I was addressing the comment you replied to regarding American-based train makers, or rather the lack thereof, and of course Bombardier being a Canadian firm despite operating in the US, just like CRRC.I am well aware of Bombardier's origins. The Thunder Bay plant was actually previously owned by Hawker Siddley (the British airplane maker) until the collapse of the company in the 80's. The plant was subsequently taken over by the Canadian Government and undertook the production of Street Cars and the boondoggle of the Scarborough RT.
The original RT layout was not designed for larger trains, so it could never be upgraded with newer trainsets which in the end led to poor reliability. However, the design was pressed into service to show that it was operationally viable. In the end though, they did manage to sell the design to Vancouver, and subsequently Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, so the goal was achieved.
I realized I slightly misread @Intention 's post and realize that indeed assembly of MTA cars are done in NY State. That being said, I no longer remember the exact article specifying the details of what is being done in CRRC MA that was hasn't been done in the US for a long time. It might be the passenger railcars (such as the ones for SEPTA-Philadelphia)
CRRC is having a lot of issues in the USA, and is not being helped by being a target of political tension including Trump raising tariffs on the sub assemblies imported into the US from China and politicians calling them "spy trains". They are also not helped with the inevitable culture clashes that come with a new foreign venture and workers still getting up to speed. They are being accused of poor quality (though the MBTA says the delivered trains are good), which inevitably means "bad Chinese quality" to the average American. Of course, how many billions of rides are taken by Chinese people on "Chinese quality" trains on a daily basis?
Hopefully they iron out these issues, it seems like Chicago is going much more smoothly.
On the subject of Philly's SEPTA, that deal AFAIK is still stuck in regulatory limbo because apparently some parts of that particular rolling stock couldn't be manufactured by the Springfield plant so they have to make them in China instead which goes against the requirement for the cars to be 'built in America'.
By contrast, in Massachusetts' case they actually want CRRC to hurry up with their deliveries, so much so that the Governor even accepts that some of the trains are being built in China to be shipped to the US because the Springfield plant simply doesn't have enough capacity to deliver the cars quickly enough -
The stigma towards a Chinese firm supplying railcars to the US (even when said cars are actually made in-country) due to political hysteria shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, that much is also obvious. Qualitatively speaking any maker would invariably run into issues, and CRRC isn't immune either, whether it be production delays or defects that can be remedied prior to delivery, but nothing so serious as to cause detriment to actual passenger safety, but of course such things would also invariably be magnified purely on the fact that it's "Chinese, but American-made, but CHINESE".
Then we have makers like Kawasaki whose new models are actually defective to the point of being safety hazards after they have been put into service, yet I don't see anyone clamouring for banning "Japanese trains", which are also American-made -