Chinese maker delivers first of 400 subway cars for Chicago
CRRC Sifang America Inc., an Illinois-based subsidiary of China Railway Rolling Stock Corp., announced it has started delivery of subway cars to Chicago, a breakthrough for China’s rail transit products operating in the United States.
The company sent the first of its 400 subway cars to its customer, the Chicago Transit Authority, this month, after the authority completed operational tests on the 10 passenger rail car prototypes.
The 7000-series prototypes were delivered in 2020 and tested in April last year.
By the end of this month CRRC Sifang America will have delivered eight of the 7000-series subway trains to the authority.
These trains are part of an order for 400 of the company’s rail cars, said Xu Tao, chief engineer of the technology center at CRRC Qingdao Sifang, parent company of CRRC Sifang America and a Shandong-province based CRRC unit.
In 2016 CRRC Sifang won the contract to supply 400 rail cars, with an option for another 446, to replace about half of the fleet in the largest metro car order in the CTA’s history. The Chinese company built a factory in Chicago in 2017 and began production in 2019.
CRRC Sifang America will produce and deliver trains based on the demand from its customer, Xu said. The new 7000-series vehicles will be used to replace older cars on eight subway lines in Chicago and provide better transportation service to the city’s residents.
The railway vehicles are equipped with LED lighting and modern passenger information systems, unlike the rest of the authority’s older fleet, the company said.
“Through the implementation of localized manufacturing and procurement, the project has not only brought commercial opportunities for upstream and downstream companies across the U.S., but also created 200 jobs for local communities.”
CRRC, China’s largest rolling stock manufacturer by sales revenue, has built many rail cars over the past 10 years for transit systems in big cities, including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Ma Yu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing, said that as the global economy faces multiple uncertainties, China and the U.S. should reinforce collaboration to meet each other halfway. Improving their bilateral economic and trade ties would not only benefit the two countries but also the world, Ma said.