Global rail maker Hitachi Rail announced Monday that Washington, D.C.’s new fleet of 8000-series rail cars will be built in Washington County, Md. The $70 million factory is projected to employ up to 460 workers and begin operation by winter 2023.
Reportedly, 60% of the plant’s construction value will be spent with suppliers from across the region, equating to more than $40 million.
This is all good news for Washington County, but the benefits of the up to $2.2 billion Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) contract that Hitachi won could have been more widely felt had WMATA applied Buy America to the project — something we called for back in 2020 when we noticed that WMATA was using some tricky accounting gimmicks to avoid doing so.