Talgo ferry Move

[Pat]

Talgo is terminating it's month-to-month lease with the City of Milwaukee at the Century City facility and will move the two idle train sets out of Milwaukee. The Amtrak Unlimited form reports they will move to Amtrak's Beech Grove facility Wednesday night as train 960. Departing Milwaukee around 10:00PM and due at Beech Grove at 7AM.

 

[Damon Hill]

Perhaps Amtrak is taking an interest in Talgo trainsets for certain intercity routes other than the Pacific Northwest, where it is serving with great success?

 

[Pat]

Michigan has an RFP out to lease three train sets until the equipment MDOT already has on order arrives in 2016-2018. MDOT confirms they talked to Talgo but that is about all either one is saying at the moment.

 

[Pilawt]

Perhaps Amtrak is taking an interest in Talgo trainsets for certain intercity routes other than the Pacific Northwest, where it is serving with great success?

"With great success" is not the way you'd hear Cascades crewmembers describe the new US-built trainsets. Toilet plumbing stinks up entire cars (very noticeable on the ones I've been on); and from what I'm told by crews, overall reliability has been awful. I'd quote more of what I heard, but this is a family website. Suffice the say the crews I've talked to much prefer the older Spanish-built sets.

 

[Bill Anderson]

"With great success" is not the way you'd hear Cascades crewmembers describe the new US-built trainsets. Toilet plumbing stinks up entire cars (very noticeable on the ones I've been on); and from what I'm told by crews, overall reliability has been awful. I'd quote more of what I heard, but this is a family website. Suffice the say the crews I've talked to much prefer the older Spanish-built sets.

The older Cascades sets were built at an old Boeing facility in Seattle under license from TALGO. I saw them under consctruction.

 

[bcp]

From:
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Rail/TrainEquipment.htm

Train origins
The train car bodies were built at a Talgo plant in Spain. The car bodies were then shipped to Seattle where Pacifica Marine, a local company, completed final assembly. This helped Washington obtain world-class trains, while keeping tax dollars and jobs in the local economy.


From:
http://www.talgoamerica.com/talgoworldwide.aspx

Talgo, Inc. currently provides maintenance services for the Amtrak Cascades passenger cars. At present, this corridor has five Talgo trainsets in revenue service maintained by Talgo. The maintenance facility is located south of the King Street Station Train Depot in Seattle. Talgo provides a comprehensive maintenance plan.