Liquidated: Colorado Railcar, now US Railcar

In another thread, a member reported a rumor Colorado Railcar closed its doors and laid off all staff on December 22, 2008.

At this time, there's nothing on googlenews to confirm or deny that.

If any Member has information to confirm or deny this rumor, please post. Please note: The closure of GrandLuxe Rail nee American Orient Express is not an issue for this thread; it's been gone since early autumn.

MODERATORS NOTE: Althought this was my original post, with the presence of the US Railcar website, I've changed the thread title on Aug 7, 2009

not even Amtrak related, but if you check the self propelled car forum, there is more on CRC demise.

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 11&t=42360

CRC did very little or no work for Amtrak.

considering that the company has been for years considered as a supplier for Amtrak routes this company is Amtrak related. After the Tri-Met experience though it was highly unlikely that any agency would again deal with CRC

CRM breached its contract with TriMet and lied about its current financial problems, causing delays and cost escalation. CRM's troubles increased the WES vehicle budget by $7.8 million. The Letter of Credit will reduce that by $3 million. This is the first time that TriMet has faced this kind of situation with a contractor on a major project.
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Fred Hansen general manager of TriMet
Monday December 22, 2008

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index ... commu.html

Here are more articles of interest:

http://www.oregonlive.com/special/index ... rimet.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index ... racks.html

So far, everything is old news, and nothing of a current closure of Colorado Railcar this week.

http://www.coloradorailcar.com/

ATTENTION: Effective December 23, 2008 Colorado Railcar Manufacturing ceased it's business operations. Colorado Railcar Manufacturing has a major liquidity problem, and it's lenders have a secured position in the assets of the company. The company is in the process of liquidation. The company has no employess effective December 31st, 2008.

Larry E. Salci
President & CEO

Well than that is it their out of the game, but it was only a matter of time they never really were able to get Amtrak on board with them, not to mention that building these giant land cruise cars could not last forever.

The CRC DMU seemed like a good idea in theory, though I don't know how good the execution was. Who gains ownership of the design in the wake of the CRC bankruptcy?

To throw in one Amtrak-related aspect to this story, the Colorado Railcar DMU was the car that then Amtrak president David Gunn was pressuring the state of Vermont to purchase for Amtrak-run state service. CRC made all kinds of claims about the savings that would be realized by using the cars, but when neither CRC nor Amtrak would back those claims contracturally, the state passed. Sounds like the state of Vermont made a good decision.

Mr Johnson:

It sounds like the lenders own the company, lock, stock, barrel and Intellectual Property. The question is, will anyone buy the plans at a price that makes them worthy of sale? If not, I'd look in the dumpster in about a year.

Amtrak Forum Moderator's Note:

Thank you for your participation. I'm going to send this off to the Self-Propelled Railcars Forum.

Even if the Petition has yet to be filed. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is inevitable. The enterprise is kaput and will be liquidated.

However, even if off topic at the RDC Forum, unless a responsible party steps forward fast, the Grand Luxe cars, including the Great Domes and the Sandy Creek, will be off on a one way journey to the scrapyard. Trustees of a Bankrupt's estate that in no way can be deemed a public necessity have only one interest - the Creditor's who want to get what they can while they can. While holding on to the Grand Luxe fleet, along with any other cars a-building until an economic recovery occurs might yield a better return to the Estate, creditors view such as "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush". At this time, the heritage of the GL cars means nothing.

I believe last summer CRC split from GLJ in toto. Rader owned GLJ at the time it went out.

I was consistently amused by the Colorado Railcar equipment performance "studies" that were signed off by a lady with the same last name as the founder of the company, without any indication whether she was his wife, his daughter, etc.

MX

John_Perkowski wrote:I believe last summer CRC split from GLJ in toto. Rader owned GLJ at the time it went out.

Colonel, while such varies amongst jurisdictions, absent being sold to an unrelated party in an "arms-lrngth" transaction, I would not be surprised if those assets were "brought into" the Bankrupt's Estate.