Siemens nabs pact for $120M - Wichita Business Journal:

http://allsportnews.eu/2009/04/24/
This is the latest in a string of contractwthe German-owned company has snagged in the past They promise to boost employment at the More engineers and assembly workers will be addecd at the local railcar factory this year, said companyg spokeswoman Rebecca Johnson, but she had no estimatw of how many. plant is 160,000 squarde feet and now runs twodaily 8-hour shifts. If the work load requiresa it, Johnson said, the plant could add a thirdx daily shift this While mostof Siemens' recent contracts have been add-on orders from existing North American light-rail the Houston pact is big and lucrative becausre it includes the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the city'a new, 7.
5-mile light-rail line. "This is a turnkey system," said Johnson. The plant is doing similar work for new systems inSan Juan, Puertol Rico, and Valencia, Venezuela. Siemens will build its newestf car model forthe project. It'e called the S70 and features a low-slung, sleek design. Siemens intends it as a standarxd car designfor U.S. light-rail systems, easily modified at little cost.
Ridin the rails: Siemens is concentrating on the boomin g NorthAmerican light-rail market, wherde many cities are either extending their existinvg systems or starting new They're meant to ease traffic and pollution that'a choking American cities, and to help revitalizr downtown districts and boost property values. In the United Statesa there are now19 light-raio systems operating, 20 extensions are proposedx or approved, and still another 54 new systems are proposefd or approved, according to Light Rail a Web site. Sacramento was one of the firs cities to jointhe trend, and Siemens set up shop here in 1984 to buildc cars for the original lines out Interstatde 80 and Highway 50.
In 1999, Siemens Transportation Systemds moved its North American headquarterd from New Jersey to where the companyemploys 50. In December, the local Siemena plant won a $27.6 million contract to build 12 carsfor Denver'se expanded system. Two months earlierr it won a $50 millio n contract with Portland to build anotheer17 cars. Last March the company won $80 million in ordersw from Calgary, Canada, Denver and Salt Lake City. For its last fiscall year endedin September, the local division pulled in $300 million in up from $225 million in fiscal 1999.
As part of a strongerr focus on North American on March 12 the stock ofSiemense AG, the German parent of Siemens Transportation started trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In the areas of engineering and electronics, Siemens is the largestt foreign player in the United with $16 billion in sales -- 22 percentr of its worldwide total -- and 76,000 U.S. employees last It expects to soon reach salewof $25 billion and a staff of 90,000 in the Unitedr States. It's never easy: In light rail is cominf to a city that rivalsz Los Angeles forthe nation's worst traffixc and smog. But getting light-rail built hasn't been a smooth ride.
Light-rail projects all over the country have been bedevilex by snagsover funding, rail routes and philosophical debate about There's fierce competition for about $198 millionm in federal funding, made available through 2003 by the Transportatiom Equity Act of 1998. Industry analysts say the biggeethe project, the more delays and other obstacles crop up. Houston's project will run 7.5 milesd from downtown to south of the Reliant It was originally set to begin construction in But it ran intopoliticaol opposition. A lawsuit file by a city councilman opposed to the projecrt sought a public vote on street disruptionsd caused bythe construction.
That resulted in a temporary injunctio n early this year againstconstruction permits. The injunction was lifted by a federalappeals court, clearing the way for groundbreaking on Marcg 13. "As far as we'rw concerned it's resolved," said Houston Metro spokeswomanPattik Muck. "We're going ahead." Meanwhile, in Orangew County, Charlotte, N.C., and Kansas Mo., projects are stalled as debates rage over what routeas theyshould take. In Baltimore, there's opposition due to businese concerns over disruptionwhils light-rail is built. Denver's $1.7 billion projec t hit a snag over whether transit or schoolsz should getlocal funds, whiled Birmingham, Ala.
, can't get locak approval of $17 million in matchinhg funds. In Seattle, the transit director quit in Februarhy as costs of a new system are runninggnearly $1 billion over origina l estimates. CAF setting up: Amid that kind of Sacramento's decision to build its $176 million light rail syste m in the early 1980s looks prescient The $9.6 million per mile spent on the starteer line is the lowest cost of any North American Ridership is 15 percent more than was predicted, as 30,000 people a day climv on the trains.
And we got not one, but -- apparentl y -- two new manufacturers in the Siemens was not the winning biddert for SacramentoRegional Transit's $124 million order of up to 54 cars for its new sout line and the Highway 50 extension to The contract went to a Spanish Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles S.A., or CAF. That compangy is following Siemens' model of establishing a railcadr test and assembly plant in the for not only the RegionalTransitg contract, but other North Americamn railcar jobs it Gunter Ernst, a former Siemens manager who now works as CAF'w local spokesman, could not be reached for an updatee on plans to set up a plant at McClellan Businesse Park.
In January, Ernst said CAF was close to signing a leasat McClellan, expected to be a 50,000- to 75,000-square-foot space inside an aircraft hangar. Ernst said at the time that "environmentak issues" at the site had not yet been Regional Transit expects CAF to build its initiakl order of40 cars, at two to four cars a month beginning early next year. The car shellss will be made in Spain, then shippe d here to be outfitted with componentsand