BOSTON — A second trainset of equipment built by China’s CRRC has begun running on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Red Line — three years after the first such train entered operation, the website Streetsblog Mass reports.
The second trainset entered service earlier this month, an MBTA spokesman confirmed to the website. The first had entered operation in December 2020.
The long-delayed CRRC order for 152 Orange Line cars and 252 Red Line cars was supposed to have been completed by September 2023. Currently, spokesman Joe Pesaturo said, 106 of the Orange Lines cars and 16 of the Red Line cars have been delivered; the final 46 Orange Line cars and 28 more Red Line cars are under construction at the Springfield, Mass., factory of CRRC’s affiliate CRRC MA.
The orders for the equipment date to 2014 and 2016; the most recent estimate aimed for the last cars to be delivered by September 2026, but even when that figure was announced a year ago, then-acting MBTA general manager Jeffery Gonneville said the manufacturer would not be able to meet it. As of August 2023, there was still no new schedule to complete the order [see “Dates still to be determined for CRRC delivery …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 26, 2023].
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