WITH the transportation department keen on speeding up the development of rail infrastructure, a local rail-maintenance provider has seen it fit to partner with a huge Chinese train manufacturer to vie for rail construction and maintenance deals.
Comm Builders & Technology Philippines (CB&T) President Roehl B. Bacar said his company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese train manufacturer CRRC Dalian Co. Ltd. to pursue rail contracts in the Philippines.
The group is “keen on bidding for the various big-ticket rail projects that will be offered by the Philippine government, and is also interested in drawing up unsolicited project proposals either for new rail lines, or rehabilitate and improve existing ones in the country,” Bacar said.
Should the group win a railway deal or two, the Chinese company plans “to set up rolling stock-manufacturing activities right in the country.”
“I can only see the best and genuine technology transfer with the world’s largest manufacturer of trains by granting the host country to have its own manufacturing plants and not just providing jobs, but spurring the economic activity in terms of providing mobility to our cities,” Bacar said.
He said safety will no longer be an issue if such a feat happens.
“The strict Chinese mass-transport safety regulations are at par with any other standards and, most important, in the international rail-industry standards. It had, in many of its contracts, provided assembly plants at sites similar to Massachusetts and Chicago,” Bacar said.
He said having its own plant in the Philippines will allow companies to gather much-needed parts to quickly resolve technical issues on rail.
“A manufacturing and assembly plant will be faster to respond to the urgent needs of mass transport in any city in the country following the technical studies of the master plans for each region, especially Metro areas,” Bacar said.
Bacar’s group had sought to place the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 under a massive transformation program to augment its capacity and to provide a safe and comfortable travel to commuters from the northern and southern corridors of Metro Manila.
The P4.64-billion proposal, submitted in February last year with German partner Schunk Bahn-und Industrietechnik, calls for the complete overhaul of the 73 light-rail vehicles of the MRT; the replacement of the rails; the upgrading of the line’s ancillary system; the upgrade of the track circuit and signaling systems; the modernization of the conveyance system; and a three-year maintenance contract.
The previous administration never accepted or rejected the unsolicited proposal.
3 comments
Where are the new Dalian made trains for the MRT3? Why hasnt been used already? I see it being parked in the MRT 3 depo…is there something wrong? Im suspicious of China made systems…though it might be cheap, it breaks down easily!!! Given another choice, they are my last last option!
minaDalian ni pAbaya kaya goodbye na….
Yung unang dumating na Dalian train, katawan lang yun. Yung driver’s cab lang. May boogie frame, may axle at may gulong. The thing is walang traction motor, transmission, signalling and communications/electronic components! Yung kasunod na dumating, may traction motor, transmission and siguro aandar na kaya lang katulad nung una, drivers cab lang yata at hindi buong train na dapat magkabilang dulo may driver’s cab at sana yung signalling component pareho ng nakakabit sa MRT3. There is not even news that they have already tested it on their tracks. All they told us before was it was going dynamic testing. Kung dynamic, e d sana umaandar o sinsubukan sa tracks nila. Even if they come us up complete train systems, they wont be very easy to deploy as each train set must be tested and calibrated on the very system and set of tracks they will run. Considering the sad state of the MRT3, that is still a wet dream!