Wisconsin Hiawatha (Service Talgos Upgrades Maintenance)

How would the post office allow through trains? It's due south of CUS, meaning you would still have the two easterly tracks through CUS as your connection to the north end. Further, I've been on quite a few LD trains between the Capital, Chief, and Zephyr, and it's fairly common to use the through tracks as an arrival track for those trains. Further, I can't speak to which track the inbound Builder uses, but it is a "passenger-less" through train I suspect, as it arrives from Milwaukee, unloads, and rolls empty to the south side for service.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Looks like Wisconsin os on a roll to acquire equipment totally unsuitable for the substantially tangent A-5 Pacific Junction to South Milwaukee route - and with no competitive bid;

(Associated Press courtesy of Chicago Tribune) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi- ... 3190.story

Brief passage;

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin lawmakers on Tuesday approved a $47 million no-bid contract to buy two passenger trains from a Spanish company under a plan to jump-start high-speed rail service in the state. The Joint Finance Committee voted 11-4 to approve the agreement with Patentes Talgo even as lawmakers criticized Gov. Jim Doyle's aides for the process they used to pick the company and not informing them for months after a tentative deal was reached. The vote allows the administration to execute a contract that will bring scores of jobs to Wisconsin and improve the state's chances of winning federal stimulus money for high-speed rail. It is the first step in a $600 million plan to improve train service between Chicago and Milwaukee and add a high-speed connection to Madison. Doyle, a Democrat, traveled to Spain to visit Talgo executives in February and then announced the agreement last month. His administration picked Talgo under a law that allows passenger rail cars to be purchased without competitive bidding. It was the only company out of seven contacted to respond to a state request for information

It sure seems like the "hell on wheels' business model of 'we build 'em where someone bought 'em', was the clincher. Never mind that such is likely only finally assembly and maybe some US sourced raw materials. I am mindful that other orders for mass transit equipment, such as pointed out here earlier in the discussion, represents the same business model, I can only hope that taxpayers will be receiving value. I'm not sure if the paying passengers will.

You do realize that Talgo was the only company that responded to the RFI, a fact that the article here even concedes. It's really hard to have bidding with only one bidder. Yes, Wisonsin could have gotten a better deal, if it had received more than one offer, which it had not.

superjoo wrote: You do realize that Talgo was the only company that responded to the RFI, a fact that the article here even concedes. It's really hard to have bidding with only one bidder. Yes, Wisonsin could have gotten a better deal, if it had received more than one offer, which it had not.

When a RFI results in only a single bid, and the whole point of the exercise is competitive bidding, it's time to rewrite the RFI to be more inclusive - and eliminate unreasonable, wasteful provisions, such as building two trainsets in Wisconsin.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Looks like Wisconsin os on a roll to acquire equipment totally unsuitable for the substantially tangent A-5 Pacific Junction to South Milwaukee route - and with no competitive bid;

(Associated Press courtesy of Chicago Tribune) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi- ... 3190.story

Brief passage;

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin lawmakers on Tuesday approved a $47 million no-bid contract to buy two passenger trains from a Spanish company under a plan to jump-start high-speed rail service in the state. The Joint Finance Committee voted 11-4 to approve the agreement with Patentes Talgo even as lawmakers criticized Gov. Jim Doyle's aides for the process they used to pick the company and not informing them for months after a tentative deal was reached. The vote allows the administration to execute a contract that will bring scores of jobs to Wisconsin and improve the state's chances of winning federal stimulus money for high-speed rail. It is the first step in a $600 million plan to improve train service between Chicago and Milwaukee and add a high-speed connection to Madison. Doyle, a Democrat, traveled to Spain to visit Talgo executives in February and then announced the agreement last month. His administration picked Talgo under a law that allows passenger rail cars to be purchased without competitive bidding. It was the only company out of seven contacted to respond to a state request for information

It sure seems like the "hell on wheels' business model of 'we build 'em where someone bought 'em', was the clincher. Never mind that such is likely only finally assembly and maybe some US sourced raw materials. I am mindful that other orders for mass transit equipment, such as pointed out here earlier in the discussion, represents the same business model, I can only hope that taxpayers will be receiving value. I'm not sure if the paying passengers will.

Yes, it looks as if 80 temporary, short term jobs will cost the taxpayers much of the $47 million to be spent on these tiling Talgos trainsets bound for tangent track.

In an ideal world, this contract would be canceled, Gov. Jim Doyle would explain the reasoning behind this no-bid contract to a grand jury, and a new requirement would be written which would include as many potential suppliers as possible. Then we would see the results of a competitive bid, which no doubt would be substantially less expensive than this oddball Talgo order.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:

superjoo wrote:You do realize that Talgo was the only company that responded to the RFI....It's really hard to have bidding with only one bidder. Yes, Wisconsin could have gotten a better deal, if it had received more than one offer, which it had not.

I wholly agree with your thought, Mr. Superjoo. My problem is the unsuitability of Talgo equipment for the route. On the Seattle-Portland route, it is a different story; scheduled times have been reduced by 30min over that prevalent during 1969 with conventional equipment.. Could the Talgo maybe take the sharp curves into both CUS and MKE 5mph faster resulting in maybe a 2 minute schedule reduction? Yeah, rah rah to that!!!

I guess it was the 'hell on wheels' business model that sealed the deal (Wiki that term if you want to know its origin); but again I must wonder how much additional capital costs will be incurred resulting from setting up shop in Wisconsin simply to "kit bash" the twenty eight cars. If an order for conventional cars, ideally bi-levels, were to have been awarded to an overseas source, there is plenty of meaningful sub contract work that could have been done in Wisconsin - including photo op rich final assembly. Lest we note that for the METRA #86XX cars, the stainless steel fabrication was sub-contracted by prime contractor Nippon Sharyo to Super Steel in Milwaukee.

Mr. Norman, I'm not sure why you describe the Talgo train set as "unsuitable equipment"? Also, isn't Milwaukee to Madison a significantly less straight line? Maybe the Talgo sets are a good choice for eventual extension of service to Madison.

MudLake wrote:Mr. Norman, I'm not sure why you describe the Talgo train set as "unsuitable equipment"? Also, isn't Milwaukee to Madison a significantly less straight line? Maybe the Talgo sets are a good choice for eventual extension of service to Madison.

Actually, the ex-Milwaukee route from Milwaukee to Madison really isn't curvy either. The Talgos would be great for service through to the Twin Cities, since the CP Rail route is so curvy along the Mississippi, but there's not too many routes within Wisconsin itself that require a Talgo for maximum performance. Hopefully Wisconsin will realize enough savings in fuel to offset some of the excess costs - their light weight for fuel savings and quick acceleration might be their biggest selling point for these straight-line routes.

Who cares if it's curvy? Just because the Talgo tilts, and in this case, tilt is just a side feature of the design, basically it's 'free', doesn't mean it can't be used on fairly straight runs. The light weight and lower boarding alone is worth it, especially because with 550mm platforms, the latter becomes basically level boarding.

And if the route's ever extended to a curvy area, you've got tilt.

IIRC, the passive system on Talgos is basically all they offer. You can't buy non tilting Talgos anymore, and they don't offer active tilt.

If the Talgos are to be condemned as "totally unsuitable" for the Hiawathas, I would like to know (1) what equipment would be suitable (2)how much it would cost purchase, operate and maintain the "suitable" equipment on the planned 110 mph Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago Hiawatha Corridor.

As an individual that is familiar with the route form Chicago to Minneapolis/St Paul, and having actually worked the Hiawatha's as a passenger trainman ( and to my knowledge, there is only one other person that frequents this forum that can claim that), I have to agree with Mr. Norman that the equipment that should be purchased for this service is equipment based of the California car or surfliner platform. The Tango is overkill and you will not gain much if anything, even on the river between La Crosse and Minneapolis.

Governor Doyle is out mavricking around, when what should be happening is a thorough discussion among those states that have Midwest corridor service ( WI,IL,MO,MI as well as Amtrak about a joint equipment purchase of cal car/surfliner based equipment for the entire corridor ( including expansion) The 2 14 car talgo sets the state of Wisconsin is purchasing is not a great capacity improvement over the current equipment sets in use, and do not allow for service expansion that will require a 3rd set of equipment for any more trips between Milwaukee and Chicago, and in any case, they will be the odd equipment in the corridor.

Again.. My view is that equipment based of the California car or surfliner platform is the way to go...

Also agreeing with the above (I was that trainman being referred to); I think California cars would be great. I also wonder how a Talgo trainset, which I'm guessing would be substantially longer than the current equipment, would fit on the shorter platforms at Sturtevant and the airport stop, without those platforms having to be lengthened.

I think the riders and employees on this route would be happy to see ANY new equipment on this route - as long as it is reliable. Taking the relatively milder climate of the Pacific Northwest into consideration, one wonders how a comparable trainset would perform in harsh winter weather. Are the toilets, exit doors, heating systems, etc. going going to remain fully functional in such conditions? They certainly don't with the current equipment. The sentiment of "getting the ball rolling" and adding a few extra jobs in Wisconsin is nice, but a closer look at the pros and cons of these trainsets is certainly in order.

Also, I read something in the other thread about about putting in a new crossover at Lake Forest and upgrading the one at Deerfield, in order to support up to 10 RT's per day. Why Deerfield? It's already one of the faster ones on the route. I doubt that one new crossover location would be of much assistance in shuffling Amtrak around the Metra parade, especially when things get off schedule. To truly address the capacity issue, a third main track is needed in this area, but that's a pipe dream, since only parts of the R-O-W have room for it, and all the Metra stations would need to be extensively reconfigured. Also, a new crossover between Wadsworth and Sturtevant would be nice, but I didn't see any mention of that in the document in question.

I've ridden on the California cars. They are an improvement on the original Superliners and despite persistent door problems they would be just fine on the existing Hiawatha service. But WI is looking to expand the Hiawatha service to Madison and make track and signal improvements for 110 mph service. CA hasn't placed its order for new California cars yet, but I'll guess that the cost of new Cali cars will be more than $3 mil each. Still, the Cali cars would probably be cheaper to purchase, but they'll be heavier and slower than the Talgo trains which translates into higher operational costs for the Cali cars, especially in 110 mph service.

I listened to Antonio Perez, chairman and CEO of Talgo North America, speak at a HSR conference in Seattle last spring. Talgo is very motivated and highly optimistic about being a big player in the growing USA market. I doubt that the 2 trainsets for WI will be the last we'll hear from Talgo. Also, the Talgo equipment running Irun-Madrid in 1990 was most likely the Talgo III, designed in 1964. The product that Talgo sells in 2009 is vastly superior to the equipment available in 1964. As a comparison, Boeing's state-of-the-art product in 1964 was the 727-100, which is completely obsolete in 2009.

Vincent wrote:Still, the Cali cars would probably be cheaper to purchase, but they'll be heavier and slower than the Talgo trains which translates into higher operational costs for the Cali cars, especially in 110 mph service.

110mph? With cali cars, why even bother? At that weight, they'll take forever to get to speed, longer to stop, will be harder on track, and slower in any curves you do have. Even with somewhat lighter Amfleets, the 110mph track near Albany's a joke - they get to 110 (usually) and spend barely no time at that speed.

Going fast requires lots of power, and decent acceleration at speed requires lots more. That's why even featherweight (by US standards) HSTs overseas often have 10MW or more of traction power per train.