Overview
- The MBTA disclosed Thursday that it will not receive all 252 new Red Line cars by the prior end-of-2027 expectation and has not set a new final delivery date.
- Agency officials and spokespeople say U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained CRRC car shells for about 10 months starting in May 2025, and that seizure materially interrupted production and deliveries.
- As of July, the MBTA had taken delivery of 68 Red Line cars, with about 40 cars at CRRC’s Springfield plant and roughly 10 still en route from China.
- CRRC has rehired nearly 150 furloughed Springfield workers, restarted output, and plans to open a second assembly line in early 2027 and submit a revised delivery schedule to the MBTA.
- The program has a long history of setbacks and cost growth: the 2014 CRRC award undercut original estimates, the MBTA added roughly $148 million in 2024 raising the contract to about $1 billion, and the Orange Line cars from the same order are fully in service and exceeding reliability targets.