When that new Orange Line train slid off the tracks at Wellington, there was a bit of an explosion

Siemens never put in a formal bid. They did attended the pre-bid info session and they did verbally said they would bid (here's a link to an article talking about the meeting and who said in that meeting that they would bid).

But they never did - 5 companies did reach the part where the MBTA gets to select an actual bid (here's a link to the presentation), but Siemen isn't one.

Of the 5 that did reach. Two of them was CNR and CSR which is I need to note become the CRRC that making the trains now. Apparently their technical review found CNR, regardless Chinese quality memes, had both a good history and a good technical submission. CSR was deemed "Unacceptable" both in their technical submission and in history.

I think it is important to note the MBTA selected CNR and disqualified CSR. Something to consider when the inevitable comment "why we selected CRRC - did anyone look how their f-ed up their Singapore order?". Well, we didn't, but they merged after the bid. How to judge the merged company after is beyond me.

Bombardier put in a bid waaayyy higher than average bid. It's was probably not a serious bid, but "we-know-this-will-be-a-headache-so-we-don't-really-want-to-do-so-here's-the-price-it-would-take-for-us-to-bother. I'm sure we would have raged "Why can't America do transit at reasonable prices, we are paying twice the prices per train versus other countries for the same trains!" And if you follow NYC, picking Bombardier isn't a guarantee of better results anyways.

I still don't understand why Hyundai-Rotem even bother. If nobody remmebers, back in 2014, Hyundai-Rotem was in a fiasco in how they f-ed up a major order of commuter rail coaches- as in Commuter Rail. Their was the next closest price but everyone here would absolutely rage if we choose Hyundai-Rotem - with something like "they failed those commuter rail coaches and we hired them again, wtf????"

The one that alternative timeline that was kinda plausible was Kawasaki. The price was near average. No Hyundai fiasco. Unless you're from the 80's, everybody trusts Japan. Maybe if we didn't required a "buy in Massachusetts" maybe it would have meant Kawasaki could submitted a cheaper bid (CNR had no US factory, so they had to build one anyways - but Kawasaki already have one, so either price in that cost or eat the cost of a factory that would be used just once)