Transit Officials Consider Leasing Cars for Green Line

Still unsure where they are going to get the rail cars for the opening of the Metro Green Line, county transportation officials may be turning to the city of St. Louis for some help.

In an effort to stay on schedule, an ad hoc committee of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission decided Thursday to pursue negotiations with St. Louis to lease 15 cars for the Green Line’s opening in November, 1994.

The action was taken after the commission emerged empty-handed after recently taking bids on a small contract intended to supply the Green Line with start-up cars. While two companies responded, one declined to bid and the other’s offer was not acceptable.

The 15-car contract was one of two authorized in the wake of last January’s cancellation of a $121.8-million contract with the Japanese-owned Sumitomo Corp. of America, which was to build 41 cars for the Green Line. The commission killed the deal after an uproar erupted over giving the job to a foreign firm in the midst of a recession at home.

Given the small size of the contract and the short production deadline, officials said they were not surprised there wasn’t much response. “We knew going out that at most we would see two bids,” said Ed McSpedon, president of the Rail Construction Corp., a commission subsidiary.

The two firms that did reply are both foreign-owned--Sumitomo and the German-owned Siemens-Duwag. Sumitomo wrote a letter saying it would not bid because its costs would be too high on such a small project. And the only car Siemens could offer by the 1994 deadline did not meet the transportation commission’s specifications.

Further negotiations with those companies may still be on the horizon, however. Along with pursuing talks with St. Louis, the committee is also recommending that the transportation commission authorize single-source negotiations with firms still interested in the 15-car contract. If given more time, for instance, Sumitomo may be able to lower its subcontractor costs on the project.

“We’ll pursue both (approaches) and see which looks like the best deal to us,” McSpedon said, adding that the leasing option seemed the most attractive at this point.

St. Louis has already ordered rail cars from Siemens for a large project and can easily increase its order, leasing the extra cars to the Los Angeles County transportation system for a few years. Then, when the county gets a large delivery of 87 cars in the mid-1990s, it would return the leased cars to St. Louis, when that city will need them.

The bidding round for that large, 87-car contract was opened July 1 and extends into the fall. McSpedon said he expects many bids on that project and plenty of competition because of its size.

That contract, which will supply cars for a number of county light rail lines, has been designed to answer many of the objections directed at the canceled Sumitomo contract. For instance, it requires that 60% of the value of a car’s components be manufactured in the United States and encourages U.S. aerospace companies to enter partnerships with rail car firms.

While Morrison-Knudsen--the American company that bitterly complained when Sumitomo won the contract last year--did not bid on the 15-car contract, McSpedon expects the firm to go after the larger one.