On 02.09.16 17:02, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> John Levine  wrote:
>
>>>> I realize that Australians may not be familiar with all of the details
>>>> of North American geography, but where do you think Hornell, New York is?
>
>>> This would be the point of final assembly to comply with Buy American. The
>>> components that add real value to the railcar are made elsewhere.
>
>> Most countries have buy-local rules for their railways, so they are
>> already set up to do the manufacturing in country.  After all, it's
>> not like it's cheaper to pay employees in France.
>
> You continue to knowingly misrepresent the manufacturing process, because
> cheaply paid employees doing final assembly are irrelevant. Every country's
> "buy local" rules are a joke; Canada has rules in which they discriminate
> against neighboring provinces.
>
> Final assembly isn't the point at which significant value is added. If
> wages of workers performing final assembly are a little higher in one
> country versus another country, it doesn't make all that much difference in
> the manufacturer's costs. With respect to railcars, where final assembly
> takes place is not where the true value is added in the manufacturing
> process.
>
> Significant value is created in the design phase and the skilled
> manufacturer of major components, very little of which occurs in
> Hornell. That's what you want to keep in your own country, but nearly
> no design work and nearly no components manufacturing work takes place
> in the United States. The domestic market is simply too small and goes
> through far too many feast and famine periods.
>
>> The Hornell factory already builds cars for NYCT, NJT, CTA, MARTA, and
>> Amtrak California.  Wikipedia says it's the site of the old Erie
>> Lackawanna shops, and that they import car bodies from Brazil but
>> build the locomotives and traction motors there.
>
>> http://www.alstom.com/Global/US/Resources/Documents/Hornell%2
Site%20Brochure_Oct2010.pdf
>
> No CTA "L" cars were built in Hornell. Instead, CTA had sent the second order
> of Budd cars there for mid-life rehab, a process that years ago used to
> be called "ongoing maintenance" and something that was performed locally.
>
> There were 600 cars in the 2600 series (numbered 2601 through 3200),
> although several had been scrapped due to wrecks by the time they were
> sent away for rehab and I don't recall how many went through the process,
> but it was at least 590.
>
They also did a rebuild of the R-32s as well as the M3 series, IIRC.

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