The two train sets cancelled by Scott Walker in Wisconsin will be moving to the Amtrak Beech Grove IN shop on Wednesday. The speculation is that they are being prepped for a sale to Michigan. Wisconsin is still on the hook for $66m without anything to show for it.
if Michigan uses the Talgos on the Wolverine service, they would most likely lease the Talgos, not purchase them. The Michigan DOT RFP was quite specific that MiDOT is looking for equipment to be used only to the end of 2017 for a 3+ year period. By mid to late 2017, the 130 corridor bi-level cars to be built by Nippon-Sharyo for the Midwest and CA are to be delivered. At that point, MI won’t need the Talgos anymore.
By 2017 or in 2018, WA state will be in need of at least 1 additional Talgo trainset to support the increased service frequencies on the Cascades corridor. So, it could work out that MI uses the Talgos through 2017, then the WI Talgos go to the Northwest. But it is a very big if on whether it will happen that way.
You left out the most important part of the story: Whose move is it? Is Talgo moving the trains? Is Wisconsin? Is Michigan? Who is paying to have the trains moved? Normally a train move is paid for by the owner of a train unless the move is part of a sale or lease to another party. Who is writing this check?
I believe I read the plant is closing so I would assume Talgo contracted with Amtrak to store the sets and probably parts??
Bob
Talgo owns the trainsets since WI refused to pay for them. Talgo is presumably footing the bill for the move to Beech Grove and will pay Amtrak to store them. The facility in WI where the trainsets were built is costing Talgo $29K a month, so Talgo has an incentive to move the trainsets and vacate the facility as no more Talgos will ever be built there.
Newspaper article from April 30 on the pending move: 2 high-speed train sets built for Wisconsin set to leave Milwaukee. http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/2-train-sets-built-for-wisconsin-high-speed-rail-set-to-leave-milwaukee-b99259495z1-257351491.html
Well maybe Mayor Barrett learned his lesson that High Speed Rail does not necessarily equate to State Owned Businesses, 5 year plans and no bid contracts. We do still live in a Free Enterprise market place where the best deal for the taxpayer should be negotiated vs abusing taxpayer money to artificially create jobs via what would have been largely a state owned company and operation…so that Mayor Barrett could turn around in a quid pro quo arrangement and state: “Look at the jobs I created for Milwaukee”.
Milwaukee needs permanent jobs via stable companies that will remain in the city long-term not a fly by night arrangement just to get him re-elected.
You mean like every highway in the country?
Not sure what planet your from but here on Earth, highway construction is usually openly bid on by a range of private highway contractors. We don’t buy the contractor or an interest in the contractor first and then setup the contract to be no bid so that just that one contractor with a state interest wins the bid.
Talgo also was not arguably the best equipment for the route either. I don’t see a lot of sharp curves on that route, it is mostly engineered for high speed already. Why constrict the public to the limitations and expense of a tilt train when the technology isn’t even needed on the route it runs on.
So, we get a good price on projects of questionable value? Kinda sounds like Amtrak food service…[:)]
Name another “private contractor” capable of building passive tilt trains that won’t make the passengers barf when riding through Wisconsin at faster than 79mph. Oh and I am from IL but visited the Hayward area of Wisconsin several times as a kid, people from my tiny hometown visited there in the summer to get away from the heat, including one family whose daughter was killed when they ran off a curvy WI road.
So you don’t like the choice of equipment, fine. Oregon and Washington like the trains for reasons that have been run into the ground here. But you are being disingenuous in masking that disapproval of the Talgo trains by constructing a conspiracy theory about an open bid process. There aren’t any domestic manufacturers of tilting passenger cars other than Talgo, much less local “private contractors” who could have bid on those trains.
According to whom? You? You “don’t see” any “sharp” curves on that route? I don’t know you, but I am frankly not confident in your ability to determine the number and degree of curvature sufficient to warrant tilt trains rather than standard equipment.
They are a proven off-the-shelf, ready to run, pair, perfect for the stopgap application until the equipment designed for the job arrives. Then they can move to Oregon and Washington or serve a similar stopgap purpose elsewhere.
Paul M. would know best about whatever the route from Milwaukee to Madison was to be. From Chicago to Milwaukee is, as above, quite straight and suitable for fast running. But I think (not at all sure) that the stretch to Madison has more curves and poorer track, so the Talgo would have been good.
It was at least 95% all former Milwaukee Road routing. You don’t really need Paul M you can use Mapquest or Google Earth and follow the line yourself in like 20 min.
The route was Chicago to Milwaukee to Watertown which is the former Hiawatha route and the now CP mainline to Twin Cities. There is a wye at Watertown that branches onto a secondary line which shoots straight as an arrow for most of the distance to Madison via Sun Prairie. The leg of the Wye facing Milwaukee that the Passenger trains would use is very mild and already engineered for high speed as it was originally designed for passenger. The leg of the wye that branches north towards Columbus is very sharp in curvature…easy to find on the map in the North of town.
There are some curves on the Watertown to Madison line but none of really serious curvature until you get in really close to downtown Madison. Hiawatha’s used to traverse Watertown to Milwaukee at 80-90 mph with conventional equipment without issue. The Empire Builder has 79 mph limit currently for most of that part of the route.
You can follow the route on Google.
BTW, I have ridden, walked, and biked Watertown to Milwaukee, the curves are pretty mild except when climbing the grade through Brookfield, which the talgo has to slow for due to horsepower per weight of train issues…which even the Amtrak trains have traversing that grade. Sharp curves as you approach North Milwaukee Junctio
Proof is in the pudding? OK, let’s see the pudding.
Start with the reasons given on how they selected Talgo and why they used a no bid contract. Ask Talgo what promises the Governor of Wisonsin gave them which was far beyond his power to promise. Talgo bought into the pipe dream and promised the Wisconsin Governor a manufacturing plant if he could swing the Midwestern Governors towards Talgo…thats when your Governor stepped in and said maybe first…then later, No. One could see though that Illinois with the most money at the table would be the one picking what equipment was to be used and pretty much where it would be built for the entire Midwest compact and Wisconsin would not have much influence.
So, IMO it was foolish of Doyle to attempt this and as a result Wisconsin got burned.
The move is reported to have not happened last night, and I have heard that it might not happen for awhile. Also these train sets were purchased to be used on the Chicago to Milwaukee line, not the Madison to Milwaukee dream.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/52231522.html
“Gov. Jim Doyle announced last month that the state would buy the trains for Amtrak’s Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line”
[quote user=“CMStPnP”]
It was at least 95% all former Milwaukee Road routing. You don’t really need Paul M you can use Mapquest or Google Earth and follow the line yourself in like 20 min.
The route was Chicago to Milwaukee to Watertown which is the former Hiawatha route and the now CP mainline to Twin Cities. There is a wye at Watertown that branches onto a secondary line which shoots straight as an arrow for most of the distance to Madison via Sun Prairie. The leg of the Wye facing Milwaukee that the Passenger trains would use is very mild and already engineered for high speed as it was originally designed for passenger. The leg of the wye that branches north towards Columbus is very sharp in curvature…easy to find on the map in the North of town.
There are some curves on the Watertown to Madison line but none of really serious curvature until you get in really close to downtown Madison. Hiawatha’s used to traverse Watertown to Milwaukee at 80-90 mph with conventional equipment without issue. The Empire Builder has 79 mph limit currently for most of that part of the route.
You can follow the route on Google.
BTW, I have ridden, walked, and biked Watertown to Milwaukee, the curves are pretty mild except when climbing the grade through Brookfield, which the talgo has to slow for due to horsepower per weight of train issues…which even the Amtrak trains have traversing that grade. Sharp curves