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California, Amtrak seek ‘Buy America’ exemption for bullet trains
I am astounded to see a news wire report with such a major error from Trains Magazine. The Amtrak and CHSRA requests for waivers were posted on the FRA website back in mid-March and were widely discussed in several on-line forums back then. So the waiver requests are almost 1 month old news. The waiver requests are for Amtrak and CHSRA for 2 prototype production sets each, to be built overseas, to be used for testing, evaluation, and initial use on the NEC and in CA (later) to speed up the testing process. The remainder of the two production runs would be built in the US, fully compliant with the Buy America requirements. The prototype units will be fully FRA and ADA compliant and will be the same design as the production units.
The Amtrak and CHSRA waiver requests lay out their plans, justifications for the waiver and are public documents. Shouldn’t Trains Magazine have read the waiver requests before posting a mis-leading story?
There is a MAJOR mistake in this article.
The Fresno Bee article specifically states: “”[I[n late February, the state rail agency and Amtrak each requested a waiver from the Federal Railroad Administration asking to be excused from the Buy America requirements. Each wants permission to purchase two prototype trains that are built overseas, but to American specifications, for testing purposes until the chosen manufacturer can build a production factory – or modify an existing plant – in the U.S. to build the trains."
In other words, they want an OK to buy American-specification foreign-built prototypes, which would then be replicated for a fleet in North America or the United States–NOT the entire fleet, as this article above implies.
Wonderful comments all- a true forum. And here’s a reminder, to remember the Acela’s original specs…which called for the robust crashworthiness that Euro-spec. sets avoid, and, last but not least, the design flaw, our very own, limiting top speed on curves. How far have we come? In Sept. 1972 I rode a Metroliner to D.C. and have a picture of the digital speedo reading 126 mph. And the Madrid-Seville lightweight set 40 years later doing 226.
This is such good news! Buying directly from existing European or Japanese factories will save a lot of time and money! This will possibly save billions of dollars.
Opening a new production line in the USA for a few dozen super high-speed trains makes as much sense as every buyer of Boeing jetliners demanding that the planes be built in factories in their countries.
Beyond Amtrak and the CHSRA (which as no track to run trains on) their are no customers for VHSR train-sets, the Texas Central Railway already have stated that if their Houston-Dallas Shinkansen is built… it will use imported bullet trains.
This could literally allow Amtrak to buy a train-set like the Pendelino right of the shelve, just as Virgin Trains did a few years ago to expand their existing Pendelino train-sets. All Virgin had to do was make the order with Alstom and an existing factory that is making Pendelinos for export across the world will add on to the work they already have.
Let’s not repeat the mistake of the Acela (or the new Talgos in Wisconsin) which Amtrak now has to have parts custom made, and which it proved (unlike with Virgin Trains) uneconomical to expand the sets by two-more cars because nobody makes Acela train-sets, and it would be horribly expensive to open up a new production line.
They should have just bought modified X-2000 train-sets from Sweden in the early 1990s, would have saved a lot of time and money, and we would have gotten a very good train-set.
Virtually all of the locomotives and coaches that Amtrak and the commuter railways order are made in America… we can afford to import a few super high-speed train-sets.
I hope they get the exemption. Let’s have new trains sooner rather than later… or never!
I doubt it would be approved because it will set a precedent to dodge the law, however Nippon Sh… In Rochelle, IL meets “Buy American”, just buy from them, CAF also meets “Buy American”, neither one is an American company but builds equipment for the U.S market built in the USA. Bombardier in Plattsburgh, NY also. With 3 companies Amtrak and California STILL cant be happy?
Siemens is a German company that is happily building locomotives for Amtrak here in the US. And they have well tested high speed train solutions that they’d be happy to build in the US. So what would the need be to go overseas (i.e. large country in Eastern Asia) and buy designs that they acquired by technology transfer/copying/ripoff from Germany in the first place?
if you cant buy america dont run in USA
Maybe they can spend American tax dollars to buy their trains in China too, just like Iraq did.
You are so right Mr. Jonasson! Right on!
Or GM could build then in Mexico. That would make them American made!
Much as I love passenger trains, this whole California high speed mishegas is opening my eyes to the argument that government shouldn’t force passenger trains onto the tracks of host railroads that really don’t want to run them.
I’m pretty sure that Siemens, Kawasaki, Bombardier, Alstom, CAF, and Nippon Sharyo all are capable of building high speed trains at their American plants. Build the prototype in Germany, France, or Japan, and build the production models here.
Amen to what Ms. Spindler wrote. This proposal is a damned outrage. The Obama administration’s passenger rail initiatives, such as they are, were supposed to help the American economy rebound. Bringing intercity passenger rail back into the mainstream of American’s transportation choices is only a part of that recovery. Bringing back the American passenger railcar building industry is also part of that.
I never thought this CAHSR initiative was the right way to go. We need to learn to operate reliably at speeds up to 110 outside the NEC and only after that’s been achieved do we talk about higher speeds.
I say USDOT and the administration tell CA and Amtrak to buy and build here or we yank the federal money and CA can go it alone. Start making exceptions to the “Buy America” requirement for this and every other state and transit agency will pile on.
The “Buy American” law is nothing but blatant protectionism. I thought we believe in the free market.
Given the budget constraints of Amtrak and the California High-Speed Rail Authority, purchasing bullet trains abroad is more economical where construction facilities and personnel are all ready in place. Proper machinery for bullet trains built from scratch in America and training personnel would raise expenses.
@JOHN SIMPSON - I’m sure they can build them in the US too… if money is no object.
Money is no object, right? I mean, this is America! We’ve never been bothered about paying two-to-four times as much as we need to, because we all LURVE paying taxes!
It’s high speed rail. It’ll pay for itself. Complaining that this is taxpayers money being spent on those darned furrunners misses the point that the taxpayer will get their money back a hell of a lot quicker if they don’t have to spend as much in the first place.
These are American Tax dollars, NOT private money. Therefore it should be “buy American”.
You can’t expect a third world country like the US to be able to build its own HSR trains.
We only do drones and stuff that blows up well.