(The Associated Press circulated the following on July 21, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A sampling of major international companies that are positioned to make new passenger trains in the U.S.
• Bombardier Inc., based in Montreal, operates an assembly plant in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
• Alstom SA, a French conglomerate, operates what it calls the largest passenger rail facility in the U.S., a 700,000-square-foot factory in Hornell, N.Y.
• Patentes Talgo SA, a Spanish company, operates a maintenance facility in Seattle. Ten years ago, the plant built passenger trains for Amtrak’s Cascades route in the Pacific Northwest.
• German firm Siemens SA operates a factory in Sacramento, Calif., that makes light-rail cars.
Possible U.S. players:
• General Electric Co., which has manufacturing plants in Erie, Pa., and Grove City, Pa., has produced 250 passenger locomotives that are used on Amtrak networks.
• Super Steel Corp., a Milwaukee-based company, has assembled commuter railcars for Japan’s Nippon Sharyo Ltd. that are used in Chicago and the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
• U.S. Railcar LLC of Columbus, Ohio, is a startup that hopes to make diesel-fueled passenger cars using the property rights and tooling of the defunct Colorado Railcar Manufacturing, a Fort Lupton, Colo.-based company that shut down in December because of financial problems.