Other than in the Pacific Northwest and in Spain, is Talgo equipment used anywhere else? If not, there must be a reason.
Talgos are also used in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and will be used in Saudi Arabia.
They were formerly used in Argentina but fell victim to poor track (Talgos ride very poorly on bad track).
Without large amounts of curvature, the Talgos don’t make as much sense as other trainsets due to lack of flexibility. One advantage that is useful elsewhere is the ease of which the gauge is changed, which only takes a few minutes due to the lack of conventional axles.
Actually RZD (Russia) Just placed the first of seven train sets in service. Three of these are automatic gage change trains for Moscow Berlin service. The Saudis just ordered 6 Train sets last month.
Interestingly virtually all of the Finish Railway’s long distance passenger cars are “Talgos”, conventional double deck cars built by Talgo, I was impressed with them. On each long distance train I rode one car’s upper level was fitted out a a children’s play area. Neat idea.
That’s good to hear. But it seems Talgos make the most sense with curvy track and gauge changes, neither of which apply on the routes in question here.
Actually his spending past was one of the main reasons Governor Walker wisely cancelled the program before Wisconsin went deep in the hole debt wise. The small print on spending that Federal Money is that in a few years specific metrics had to be met as an outcome of the project or the state would have to pay all the money back to the Feds. Illinois is currently trapped under those provisions of the grant. Specifically stated was a mph metric as well as service metric that had to be achieved and met by the project.
Another fact is the Talgos were pushed through on a no bid contract that was not open to range of passenger car builders. Why would a Governor do that unless there was some other financial incentive that went undisclosed. So far I have not heard a convincing response back on that.
Last but not least both Amtrak and Wisconsin has had past experience with fixed trainsets on the Chicago to Milwaukee route with the former Amtrak Turboliners. The equipment was nice inside but maintenence and fuel bills on the trainsets due to foriegn parts were fairly astronomical. WisDOT is trying to reduce subsidy as much as possible to Amtrak it is not looking to buy trainsets to maximize it’s maintence costs. A much better alternative would have been for the Wisconsin Governor to WAIT for the Midwestern designed corridor cars that were to be developed in Illinois instead of attempting to short circuit that process by jumping the gun with Talgo and attempting to tell the rest of the Midwestern Compact that Wisconsin had already found a solution on it’s own. IMO, that alone was enough for Governor Doyle to get burned. Standardized trainsets throughout the Midwest that can a
I would say it’s the difference between a rational decision based on the total picture of what works best, cost, compatibility, etc. vs a political collusion with one business with the primary criterion local (Milwaukee) jobs at the Talgo plant.
BTW, I suspect another disadvantage of the Talgo is probably you cannot necessarily intermix cars from different generations within the same trainset without issues because Talgo upgrades various SYSTEMIC components with each generation so your forced to buy a whole new trainset. To me that is also inefficent. It’s great for the bottom line of Talgo though. Conventional trains have no issue mixing in newer cars with older cars as long as standards are followed.
Let’s see if can offer a basis for the Talgo decision, even though there are plenty of points to criticize it.
The starting point is the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. Our back-then (Republican) Wisconsin governor was big on “transportation” (read road building), and to complement his highway buildout, he at least gave lip-service to adding trains to the mix. When President George W Bush was elected, his ambition was to be the Secretary of Transportation. Whatever his smarts, his qualifications, or lack thereof as claimed by political opponents, he badly wanted to be the Transportation secretary, and I think he would have been good at it and good for some of the vast transportation budget to be directed at trains because that is where his interests were. Instead, in the type of political patronage that went on in handing out those appointments, he was made HHS (Health and Human Services) Secretary.
I guess his name came up because it was associated with the Welfare-to-Work (W2) program in Wisconsin that many liberals criticized as putting the squeeze on the poor and vulnerable, but it became the model for the welfare reform enacted by a Republican Congress under Democratic President Clinton. But Secretary Thompson made many embarrassing pronouncements as HHS Secretary by being his good-ol-boy-from-da-state we knew him to be that were cringe-worthy for those of us in Wisconsin to be uttered on the national stage. It would have been better all around if were DOT secretary, and much better for trains, but it didn’t work out that way.
In the context of the proposed Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, and in the context that this was a multi-state arrangement – all Pharohs and no stone masons – and in the context that there was strong support for this kind of thing at the time, both at WisDOT and by our Governor, Wisconsin attempted to lead on this thing.
The Rail Initiative was a multi-billion dollar thing of which the a
Thanks for a comprehensive discussion of the WisDOT Talgo decisions.
I could’ve sworn that Michigan did, in fact buy those Talgos that Wisconsin was to use.