ORPHAN TRAINS.

Wisconsin's Department of Transportation is going to be receiving the new Talgo rolling stock for the Hiawatha Service.

I've had reservations about this project for some time, but news reports put the best face on it.

The maintenance base is required by the state's no-bid contract to buy two 14-car train sets for $47.5 million from the Spanish train manufacturer Talgo to replace the Hiawatha's aging Amtrak-owned cars. The new trains are being assembled at Talgo's plant in the north side's Century City complex and are scheduled for delivery early next year, followed by a series of tests before the coaches enter service in fall 2012, said John Oimoen, state passenger rail chief.

Under the contract, Talgo will service the trains at a base to be built at state expense. The state is already spending $11.7 million to retrofit the current Talgo plant, formerly the Tower Automotive factory, as a temporary maintenance base.

But state officials have said the existing plant won't work as a permanent maintenance base because of difficulties in using the 30th St. rail corridor tracks between that site and the downtown station. At one point, they estimated the cost of track and signal upgrades at $27.6 million, in addition to $60.1 million in retrofitting costs for the building, plus engineering costs.

Years ago, after Soo Line closed The Milwaukee Road turntable at Merrill Park, and before Amtrak converted some Metroliner coaches to cab cars, the diesel from a Hiawatha Service train had to use those tracks all the way to North Milwaukee to turn, which meant Amtrak had to either provide extra diesels or allow several hours to turn a train, rather than the 30 minutes currently in effect.  What Milwaukee Road cognoscenti knew as Merrill Park is now the parking lot for Miller Park.

The article also notes that the train shed at the Fowler St. Depot has to be rebuilt with overpasses rather than underpasses for disability access reasons.  Perhaps the grades on the existing under-track ramps are too steep for powered chairs to negotiate.  There's more evidence of our decline in the reporter's inability to distinguish a train shed from a concourse.  The concourse is the passage between the waiting room and the train shed.