110-mph Talgo Trains Headed to Michigan [Corrected]

Editor's note (09/18/2014): a prior version of this post incorrectly indicated that the $58 million for the train sets "comes from President Barack Obama's much maligned High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan of April 2009."

"State transportation officials want to buy two sets of cars and engines, built in the United States by an affiliate of Spanish train maker Talgo Inc.," writes Gary Heinlein of The Detroit News.

If MDOT approves the purchase, $58 million in state funds will be used to purchase the two Talgo train sets "currently sitting idle in Indiana."

Improvements to the corridor will "allow trains to reach 110 miles an hour and, in a few years, get passengers from one city to another two hours faster than they can today," Heinlein adds.

The two Talgo sets will replace 30- to 40-year-old Amtrak cars on two of the three daily Detroit-Chicago runs on the route Amtrak calls The Wolverine. Older cars will continue on the other run until the state buys newer equipment in a couple of years

The train sets were built for Amtrak's Hiawatha route between Milwaukee and Chicago before high speed rail opponent, Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) rejected $810 million in federal high speed rail stimulus funds, calling it "a waste of taxpayer money," as other newly elected Republican governors (save Gov. Rick Snyder, R-Mich.) appeared to do in unison. 

While MDOT will purchase the Talgo sets if the order is approved, the trains will run on a corridor purchased and improved with two High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program grants:

• $160 million as we noted in Oct. 2010.
• Earlier the state received $196.5 million from that program for track and signal improvements for the Detroit to Kalamazoo corridor, according to Progressive Railroading

The $356.5 million comes from the $2.4 billion in high speed rail stimulus money that Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) rejected in Feb. 2011.

Passenger cars and locomotives manufactured by Siemens Rail Systems USA through the Federal Railroad Administration's "next generation equipment purchase" will eventually be used on the Detroit to Chicago corridor.

[Correspondent's note: Thanks to Michael England of the Federal Railroad Administration for bringing the original error to my attention.]