Groundbreaking Set For Rail Car Factory In Springfield

WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Paul Tuthill

Published September 2, 2015 at 7:44 AM EDT

The world’s largest maker of passenger rail cars is planning to break ground this week on a new factory in western Massachusetts.

Governor Charlie Baker is among the officials scheduled to speak Thursday at the ceremony to mark the start of construction on a $60 million 200,000 square foot factory on Springfield’s east side.

CNR-MA, a subsidiary of Chinese government-owned Changchun Rail Vehicles, purchased the 40 acre site for $12 million, according to spokesperson Lydia Rivera.

"This is an exciting time. The site is cleared and ready for construction," she said.

CNR-MA won a $566 million state contract to build 284 new subway cars for the MBTA. The factory is expected to employ 150 people.

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Paul Tuthill

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.

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