(The following story by Noah Bierman appeared on the Boston Globe website on January 24, 2009. George Newman is Chairman of the BLET’s Massachusetts State Legislative Board.)
BOSTON — The MBTA has halted its effort to buy new locomotives for its commuter rail service, citing its financial problems and an ongoing battle between the two companies that were competing for the contract.
The $150 million plan to buy 28 new locomotives is considered an essential step in addressing persistent delays on commuter rail and preventing further problems with the network of older trains that take 70,000 people in and out of Boston every day.
The decision to delay the order is one of the most dramatic examples of how the T’s funding problems affect its ability to provide reliable service to passengers.
Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said he expects to rebid the project in the coming months, after the Legislature finishes debating a possible bailout of the T and the state’s other financially troubled transportation agencies.
“We just don’t know what our financial condition holds,” he said. “We know that there’s going to be a lot of flux over the next several months.”
Depending on what happens on Beacon Hill, the T could increase or decrease the number of locomotives it eventually buys, he said. The order had previously been reduced from 38 to 28 locomotives, with an option to buy more in both instances, because of cost issues.
The decision to halt the order is tied closely to a contentious contract dispute between the two companies that bid on the project. Grabauskas said the T was likely to face a long and expensive legal battle regardless of which bidder it chose: Vossloh Espana S.A., a Spanish unit of a German company that was the low bidder but initially wanted to build two model locomotives outside of the United States, or MotivePower Inc. of Boise, Idaho, which was challenging Vossloh’s bid because of the federal “Buy America” regulation.
But the T’s financial problems – “probably the worst financial condition that the T has been in in its history,” according to Grabauskas – appear to have sealed the decision. Grabauskas said he is estimating a $140 million to $160 million deficit in the coming fiscal year.
Buying new locomotives “is something you can postpone for a little while but not for very long,” said Paul Regan, executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board, which represents cities and towns served by the T. “Beyond six months or a year, it starts to get dicey.”
Of the 80 locomotives in the MBTA’s fleet, 43 were built before 1981, many in the 1970s. Locomotives are expected to last about 25 years each.
“A lot of them are old, and tired, and they break down,” said George Newman, chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Division 57. The T last year entered a contract to build 75 double-decker passenger cars, which are due to begin arriving late next year.
On-time performance has been a consistent and frustrating problem for commuters on the trains, even as ridership grows. In the last two months, about 1 in 4 trains was at least five minutes behind schedule. Engineers and conductors often cite the old equipment as a problem, though weather, track construction, and signal problems are also frequent culprits.
“I can’t rely on the MBTA to get me there on time,” said Dave Ault, who commutes from Canton Junction, and was an hour late to work one day this week after one train was canceled and a second one delayed. “I often wonder if it will ever get better.”
The T has spent $263,565 in engineering and other costs associated with buying the new locomotives, said spokesman Joe Pesaturo. He said that money would not be wasted because the T can use all of the completed engineering documents when it readvertises the project in a several months.
The T had been expecting to award the bids last month. The two companies that bid on the project could not be reached for comment yesterday. Vossloh had offered to build the locomotives for $148.5 million. MotivePower had submitted a bid for $150.7 million. The Federal Transit Administration was going to reimburse 80 percent of the costs, with the T borrowing money to pay the rest.
But Vossloh had asked for a federal waiver to the “Buy America” requirement so that it could build two pilot locomotives in its home plant, and then assemble the rest in Kentucky. After lobbying from unions and Idaho politicians, the Federal Transit Administration denied the request.
Vossloh then wrote a letter to the T saying it no longer needed the waiver. Grabauskas said both companies argued that they deserved to win the contract – Vossloh because it had the lower bid, MotivePower because Vossloh’s bid was not valid due to the request to build part of the project abroad.
When and if the T signs a contract to buy locomotives, it will take nearly three years to roll the first ones onto the tracks. Thereafter, two new ones would be introduced each month.