Wisconsin Hiawatha (Service Talgos Upgrades Maintenance)

Can anyone give the specs of the bilevel Talgo? I specifically am interested to know how tall they are, and whether such would be an option for NEC service with a second-floor entrance. Obviously out in my neck of the woods or across the river in Wisconsin, height is no obstacle for all but the tallest of trains, and Talgo equipment has less desirability.

The Talgo bi-levels that operate in Finland show a height of 5.22m (just over 17 feet). Superliner height is listed at 16 ft 2 in (4.93 m).

dizelinr wrote:I would like to see Amtrak consider the Talgo series 8 equipment for long distance service. On a trial basis maybe they could lease the Wisconsin Talgo's and put them in service on the Coast Starlight between Seattle and Los Angeles. It could be a lease with the option to purchase. They could use the same maintenance facility as the Cascades. Unless it would remain an all-coach train Amtrak could purchase sleeper cars from Talgo (similar as used on Germany's Intercity Night Talgo service).

The two unwanted Wisconsin Talgos have corridor style seat spacing that's inappropriate for a long distance train. Talgo hasn't even promoted sleeping cars in North America, and it's very clear that the current European Talgo sleepers aren't FRA or ADA compliant.

Basically, the existing Talgos are inappropriate for a long distance train, and considering the expense of maintaining a Talgo technician on every trainset, they never would make economic sense for long distance trains.

dizelinr wrote:I was recently reading on NARP's website a recommendation that Amtrak could improve it's long distance service by operating smaller, lightweight and faster equipment on a more frequent schedule (at least 2 trains a day).

Amtrak's personnel costs are too high to increase long distance train frequencies. Just as important, the Class 1 freights wouldn't consent, and don't have to consent to service increases of this sort, at least not without negotiating major taxpayer investments in terms of capacity improvements.

The NARP is just the passenger railroading equivalent of a fantasy football league, not a serious lobbying organization.

dizelinr wrote:The Talgo equipment would be a perfect match for that. Even if no need to take advantage of the tilting function, the most important benefit of Talgo equipment is still it's light weight resulting in less fuel consumption.

Huge wage and benefits costs are a bigger factor than fuel costs - and a Talgo has that additional onboard technician and those expensive, noncompetitive 20 year contracts.

dizelinr wrote: The fact that electrification is a very long ways off for most of the country having lightweight diesel hauled equipment is all that much more important.

Not really. Passenger rail isn't to be confused with aviation, which is very weight critical. It should be obvious that 79MPH long distance trains aren't very weight critical at all.

dizelinr wrote:Since the Talgo series 8 is FRA compliant the old arguments against use of Talgo equipment no longer apply. It seems purely rational to me that Talgo could be the successor to all current Superliner equipment.

It's not rational at all, since even when the mid-70s vintage Superliners are replaced, Amtrak will still have a fleet of Superliner II cars in service for decades to come, and California and the Mid-West have also made big investments in mulitlevel fleets.

The Talgo is just limited to Washington and Oregon and seems likely to be limited to that corridors for the conceivable future.

dizelinr wrote: Talgo already makes bi-level train sets as well so that is another option. I could even see a Talgo consist that is mostly single level except mixed with bi-level cars for the lounge/cafe, diners and sleepers. The advantage of the current Talgo bi-level car design over Superliners is that you have double level vestibules with through passage on both the upper and lower levels. That provides a lot of flexibility in the arrangement of the cars.

The cars in question weren't really based on the proprietary Spanish Talgo design, but were more conventional equipment, built by a Finnish company that Talgo bought in the 90s and seems to have sold off about 5 years ago. Please, try to stay current and research the actually rolling stock. Talgo Oy is now Transtech Oy and the designs were always distinct from the Spanish Talgo designs dating back to the era of Fascist Dictator Francisco Franco.

mtuandrew wrote:Can anyone give the specs of the bilevel Talgo? I specifically am interested to know how tall they are, and whether such would be an option for NEC service with a second-floor entrance. Obviously out in my neck of the woods or across the river in Wisconsin, height is no obstacle for all but the tallest of trains, and Talgo equipment has less desirability.

Talgo never marketed the Finnish designed, Finnish produced bilevels in the United States, even when Talgo owned the Finnish company, which they no longer do.

It appears that Talgo has filed a lawsuit against Walker and Gottlieb.

Worth noting - the one of the most important bottom lines in contracting is if two parties enter in to an illegal contract, it cannot be enforced no matter how egregious one party's conduct. Example: I contract with John Smith to sell him as sack of illegal drugs. John Smith holds me up at gunpoint and takes the money and the drugs. Under contract law, I cannot pursue any claims. (You can, however, under criminal law, for robbery)

Should Wisconsin successfully posit that this no-bid contract was illegal, it doesn't matter if they walked away.

Also, the matter of how they walked away is going to be hotly contested. Was it valid under the contract or not? Many contracts have "outs" for parties that turn on timing of delivery and/or quality standards.

Finally, the article does not specify what the suit claims other than "he's not being fair". It will be interesting to see what the main issues are.

Tadman wrote:Worth noting - the one of the most important bottom lines in contracting is if two parties enter in to an illegal contract, it cannot be enforced no matter how egregious one party's conduct. Example: I contract with John Smith to sell him as sack of illegal drugs. John Smith holds me up at gunpoint and takes the money and the drugs. Under contract law, I cannot pursue any claims. (You can, however, under criminal law, for robbery)

Should Wisconsin successfully posit that this no-bid contract was illegal, it doesn't matter if they walked away.

Procurement law has provisions for "sole source" negotiated contracts. A government can enter into a negotiated contract if
(1) there is only one supplier for the product and
(2) the government can show a reason that an alternative product can't be substituted.

For example, cities and counties buy Motorola radios for their emergency responders because the new equipment needs to be fully compatible with the existing radios and the existing radios are Motorola.

Talgo has a unique product and no one else can produce an equivalent because Talgo has patented the essential parts of the design. That satisfies the first requirement. Wisconsin has a reason for specifying the Talgo equipment because of plans to ultimately use the equipment on twisty track along the Mississippi River where Talgo equipment can complete the route from Chicago to St. Paul in significantly less time than non-tilting equipment. That satisfies the second requirement.

I don't think that Talgo will have trouble proving that the contract was valid when signed.

What escape clauses there may have been in the contract and whether those conditions were met are details that no one can know without reading the actual contract.

I agree with the first and third part of your statements.

There absolutely are single-source laws out there and it is allowed given certain criteria are met. We will not know the terms of the contract until it is a matter of public record (maybe it is already, just need to do a FOIA request).

That said, there's probably thousands of pages of briefs written already on why Talgo does/does not meet single-source guidelines. Your analysis is a bit simplistic - say what you will about Walker, but he has a large team of lawyers working for the state. If the lawyers thought it was that simple of a case against Wisconsin, they wouldn't have canceled the contract. Wisconsin would've taken delivery and blamed the prior governor for his wastefulness. Wisconsin's lawyers either told Walker: (1) The law is on your side; or (2) It's going to take ten years in the courts to settle this and you have a decent shot at winning.

Governors usually don't just act, they ask their legal department for a detailed memorandum on their position and some alternatives.

Surely it was up to the state to make sure the bidding process was legal , and if it wasn't , then that is not Talgo's fault .
For the state to claim they could pull out of the contract , because they didnt follow the bidding process properly would be cause for a stern look from the judge i would think .

Here's a stern look from a judge now:

I would note the following:

1. "procurement law" varies from place to place. Obviously the procurement laws for the State of Wisconsin are different from that of the U.S. Government. Whether or not provisions of Wisconsin's procurement laws were violated is almost certain to be a matter that the court considers.

2. clauses allowing abrogation "for the convenience of the government" are often inserted into government contracts. This might be described as a "no-fault" exit clause. I have witnessed the exercise of this kind of clause in a governmental contracting situation that was in the seven figures. It was interesting to say the least, but it was also very clearly "game over" as soon as it happened with no dispute from the vendor.

3. I strongly agree with those who state that the Governor's counsel in WI was likely consulted. I also strongly agree with the notion that it is unlikely the administration in Wisconsin would have moved forward with this decision without their legal team telling them that they could win.

gokeefe wrote: 3. I strongly agree with those who state that the Governor's counsel in WI was likely consulted. I also strongly agree with the notion that it is unlikely the administration in Wisconsin would have moved forward with this decision without their legal team telling them that they could win.

This is the Walker administration. I suggest you look at his record in Milwaukee. Or at the number of criminal convictions of his staff members. The fact is, as far as I can assess his behavior, he most ceratinly would have moved forward even if he had no chance of winning in a court of law. It is possible that his plan is to steer the case to corrupt judges who are part of his gang, but since the case is federal, that will be difficult.

In contrast, Talgo has made it clear that it doesn't generally sue; I doubt they would be suing unless their lawyers were quite sure they had a very good case.

Two quick points.
1. This was filed in a Wisconsin court not a federal court.
and
2. Gov. Walker wanted to build the base and put the two train sets into service. It was the legislature that refused to allow the base. The governor said that vetoing the finance committee's move would not have changed the course of events so he went along with it. The legal opinions proffered were by the legislature's counsel not the governor. It is entirely possible that the Governor's lawyers are far less confident than what this board has been positing and that the Governor was forced into a losing position by an over zealous legislature.

I'd be interested to see the suit papers to know just what Talgo is seeking. I have read elsewhere that the state has already made payments equal to about 90% of the purchase price of the trainsets. As has been noted before, it could be an opportune time for OR and WA to show up as white knights and pick up a couple of trains on the cheap.

Has the election changed any of the politicans involved ???