SPRINGFIELD -- CRRC MA has a deal to manufacture new subway cars for Los Angeles, and the Chinese-owned company plans to do final assembly on those cars at its Springfield plant.

On Dec. 2 in Los Angeles, the board of directors of the Metro public transit system in Southern California approved a $178.4 million deal to purchase 64 new subway cars for its Red Line and Purple Line from CRRC. The deal has an option for the Metro to buy 218 more cars.

The Los Angeles deal is not yet final, however, as other bidders have contested the result.

Under the deal, CRRC would start production on the LA cars in 2019, said Jia Bo, CRRC MA vice president.

"That has been the plan all along, to use this plant as our hub in North America and to bring more work here," Bo said through a translator during a tour of the Springfield facility Thursday. "It was never 'Get one or two jobs and go.'"

CRRC MA is nearing completion on its 204,000-square-foot, $95 million factory at the former Westinghouse factory site on Page Boulevard in East Springfield. Construction is expected to be completed in April or May. Then, there will be three months of commissioning work at the facility to get it ready for production as early as July.

CRRC built the factory to fulfill a $566-million contract it received to manufacture 284 subway cars for Greater Boston's subway system. Of those cars, 152 will be for the Orange Line and 132 will be for the for the Red Line. Delivery of the first cars is expected in March 2018, and production is expected to last five years.

Two weeks ago, the MBTA awarded CRRC a new $277 million contract to build an additional 120 new Red Line cars starting in June 2022, after the previously announced Red and Orange Line cars are built. This most recent deal includes an option to purchase 14 more Red line cars.

Bo led the tour that included Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and other city officials.

Sarno marveled at the progress and thanked CRRC for preserving the former Westinghouse office building as its new office and headquarters building.

Construction workers were fitting out the interior of the massive assembly building, assembling overhead cranes and putting up interior walls. They also were preparing to install interior railroad tracks. Other construction contractors used earth movers to prepare ground for a 2,240-foot test track that will parallel Interstate 291.

Bo explained how car shells, really just a metal frame, will arrive from China by sea through the Port of Philadelphia and then overland. Once inside, as many as 200 production workers spread over two shifts will install all the wheels, motors, electronics and interiors over a period of about three months.

For the Los Angeles cars, work on air conditioning and lighting systems will be performed at a facility in Los Angeles as part of a commitment for local content, according to Metro.

Red Line and Purple Lines [pdf] of the Los Angeles metro parallel famous Wilshire Boulevard and service Hollywood, Studio City and Koreatown.

"It would be a very big project for us," Bo said. Production for the Los Angeles cars is expected to begin in 2019.

"By 2020 this workshop will be at peak capacity," he said.

At this point, CRRC has work lined up for the Springfield plant that would keep it busy through 2024.

But Bo said the goal is to continue to get more work.

"The demand is very big," he said. "And right now we are only doing transit cars. We could do intercity rail cars, light rail cars, any number of different cars."

Light rail is an industry term for what we would think of as a trolley or a tram.

Bo said officials from Atlanta's MARTA transit system have already toured the Springfield factory. CRRC also is trying to get work to build cars for SEPTA in Philadelphia.

In New York, CRRC is still awaiting word whether it has gotten a contract to make 1,025 subway cars for New York City over five years. That work would be done at a similar plant CRRC plans to build in Fort Edward, New York, which is near Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs, 134 miles and an almost 2-hour drive from Springfield.

"This facility is not big enough to service the New York market," Bo said, adding that New York City and its environs comprise 40 percent of the total U.S. market.

New York, like Massachusetts did with the Red and Orange cars project that lured CRRC here, also is requiring assembly be done in state.

"Our competitors in New York already have facilities in New York state," Bo said.

CRRC also plans to bid on a job to build cars for the Long Island Rail Road.

Bo said Springfield would still be the hub of CRRC's North American operations, and he hopes to build some components for the Fort Edward plant in Springfield.

Sarno said CRRC's plans point to Springfield's strategic location with good transportation links heading both north-south and east-west.