USA: Nippon Sharyo USA has opened a third production hall at its plant in Rochelle, Illinois.
‘We will now be able to fabricate, weld, and assemble parts for our car bodyshells right here, making Nippon Sharyo a 100% Buy America compliant rail car builder’, said Nippon Sharyo Chairman Katsuyuki Ikushima at the inauguration on July 30. ‘From start to finish our rail cars will be made in the USA for use in the USA. I hope we will become the top passenger railcar builder in North America.’
The plant is currently building 88 double-deck coaches for Illinois and 42 for California under a 2012 contract supported by federal funding which requires 100% US production. ‘This is a state-of-the-art US railcar manufacturing facility that has been built from scratch – and now expanded – in just a few years, creating 400 jobs onsite and more throughout its domestic supply chain’, said Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph C Szabo. ‘Our Buy America program requires the railcars being built here to be 100% American-made, and Shop 3 allows Nippon Sharyo to fully meet these requirements and ramp up production through 2018.’
