Chinese-Made Railcars Coming To America ?

I think if I were in these industries I'd be more concerned with being replaced by machines.   Whatever benefits these folks may have in the way of retraining -- I think I'd look into it.   I think about it like this: I'm in a industry that isn't filled with machine replacements -- yet.  And I'm concerned... 

So a German consulting agency is worried that Chinese Companies will take over America's rail car building operations??

So all these container ships will be sunk down 3 feet below the deck with space gobbling shiny new freight cars? More likely it would be like Japanese autos, their companies building them in their plants here, in the south, to avoid the hassle with, but using, our labor.

I believe they will do what's cheapest -- if not today, tomorrow.

In case anybody hasn't noticed, there's not a real big market for freight cars right now anyway, at ANY price.

I wouldn't say that...Taken from RailWay Age....

"Due to the strength in boxcars, hi-cube covered hoppers and mid-sized hoppers, our 2017 estimate of total new railcar deliveries remains at 42,500 cars,” says EPA principal Peter Toja."

And combine with this..."Due to a slowing in assemblies in the first quarter, end-of-March backlogs of 60,500 railcars".

That puts the figures at 103,000 new freight cars being delivered this year...not to shabby.

The Chinese will only invade the rail car industry only if they are allowed to do so. Quite frankly if I were in charge I would ban ALL imports from China.  You'd see millions of new jobs for Americans created overnight and zero unemployment.,

I forget the name of the company but they are building a plant in Springfield ma to build subway cars for Boston, figure it's only a matter of time before they are building box cars, tanker cars, hoppers, etc etc

CRRC is the name (reportedly the largest railcar builder in the world,) they're also building cars for L.A. in Springfield, MA.

Seem like transit companies are like model railroaders, they want the lowest price.

Rusty

Casey Jones2 posted:

I wouldn't say that...Taken from RailWay Age....

"Due to the strength in boxcars, hi-cube covered hoppers and mid-sized hoppers, our 2017 estimate of total new railcar deliveries remains at 42,500 cars,” says EPA principal Peter Toja."

And combine with this..."Due to a slowing in assemblies in the first quarter, end-of-March backlogs of 60,500 railcars".

That puts the figures at 103,000 new freight cars being delivered this year...not to shabby.

I don't know anything about that. I DO know that CSX is parking upwards of25,000 cars and NS tried like crazy to get out of a deal they made some time ago to buy new coal hoppers, finally converting part of the order to gondolas after they were basically forced to take SOMETHING.  The story goes that as soon as they can get a decent price, they will sell off the gons, as they don't want or need THEM either.  With class ones shedding cars like crazy, it will almost certainly drive down demand for new cars for a while.  Supposedly Freight car America told NS that if they succeeded in stiffing them for the cars they committed to, FCA would have to declare bankruptcy.  I believe they have already laid off much of the workforce at their Roanoke VA. facility.

yea hope they dont do the hollow axials,plastic parts and zinc pest wheels 

Coal is definitely dead... well not so hot.  All that fracking and what not...   So what do they need?  They don't need coal cars, they don't need gondolas... do they need tankers for all the oil they've rediscovered in texas (or so I read)?

I believe there were quite a few train sets of brand new tank cars put directly into storage because in the time between they were ordered, and the time they were built, the oil by rail market went tango uniform.  There might be a flurry of new boxcar activity for awhile, because so much of the available fleet is on its last legs, but I don't see that going on forever either.  To paraphrase the late great John Kneiling, if we could figure out how to properly utilize the fleet we have,  we wouldn't need another new car for ten years.