The contract was issued in 2021. Alstom didn’t have the assembly line in Hornell built and ready until June 2025. Does it take 4 years to build an assembly building? Why so long?
Does anyone know when the prototypes will roll off the line? Will they go out to Pueblo for testing?
What were all of the constraints to get an assembly line in place? The new Ford Blue Oval City plant in Tennessee is 75-80% complete in only 18 months (now on hold). I am trying to figure out what in carnation took Alstom 4 years to build?
I just caught this article buried in the weeds:
Seems that Alstom was not allowed to bring in the shells from their main fabrication plant in Brazil due to all the tax incentives and subsidies. So they built “Plant 4” in Hornell into what is a robotic steel shell fabrication facility. That is what took so long it appears.
Now I have questions about exactly how passenger railcars are made, because I just reviewed the Alstom Hornell facility and also the Siemens Mobility plant in Sacramento.
Alstom Plants 2, 3 and 4 don’t have any rail service to them. Only Plant 1, which has the turntable and a test track with catenary next to it. So are they going to roll the shells down to Plant 1 on a truck the 1 mile for final assembly? It seems terribly inefficient.
Siemens seems worse. They have a ton of incomplete shells sitting on the ground all around the plant, some wrapped in plastic, with parts stations everywhere outside.
Not to get into another subject, but I would think passenger railcar assembly would be:
#1 - Moving (even if inches a day)
#2 - Uses JIT parts supply
#3 - Have integration workstations with assemblers installing the parts and components
#4 - A QA center the cars roll into for final certification
So why arent modern railcars built in pre-assembled modules and integrated at assembly. Does every worker have to physically take a part and install it inside the shell?
https://assets.metra.com/s3fs-public/2025-12/14-IX-Rolling-Stock-Update.pdf?VersionId=RmqikhkbvLZCqwJzxBO1CLOhF75LJnCw
Metra presentation a few weeks ago. Delivery starting Jan 2027.
Everything is backed up since Covid.
Emirates ordered 777-9s in 2013 for 2020 delivery. Now expected 2027. 14 years after order.
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Good info, especially on the Metra page. Thank you.
The Daily Herald link has a paywall blocking it, but thank you for the link, much appreciated.
At the moment it appears the delays getting the Hornell based robotic steel fabrication plant in place seems to be the largest delay component. That all happened well after Covid.
Per Alstom, the same robotic plant will also be used to fulfill an order for Philly as well.
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What everyone is forgetting is this. These manufacturers aren’t welding regular steel. They’re welding high strength steel ti stainless steel in order to meet FRA crash standards. Just welding stainless steel is hard enough normally done with a TIG process. But high strength steel being welded to stainless steel is a whole different animal in welding terms. Too much heat and you’re going to burn the stainless steel to cold and the weld is useless. Sorry son is studying welding in school and has started working with stainless steel. Or as he calls it the 3rd hardest thing to weld after cast iron and then aluminum. He’s literally welded a cube of 1/4 plate aluminum air and water tight that was his final for first semester.
So the materials are a PITA to work with. Or as my 16 year old put it simply. He said he’d rather be 400 foor down doing a saturation dive for a month welding on a pipeline in the Fjords of Norway in winter in sub freezing conditions than work with stainless steel.
Per Daily Herald article:
"However, the complexity of designing the cars and building them “from scratch” has caused delays and additional costs, Sean Cronin, Metra’s senior director of mechanical capital projects, explained at a May board meeting.
The Alstom contract was initially $845 million but change orders in late 2024 and spring 2025 have brought the total to $901 million.
Metra board directors approved a related $4.5 million increase to railcar design consultant STV in May and extended their contract. The original STV contract was $10 million.
“This procurement — designing a new car completely from scratch — has added a level of complexity that’s required us to have a longer design process than we originally anticipated and … in that level of complexity spending a little more money,” Cronin noted.
“We believe it’s good money spent. Obviously, these are 40- to 50-year assets … and we need to get it right at the beginning.”