Nuts and bolts of Kawasaki's light-rail car plant in Lincoln

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Interesting facts about Kawasaki Rail Car’s Northwest Lincoln production plant

 

 Each of the double-decker cars the company makes for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority contains some 90,000 parts, supplied by about 80 vendors.

 The transit agencies that buy Kawasaki cars have resident inspectors who work at the Lincoln plant, signing off on the quality of Kawasaki’s work at several points during production. New York City Transit’s Frances Nelson and Joe Hyatt will be living in Lincoln for about three years to fulfill their inspector duties.

 The Lincoln production plant resembles a train station in some ways.   Employees climb steps onto platforms and board the cars to perform some jobs. Toward the end of customer inspections, the transit agency representatives get on the trains and flush the toilets.

 The plant can use up to 1,400 tons of steel a year, division general manager Kinji Umeno said. About 55 percent of that comes from Ohio, most of the rest from Japan. The steel from Japan enters the country at the Port of Long Beach. Almost all of the material used to make a rail car enters the plant by truck, says Lincoln rail car division manager Lanny Nissen.

 The cars’ stainless steel hulls are relatively easy to clean, says  Nissen. That was shown to be a good thing recently, as cars en route from Lincoln to Boston were left at a Beacon Hill, Mass. transfer point overnight on the way — and “decorated” by graffiti artists.

 The MBTA cars are shipped to Boston via rail. Kawasaki’s contract states that the rail cars must be placed at the end of the train. The reason: the rail cars are much lighter than other cars, and when the train brakes, heavier cars behind them could cause the new rail cars to leave the track.

 Kawasaki has three competitors in the North American market, Nissen and Umeno said: Bombardier Transportation, Alstom and Siemens Transportation Systems. Several companies, including Morrison-Knudson (later Amerail), Budd and Pullman dropped out of the car-making market as the federal government directed more money to interstate highways and less to rail.

 If you’re ever in New York City or Greater Boston, there’s a way to tell if you’re riding in a Lincoln-built car. Just above the doorway inside the main passenger cabin on each MBTA car is a silver tag that identifies the car’s manufacturer and where and when it was made. On the New York subway cars, a similar plate can be found on a wall at one end of the car.

 The MBTA cars are expected to have a 40-year life span, said Nissen. “Some of the younger people working here making the cars will retire at about the same time the car does,” he said.

 The MBTA has resident inspectors put its cars through a variety of tests before accepting them in Lincoln. After delivery, they’re run through the same tests again in Boston, then put into service for 10 days. “If there are no defects in that time, they own the car,” said Nissen.

— Facts compiled by Rodd Cayton