SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Problems with lead in restroom water supplies have delayed the introduction of new Siemens passenger cars for state-supported Amtrak service in California and the Midwest, but Siemens says it has a solution to the problem.
The Sacramento Bee reports the issue was discovered during routine testing last November, according to Caltrans spokesman Christopher Clark. While a Siemens spokeswoman said a solution to the lead problem “was developed and validated for implementation on all cars” to meet water-quality standards of the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. But Clark said further testing will be needed “to attempt to verify the proposed solution” before the cars can be delivered.
Caltrans is the lead agency in overseeing the $386 million, 137-car order for single-level cars awarded to Siemens in 2017 as a replacement for bilevel cars which original contractor Nippon-Sharyo was unable to build [see “Expensive questions surface with changed passenger car order,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 9, 2017]. The delay with the equipment being built at Siemens’ plant in Sacramento means nine years have passed since the original equipment order without any cars entering service.
Contractor Sumitomo Corp. has been paid $28 million for its work on the cars, Clark told the newspaper, but will not get paid for the cars themselves until the water issue has been resolved.
An official with the agency that oversees Amtrak’s San Joaquin service in Central California said the agency had hoped to have the new cars in service last fall, but is “just waiting for everything to be resolved.” California will receive 49 of the cars; 88 will go to Chicago-based state-supported services.
The first four of those cars arrived in Illinois last August [see “Digest: First cars in IDOT order …,” News Wire, Aug. 31, 2020], and the cars have occasionally been reported to be testing on Midwestern routes, most recently on Canadian National in the Effingham, Ill., area [see “News photo: New Siemens cars depart for testing,” News Wire, April 12, 2021].
The cars are based on the design Siemens built for Florida’s Brightline. Those cars entered service in December 2017 and generally received high marks. They have been idle since March 2020 because Brightline suspended operations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The passenger operator has yet to announce its return to service.
