The T’s New Subway Car Contract Enters Its Awkward Teen Years
The T is running faster trains on the Orange Line, but the delays keep getting worse for its order of new Red Line subway cars, which were supposed to be finished and delivered way back in 2023.
This is a story we’ve already written numerous iterations of in the years since we launched StreetsblogMASS in 2019 (you can follow the years-long saga in our archives).
To recap the history: in 2014, CRRC, a Chinese manufacturer, won a contract to produce a new fleet of new subway cars for the MBTA for a price of $565 million, and a promise to build a new factory in Springfield.
In the original contract, a new Orange Line fleet of 152 subway cars was supposed to be delivered by 2022, and 252 new Red Line cars were due by fall 2023.
Instead, 12 years of delays and manufacturing glitches have followed. CRRC finally delivered their last of their new Orange Line subway cars at the end of 2025, but as we approach the end of 2026, the T and its riders are still waiting for 184 new Red Line cars.
Done by 2032?
The beleaguered CRRC contract has been in the news so often for its delays that its delays are no longer really considered newsworthy.
But it did come back into the headlines last week, after a presentation to the MBTA board of directors’ audit and finance committee offered some new details.
A slide deck about the T’s capital plan – which includes major construction projects and new vehicle contracts – revealed that the new Red Line trains would be “scheduled for completion of deliveries in FY32.”
The presentation continued without discussion from board members. But that particular bullet point on the slide deck raised some eyebrows among other observers.
In 2024, desperate to keep the failing Springfield factory open, the Commonwealth re-negotiated its contract with CRRC with an agreement to pay $148 million more for the new trains and waive $90 million in penalties for the missed deadlines.
The new deal also set a new December 2027 deadline for delivering the new trains.
Last week’s board presentation suggested that riders would have to wait another 5 years ro retire the T’s old Red Line trains, some of which date to the Nixon administration.
The presentation did also contain good news: the new CRRC cars are out-performing expectations, with an average of 143,877 miles between breakdowns on the new Orange Line trains (the MBTA’s contract with CRRC requires an average of 90,000 miles between failures).
Border delays and an uncertain timeline
After last week’s board meeting, the MBTA’s press office clarified that FY2032 is the closing date for the re-negotiated CRRC contract, including the warranty period, and not necessarily the same as the date of the last deliveries.
But T officials also acknowledged that “the original end-of-2027 deadline for all new Red Line cars (is) no longer achievable.”
That’s partly due to factors beyond the Commonwealth’s control: for nearly 10 months in 2025 through March 2026, the Trump administration’s custom agents had been blocking imports of CRRC’s subway car shells – the metal frames that are assembled into finished subway cars in Springfield.
Without those crucial parts, CRRC furloughed workers and paused work in Springfield. The NETransit MBTA Vehicle Inventory Roster, an authoritative source on MBTA’s vehicles, indicates that the T hasn’t received any new Red Line trains since May, after generally receiving two to four new cars per month for most of 2024 and 2025.
“It’s unfortunate that actions by the federal government have further delayed the delivery of these new cars. But the MBTA remains fully committed to getting them into service as quickly as possible. We’re working closely with CRRC to get production back on track, accelerate deliveries, and ensure every new car meets our high standards for safety and reliability,” MBTA spokesperson Lisa Battiston told StreetsblogMASS.
Battiston added that the Springfield factory now has “a full workforce back in place” and 40 cars in production. She also noted that CRRC plans to open an additional assembly line in early 2027 to accelerate its production.
Before the interruption at the border, CRRC was only delivering around 4 cars a month to the T. At that rate, it would take the factory 46 months to finish the remaining 184 new cars on order – a little under four years.
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