories in the USA" sounds off to me. I believe Manufacturers that have already factories in the US are even more disinclined to build a factory in MA, not less disinclined.

They were, they were completely uninterested because they already had facilities and had no desire to build more in MA, it simply made no real sense. It made no sense for the foreign countries that they couldn't build them there and then ship them.

This was all MA's doing -- first proposed by Gov Deval Patrick -- in mandating that they had to be built in MA in exchange for giving up federal money. Bombardier, Kawasaki, Hyundai, etc. all basically gave "no thank you" bids which left two Chinese companies. MA went with the less "iffy" of the two who was promptly bought by the other.

So here we are, all for less than 200 union jobs.

trALErun t1_jeeasxv wrote on March 31, 2023 at 12:01 PM

Damn, that's... really dumb. Any clue what Patrick's motivations were? Did he benefit from this terrible decision in some way?

ShriekingMuppet t1_jeec836 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 12:14 PM

Ask his stock broker

just_planning_ahead t1_jef1n7h wrote on March 31, 2023 at 3:21 PM

This is speculation, but I think think it's more substantial than /u/ShriekingMuppet to just assume it's all straight up money. But it was a gambit that went very wrong.

Let me put it like this and bare with me - you can see a much bigger example if you watch from 8:56 to 10:53 of this Youtube documentary about the failed Superconducting Super Collider project. A common tactic to please various constituents is to give everyone a piece of the pie, no matter how small.

When it came to the failed Superconducting Super Collider project, it was spreading out contracts across 47 states. But this type of politics applies to smaller scale projects too. To appease Western MA that a project doesn't only "benefits" Boston, they tied a new factory with the project.

It also notable that unlike the discussion has implied so far. If you look at links like this(Page 8), CNR had a record as good as Bombardier (Which anyone who follows knows they aren't perfect, but nobody questions them as a legit manufacturer). So any person who assess by what the data says, then it's not just choosing the less "iffy", it was choosing a company who has done a good as a job as Bombardier... and promptly got bought out by the company rated so poorly that they were explicitly rejected.

So it was an attempt to make it into a "win-win". Western MA gets jobs. Boston gets new trains. CNR gets a foothold in the NA market. MA in general gets Bombardier-level trains at bargain prices. And it all went to shit.

Moohog86 t1_jeffx6d wrote on March 31, 2023 at 4:53 PM

It would have been better if all this happened in the 1990's when the trains were nearing end of life. So what if they were late, we still would have gotten them 20 years ago.

Instead they are now late and the trains are like 30 years past end of life.

bakgwailo t1_jefx064 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 6:45 PM

What should have happened was they got their mid life overhaul back then and then wouldn't be nearly in as bad shape today. But they didn't so here we are.

and_dont_blink OP t1_jegs46z wrote on March 31, 2023 at 10:17 PM

> So any person who assess by what the data says, then it's not just choosing the less "iffy", it was choosing a company who has done a good as a job as Bombardier...

The issue here is yo're talking about things like technical proposal scores -- what they say they'll deliver and what they can conceivably deliver.

If we go by iffy, it was that they bid $567M with the other bids being in the $800-$1B range. CNR makes a lot of rolling stock, but not primarily for the western world and when they started there were serious, serious issues. It put MA in the position of having to then defend asbestos being found on trains, and faulty brakes and a failure rate double the rest of the fleet.

...and that's before you get to the human rights issues of a company ostensibly spun out from the government. We face a similar issue with things like solar panels unfortunately.