by Jersey_Mike
As long foreign firms continue to flood our domestic railcar market with cheap imports, any hope of reviving the high quality American railcar industry will be non-existent. After Budd closed in 1986 all of the skills necessary to design and built a good railcar in this country have basically evaporated leaving us at the mercy of a parade of government subsidized Johnny-come-lately Asian tigers peddling fall apart designs. Before we start having to deal with the made in China label with whatever lead or radiation that entails the government regulations for the spending of federal transit dollars needs to change requiring that all design and frame fabrication needs to be carried out domestically. When I say frame fabrication I mean that the only thing imported is the ore. I can never see why domestic final assembly is seen as adequate, let alone some sort of victory. There's no value added in it. Any old schulb can fit rod A into slot C. We need to get the high tech, high skilled design and metallurgical work back in this country. Let's hope the new economic stimulus that focuses on investments in transportation also invests in the industry that supports it which was stupidly allowed to die off.