Rail car contract arrives with jobs in Yonkers
Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. in Yonkers has been awarded a Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract for up to $1.83 billion to design and build the next generation of rail cars for Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road.
The project, announced Thursday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is expected to create up to 1,500 jobs in the state.
Under the contract approved Thursday by the MTA board, up to 676 electric cars will be assembled at the Kawasaki plant at 29 Wells Ave. in Yonkers.
A portion of the contract and related development costs are funded with $355.5 million from the MTA”™s 2010-2014 capital plan. The initial contract will provide 92 cars to the LIRR. If funding is available in the MTA”™s forthcoming 2015-2019 capital plan and the railroads choose to exercise future options, Kawasaki will manufacture up to 304 additional cars for the LIRR and up to 280 cars for Metro-North.
MTA officials said the M9 cars will replace 1980s-era M3 railcars serving the LIRR”™s eight electric branches and Metro-North”™s Harlem and Hudson lines and will give expanded fleet capacity for both railroads to accommodate growth in ridership. The cars being replaced by Kawasaki”™s products entered service between 1984 and 1986 and will have served the region for more than 30 years when retired.
As with the railroads”™ previous electric car classes, most of the M9 cars will be manufactured as “married pairs” comprised of two nearly identical cars permanently coupled together and sharing a restroom, cabs for engineer or conductor and electrical systems. Each pair is designed to seat 221 passengers.
The MTA in August considered final contract proposals from three manufacturers. MTA officials said Kawasaki provided the “most attractive” pricing.
One week before its MTA contact award, Kawasaki Rail Car closed on the $25.2 million purchase of its Yonkers plant in the iPark Hudson office, laboratory and industrial complex near the city”™s downtown waterfront. The seller, Hudson View Associates L.L.C., is an affiliate of National Resources Inc., the Greenwich, Conn., real estate company that redeveloped the former Otis Elevator Co. site in Yonkers for office and high-tech tenants.
The rail car manufacturer”™s parent company, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., is headquartered in Japan.