Bay State beats out Amtrak at MBTA Bay State Transit, a joint venture of MotivePower Industries wholly-owned subsidiary Boise Locomotive Company and Herzog Transit Services, Inc., has signed a five-year, $175 million contract for daily equipment maintenance on 363 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter rail coaches and 83 locomotives beginning March 1, 2000. Bay State's bid was $116 million lower than the bid received from Amtrak, the current service provider. The contract was originally awarded in May to Bay State but was delayed because labor interests, fearing job cuts, wanted the business to remain with Amtrak. Including the MBTA contract, MPI's multi-year backlog is $881 million, a record for the company. MPI owns 75% of the joint venture.

Equipment

Bombardier Capital Rail: Acquired 360 aluminum-bodied AutoFlood™ coal cars from Johnstown America Corp. Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc., of Springfield, Mo., will lease 110 of the cars, primarily for transporting Powder River Basin coal.

Detroit Edison: Received 1,000 BethGon® aluminum-bodied coal cars from Johnstown America Corp. The cars will be used to haul coal from the Powder River Basin to three Detroit Edison power plants in southern Michigan.

Nippon Sharyo USA, Inc.: Awarded Quest Corp. a contract to supply six Apollolite III Warning Light Kits, which Nippon Sharyo will install on Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board/Caltrain gallery control cars. Each kit will consist of one Apollolite controller, two PAR 56 light housings for installation on the front of each control car, and two PAR 56 lamps.

NJ Transit: Awarded an $8 million contract to STV, Inc., to provide engineering assistance in a two-phase purchase of new commuter cars and motive power. In phase one, the agency plans to acquire 98 single-level cab cars, 102 single-level coaches, 24 electric locomotives, and 33 diesel locomotives by 2002. In phase two, 200 bilevel coaches will be purchased by 2004. There are no bilevel cars now on the market that are capable of fitting through the Northeast Corridor tunnels under the Hudson River that connect New Jersey and New York. The future orders are part of a five-year plan to help NJ Transit address ridership growth, which is up 22% since 1991, as well as current system limitations and the demands of such new rail services as the Montclair Connection, the Secaucus Transfer Station, and the Newark International Airport/Northeast Corridor Station.

Union Pacific: Awarded a two-year service contract to Predict/DLI for detecting premature failure of traction motors by evaluating lubricant wear debris. This process has been found to identify potential faults that commonly-used oil analysis testing has missed. The contract is valued at $750,000.