Governor Charlie Baker, state transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack, and other notables were at a Springfield factory on December 18 to mark what the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is calling the on-time completion of the first pair of Orange Line vehicles.

CRRC MA is manufacturing 404 subway cars for the MBTA: 152 new Orange Line ones and 252 Red Line ones. The cars are expected to hit tracks in the Boston area beginning in 2019. And they will be quite state-of-the-art, per an MBTA release:

The safety and customer amenities include stainless-steel-vehicles car shells that incorporate laser-welding technology for better exterior finish, crash energy management for enhanced customer and operator safety, LCD monitors for customer information, and train-to-wayside communications via a wireless network for monitoring and detection of potential maintenance needs

See, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Boston area come 2019.