By George Arwady

The last time the community was invited to the old Westinghouse site on Page Boulevard it witnessed the unveiling of Ameristar’s doomed casino proposal.

Tuesday’s announcement on the same property by Gov. Deval Patrick was nowhere as glitzy, but vastly more significant for the future of Springfield and potentially all of Western Massachusetts.

The governor revealed that CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles Co. will build a 125,000-square-foot rail car assembly plant and a 33,700-square-foot office building on this East Springfield graveyard of 7,000 good-paying industrial jobs. The factory's initial work will be to assemble $1.5 billion worth of new cars for Boston's Red and Orange lines, but the Chinese plan to make this their North American headquarters.

In a way, this announcement is an early fruit of Massachusetts’ innovative gaming law, which forced casino companies to compete to get a license. Ameristar’s failed gamble produced a shovel-ready site for Changchun.

Thank you, Ameristar.

CNR initially will employ 150-300 employees, but there is potential for many more jobs, not just at the Chinese company but at its vendors, suppliers and transporters. If the area takes full advantage, you could, for example, see our colleges and universities expand their language programs and technical know-how to spawn innovations in rail transportation.

"CNR will create good, family supporting jobs for our skilled trades, and stimulate a logistically convenient vendor network that will make our region even more attractive for additional rail car manufacturing and assembly," said Allan Blair, president of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts.

You could develop a cluster of Chinese companies here, much as Battle Creek, MI, developed a large cluster of Japanese auto-parts manufacturers.

The opportunity presented by CNR is vast. The United States, which is woefully far behind the rest of the world in rail, has no domestic manufacturer of rail cars. CNR plans to bid on high speed rail for the entire northeast, and beyond.

Few people noticed, but the first of this month marked the 50th anniversary of the first “bullet train” in Japan, which revolutionized modern rail by going 130 mph. Today, a half-century later, the fastest train in the U.S. is a short leg between Washington and Wilmington, Delaware; it travels up to 109 mph. Meanwhile, seven countries have service in excess of 200 mph, with the next Japanese train planned to hit 314 mph.

Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, founded in 1845, built railway cars, car wheels and did general railway work.

Springfield was the home of the Wason Manufacturing Company, founded in the North End in 1845, which employed hundreds and was the rail car industry leader. The Chinese, with their long view of history, made mention of Wason when visiting Springfield earlier this year. Now it's possible that we could see history repeat itself here. Globalization, which cost New England so many jobs, may actually start to produce good-paying, high-tech manufacturing jobs in America.

“Today’s announcement is further evidence that Springfield is a city on the move,” said Kevin Kennedy, the City of Springfield’s chief development officer.

Kennedy quickly listed off other city projects: the upcoming remaking of Union Station, which also received a $4 million boost from the governor on Tuesday; the new rail service from New Haven to Vermont; the refurbishing of Morgan Square apartments, UMass Springfield downtown campus, and of course the $800 million MGM casino downtown.

If voters say “no” to casino Question 3 on the November 4 ballot, the last barrier to MGM will be removed, and Springfield may well remember this autumn as the turn-around season for its economy and can look forward to a brighter economic future for the entire region.

“Together with Westover in Chicopee, Barnes in Westfield, a High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke and the splendor of the Berkshires, Western Massachusetts is positioned to be a great place to live, work and play in the 21st century with Springfield as its regional capital,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy’s boss, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, is the grandson of a Westinghouse worker. He’s developed a strong partnership with Gov. Patrick, who has been the best governor on Western Massachusetts issues in decades. The CNR decision, coming in the last months of Patrick’s term, is the most important fruit of that partnership. The word for it is leadership.

We're riding the rails back to the future. And that future can be very bright.



George Arwady is publisher and CEO of The Republican

