Share - WeChat

CRRC MA employees pose for a group photo at Bradley International Airport.[Photo/CRRC's official WeChat account]

In August 1872, 30 Chinese children were selected by the government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) to take part in Chinese Educational Mission, based in the United States. Participants included a pioneering Chinese rail engineer, named Zhan Tianyou, who was known as the "Father of China's Railroad".

Zhan, alongside the other children selected, arrived in Springfield a month after being chosen. Springfield is a city in western New England, based in the US state of Massachusetts.

Since then, 145 years later - on April 7, 2017 - 33 employees from the Springfield-based rail car builder, China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) Massachusetts (MA), prepared to travel to China for three months of technical training and departed the Bradley International Airport.

Their destination was CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles Co Ltd, based in Changchun city of the northeastern Jilin province.

CRRC MA Vice-President Jia Bo stands next to the Springfield Mayor, Domenic J. Sarno.[Photo/CRRC's official WeChat account]

The group, CRRC, is currently China's largest high-speed rail car maker, which launched an assembly line in Springfield last September.

According to a report from Xinhua, the company is set to assemble 284 subway cars in Springfield, which will replace the aging fleets of red and orange lines, connecting Cambridge to downtown Boston by 2023.

CRRC employees, who have already learned the basics of spoken Chinese, will be assigned to different workshops to practice their learning, after being technically trained and taught the company's corporate culture.

A CRRC MA employee arrives at Bradley International Airport.[Photo/CRRC's official WeChat account]

Since it was formed in 2015 by the merger of China's top two trainmakers, CRRC has been aggressively chasing overseas orders and deals. The company said the total value of orders from abroad surged by 40 percent year-on-year to $8.1 billion in 2016.

Last month, CRRC announced it would build 64 subway cars for the Los Angeles Metro Rail – an order worth up to $647 million.

The order follows another company win, scoring a $567 million Boston contract in 2014, and another bid worth $1.3 billion in 2016, building rail cars for Chicago.

CRRC MA employees wait for checkin at Bradley International Airport.[Photo/CRRC's official WeChat account]