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  • Could Transmashholding expand to North America?

  • General discussion about locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment
General discussion about locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment

Moderator: John_Perkowski

 #1537516  by D.S. Lewith
 
It's been a while since my last post here, but there's something I want to bring about:

Recently, Bombardier is going to sell its rail division to Alstom. This was clearly an opportunity for Alstom to expand to counter CRRC's growing presence around the world and their slow entry into the EU rail market following the rejected merger with Siemens. In the US, Bombardier and Alstom have domestic manufacturing facilities in Plattsburgh NY and Hornell NY respectively (Bombardier also has another facility in Pittsburgh CA after taking it over from AnsaldoBreda). Obviously Alstom isn't going to retain the Plattsburgh NY and Pittsburgh CA facilities as they already have one as is. Alstom also has 3 manufacturing facilities in Canada (Ottawa, Sorel-Tracy, Brampton) so they're obviously not going to retain Bombardier's Thunder Bay, Kingston and La Pocatiere manufacturing facilities. Alstom might retain Bombardier's Ciudad Sahagun facility, as they have supplied equipment for Mexico City's metro rail network. The remaining manufacturing facilities are going to either be sold to other railcar companies or closed down. The other railcar manufacturers either have a location in the state (Kawasaki, CAF) or are already content with having a factory as is (Stadler, CRRC, Siemens, Hitachi). Whilst the Canadian factories can be sold to any of the above save for Alstom, the Plattsburgh NY facility is going to have a tough time finding a new buyer once Alstom completes its final backlog order (Hitachi might buy back the former AnsaldoBreda plant in California) if Plattsburgh wants to keep those jobs. This leaves only one established railcar company left: the Russian-based Transmashholding.

Transmashholding has started expanding beyond Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe, such as into Africa by acquiring the DCD Rolling Stock plant in Boksburg, South Africa, with the intent of manufacturing rolling stock for Africa, and revived a manufacturing facility in Argentina, with plans to modernize Argentina's railway network. With Bombardier's Plattsburgh, NY plant potentially to go into sale once Alstom completes the final outstanding orders from that factory, Transmashholding could make use this as an opportunity to establish a presence in the US by acquiring the facility.

Should Transmashholding establish a presence in at least the US, Transmashholding could do any of the following orders listed below
* New passenger and bike cars for Metrolink to replace the remaining Bombardier Bi-Levels.
* New fleet for SEPTA's Market-Franford, Broad Street and Norristown High-Speed lines
* New fleet for the PATCO Speedline
* New passenger and cab cars for Metra to replace the aging gallery cars from the 1950s-1970s
 #1537532  by eolesen
 
Why wait? They could go after the Rochelle facility that Nippon-Sharyo has left vacant for a couple years now.

It's more modern than Plattsburgh, and available today.

That said, we've seen with resistance on having state or federal funds going to CRRC, I can't imagine the business case for supporting the Russians will be any easier.
 #1537558  by D.S. Lewith
 
eolesen wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 2:39 am Why wait? They could go after the Rochelle facility that Nippon-Sharyo has left vacant for a couple years now.

It's more modern than Plattsburgh, and available today.
You could say the same with Hyundai Rotem's now-closed Philadelphia factory, though it's now an IKEA store. Who knows what could happen to the Rochelle facility. Also, the former Nippon Sharyo site has been purchased. The buyer is unknown but public records say it's listed in Delaware, so it's not Transmashholding. This leaves Bombardier's Plattsburgh NY facility as the only place for Transmashholding to go if they want to establish base here. They could open their own facility from scratch but I take it they rather get an existing facility, especially one that has a lot of experience building rolling stock for the US.
eolesen wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 2:39 am That said, we've seen with resistance on having state or federal funds going to CRRC, I can't imagine the business case for supporting the Russians will be any easier.
America seems to not be as antagonistic towards the Russians as they are towards the Chinese but we'll see what happens. That said I do not expect TMH USA to win orders for Amtrak so they'll be limited to mainly metro rail and regional rail.
 #1537723  by nomis
 
In Philadelphia, the Rotem plant was always “next door” to the IKEA, across the street in the closest area.