[EnviroTO]

I think it has to do with the fact that companies (and transit agencies) need to invest a lot to design and build from scratch a brand-new class of vehicles that will have basically no market outside of the tiny North American one.

Yet a no-name company without access to the resources of Bombardier, Siemens, Alstom, etc was able to make one with an order size of 3 two car DMUs. I have to believe that if GO put a tender out for 20 train sets of 4 cars each that the economics would be completely different.

 

[golodhendil]

Yet a no-name company without access to the resources of Bombardier, Siemens, Alstom, etc was able to make one with an order size of 3 two car DMUs. I have to believe that if GO put a tender out for 20 train sets of 4 cars each that the economics would be completely different.

While going bankrupt in the process? Exactly the point.
However, upon further research I do have to grant that at least some international companies are interested in doing something with FRA-compliant DMUs. At least Siemens seems intent on developing a full FRA-compliant DMU. With some other systems like Boston potentially considering switching/adding DMU services, it's not impossible that the economics will work out eventually.

 

[unimaginative2]

Best news I've heard in a long time. Too bad this wonderful precedent isn't being set here. It's also a tragedy they didn't test this out when they were doing Acela. If they didn't have to try to build high speed trains to FRA standards, they wouldn't have had half the problems they faced.

It's not just about better train control to prevent collisions in Europe. The FRA regulations are based on a 1950s view of safety in which the heaviest vehicle is inherently the safest. As the automobile industry has done, European rail vehicle manufacturers have built lighter trains but used advanced technologies like crumple zones to make them just as safe if not safer in most collisions.

Just looking at those Colorado MUs compared with MUs from Europe shows how we've completely abandoned all research and development into rail vehicles for the last forty years. We even refuse to learn from the improvements made by the Europeans and Asians. Hopefully this change will help level the playing field.

 

[kettal]

If I was Bombardier, I would have been lobbying Transport Canada to accept European spec railcars for a long time now...

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ You would have thought so, wouldn't you? I guess that Bombardier has bigger and better things to do than to waste their time begging Canada to get better rail service.

 

[Mapleson]

Last year, the FRA formed a Passenger Rail Division. In November, they had HSR Safety Strategy that sets the framework for HSR – Express, HSR – Regional, HSR - Emerging, HSR - Mixed Operations, Conventional Passenger Rail, Regional Rail divisions. May 12, 2010 is when the new Metrics and Standards for Intercity Passenger Rail Service came into affect. FRA wasn't intrested in HSR before because there was no money for it to be. With Obama in office and $8 billion deticated to HSR infrastructure, there is demand for a North American way forward that's approriate for our network use and needs.

Bombardier would do a lot better lobbying the US government than Canada.

 

[kettal]

Bombardier has much more influence in Canada already.

 

[unimaginative2]

Bombardier has much more influence in Canada already.

Not really, or we wouldn't have the same kinds of outdated requirements as the States and we would have built the TGV on the Quebec-Windsor corridor that they've been pushing for decades.