Transportation chief visits troubled T train car facility
Fiandaca tour comes amid quality concerns
Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca quietly took a tour of the new Red and Orange Line car factory in Springfield Monday amid serious concerns about the quality of cars which forced the MBTA to halt deliveries last summer.
MassDOT spokesperson Jacquelyn Goddard said via e-mail the purpose of Fiandaca’s visit was “to see first-hand the new car assembly operations to underscore that getting new Red and Orange Line cars into service safely and according to MBTA manufacturing specifications is a priority.” Fiandaca thanked employees working on the cars, Goddard said.
Since 2018, when Chinese manufacturer CRRC began delivering new Red and Orange Line cars, the MBTA has received only 90 of the 404 cars it ordered. The T is supposed to be receiving four new cars for each line per month from the company’s factory in Springfield, MBTA interim general manager Jeff Gonneville told the agency’s board of directors last month. But in June, the T halted deliveries because of mounting quality problems. The project is years behind schedule.
Goddard said the T expects to receive four new Orange Line cars by the end of the month. MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo said via e-mail the T expects to receive four cars per month going forward “while the T and its contractor work together to stabilize, and ultimately boost, the production process.”
Earlier this month, Fiandaca toured the MBTA’s operations control center with Governor Maura Healey in Boston. There, Healey said the T had hired a new group of consultants to identify ways to expedite the delivery of the Red and Orange Line cars.
Goddard did not respond to a question about what recommendations, if any, the consultants have made.
Last month, The Boston Globe reported on chronic problems plaguing the Springfield factory cited by former employees, including cars with missing parts being advanced along the assembly line without the correct paperwork, workers watching movies for months while waiting on parts to arrive as suppliers went unpaid, and a culture of fear and retaliation for raising concerns.
The T has discovered a host of problems with the new cars since they first entered service in 2019. In December, T inspectors noticed wiring on one of the cars was disconnected and hanging beneath the train. On some trains, the wiring pieces were coming into contact with the axles, prompting the T to remove those cars from service and replace their axles. In June, a battery on one of the cars exploded while the car was out of service at Wellington Yard, prompting the T to take all of the new cars off the tracks. These problems were preceded by similar issues, including loose brake bolts and a derailment.
The problems and pause on deliveries have resulted in the T occasionally not meeting its reduced schedule on the Orange Line, since the agency began relying solely on the new cars after shutting down the line for 30 days in August and September for track repairs.
After her tour of the operations control center earlier this month, Fiandaca said the administration is dedicated to addressing the MBTA’s problems “head on.”
“There’s a sense of urgency to get things right,” she said. “I know that we’re up to the challenge.”
Fiandaca, who was sworn in on Jan. 30, is expected to attend her first MBTA board meeting on Feb. 24.