From: ahk@chinet.com   
      
   John Levine  wrote:   
      
   >>>I realize that Australians may not be familiar with all of the details   
   >>>of North American geography, but where do you think Hornell, New York is?   
      
   >>This would be the point of final assembly to comply with Buy American. The   
   >>components that add real value to the railcar are made elsewhere.   
      
   >Most countries have buy-local rules for their railways, so they are   
   >already set up to do the manufacturing in country.  After all, it's   
   >not like it's cheaper to pay employees in France.   
      
   You continue to knowingly misrepresent the manufacturing process, because   
   cheaply paid employees doing final assembly are irrelevant. Every country's   
   "buy local" rules are a joke; Canada has rules in which they discriminate   
   against neighboring provinces.   
      
   Final assembly isn't the point at which significant value is added. If   
   wages of workers performing final assembly are a little higher in one   
   country versus another country, it doesn't make all that much difference in   
   the manufacturer's costs. With respect to railcars, where final assembly   
   takes place is not where the true value is added in the manufacturing   
   process.   
      
   Significant value is created in the design phase and the skilled   
   manufacturer of major components, very little of which occurs in   
   Hornell. That's what you want to keep in your own country, but nearly   
   no design work and nearly no components manufacturing work takes place   
   in the United States. The domestic market is simply too small and goes   
   through far too many feast and famine periods.   
      
   >The Hornell factory already builds cars for NYCT, NJT, CTA, MARTA, and   
   >Amtrak California.  Wikipedia says it's the site of the old Erie   
   >Lackawanna shops, and that they import car bodies from Brazil but   
   >build the locomotives and traction motors there.   
      
   >http://www.alstom.com/Global/US/Resources/Documents/Hornell%20S   
   te%20Brochure_Oct2010.pdf   
      
   No CTA "L" cars were built in Hornell. Instead, CTA had sent the second order   
   of Budd cars there for mid-life rehab, a process that years ago used to   
   be called "ongoing maintenance" and something that was performed locally.   
      
   There were 600 cars in the 2600 series (numbered 2601 through 3200),   
   although several had been scrapped due to wrecks by the time they were   
   sent away for rehab and I don't recall how many went through the process,   
   but it was at least 590.   
      
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