Don't discount the requirements of competitive bidding for any government contract. Or of "local content" regs.

Also, it's worthwhile to point out how much transit money gets wasted on studies and on-going attempts to re-invent the wheel. In years past, transit authorities would study and test rail, ties, ballast, signals and everything else rather than buy proven, off-the-shelf stuff. Too often, these studies resulted in custom-made parts that served no useful purpose over and above the standard stuff. The same thing happens with transit vehicles. Each city wants to have it's own design, resulting in relatively small production runs of high-priced, non-compatible cars.

The people who came up the PCC cars knew what they were about, in this regard at least.