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Amtrak 136RE No 32.75 Special Turnouts, 9/13/12

Action: Notice, Request for Comments

Web posting date: September 13, 2012

Close of Comment Period: September 28, 2012

Summary: 49 U.S.C. § 24405(a)(1) authorizes the Secretary of Transportation (“Secretary”) to obligate grant funds only if the steel, iron, and manufactured goods used in the project are produced in the United States. However, § 24405(a)(2) also permits the Secretary (delegated to Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)) to waive the Buy America requirements if he or she finds that: (A) applying paragraph (1) would be inconsistent with the public interest; (B) the steel, iron, and goods manufactured in the United States are not produced in sufficient and reasonably available amount or are not of a satisfactory quality; (C) rolling stock or power train equipment cannot be bought or delivered to the United States within a reasonable time; or (D) including domestic material will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent.

The purpose of this notice is to inform the public that the FRA has received a waiver request from the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (“Amtrak”) to purchase four (4) No. 32.75 136RE Special Turnouts (“Turnouts”) manufactured by voestalpine Nortrak, Inc. (“Nortrak”) for use in the New York City to Trenton, NY, High-Speed Rail Improvements Program. The Turnouts will be manufactured by Nortrak in the United States at its facility in Birmingham, Alabama, but will contain several parts that are not manufactured in the United States. The foreign parts are: the right and left Switch Point Rails; the Vee Point Forging; and the Roller Assembly, Double Roller Assembly and Plates. Amtrak has requested the waiver pursuant to § 24405(a)(2)(B) because for the reasons set forth in its request, Amtrak asserts that the required parts are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available amount or are not of a satisfactory quality and that therefore a waiver from FRA’s Buy America requirement is appropriate. The entire waiver request can be viewed here.

Questions about this notice may be directed to Ms. Linda Martin, Attorney Advisor, via e-mail at Linda.Martin@dot.gov or by telephone at 202-493-6062; however, comments to this waiver request should be submitted directly on the form provided below. Commenters should be aware that offensive language, Privacy Act protected, or other inappropriate material will not be posted. The FRA will consider all comments to this waiver request received in the initial 15-day comment period. Comments received after the initial 15-day comment period will be considered to the extent practical.

Comments

Gary Bowler 9/14/2012 9:08:57 AM
I think the assembly is manufactured from too many foreign made parts and should not be allowed. DOT has got into the habit of allowing foreign made goods from bidders and when a company protects the protest is ignored.
G.R.Bowler, Inc. bid a number of ship automation projects to DOT MARAD where the other bidder was using foreign made inferior products. We tried to protect but we were ignored. We in turn stopped bidding MARAD projects because we could not compete in price with our high quality hardware. Now the MARAD controlled ready reserve vessels are equipped with inferior control systems from one or two companies that are in constant need of service and have problems with spare parts availability for support. If you would like to dig deeper into this travesty please give me a call.

Gary R. Bowler

G.R.Bowler,Inc.
2261 Lake Road
Ontario, NY 14519
315-524-8750 NY Office
800-524-9570 24/7 Service
www.grbowler.com
Allen Bradley Systems
Wonderware HMI Software
Emerson Marine Systems
jr ruvalcaba 9/14/2012 9:16:49 AM
Buy american, use american..., for the betterment of america.
Bobby J. Bishop 9/14/2012 9:49:04 AM
Trying Too Buy Equipment / Trucks/Trailers/Heavy Equipment
Michael Kelley 9/14/2012 10:18:38 AM
What per cent of the assembly does the foreign steel represent???
John B Cychosz 9/14/2012 10:33:16 AM
How does that actually help America? If it is available by American workers, Buy America.
Mouhamad A. Naboulsi 9/14/2012 9:41:40 PM
There is missing information from this request and that is the cost of the foreign sourced components as compared to the total cost of the components. This makes it difficult for a layperson to determine if there is a reason to support such request. If the price tag is a high dollar amount, then the purchase should be used as an incentive for a foreign supplier to transfer the technology to the U.S. altogether and ship components from here back to their other markets.

The other question here is with respect to the "standard" specified by Amtrak. Are we shooting our self in the foot by setting requirements that no national company can meet? In the 70s we had a ton of problem exporting to other countries because countries used "standards" that did not have merit, or added value, to block our exports. Rails is as important as our airlines and highways and we should be using purchase opportunities like these to enhance national industries or have foreign suppliers relocate or branch out here.

From the table supplied, comments for first two items sound like an excuse. They are not rolled here because we are buying it from there!

As for the other comments about processes being owned by a foreign company, if the process is not a trade secret AND not patented in the U.S., then there is nothing barring an American company from using it. If it is a trade secret or patented, then it can be licensed and manufactured in the U.S.

Worst case scenario is to find additional customers that has a need for such know-how or the use of railways, e.g. (Military), and put that money into adding this Know-How to the national portfolio instead of sending the money overseas and having us make these purchases over and over.
As I mentioned, rails is as important as our airlines and highways and we should be using purchase opportunities like these to enhance national industries or have foreign suppliers relocate or branch out here. High speed rail is the future of green transport and a little more money invested in that direction is a strategic expenditure that we should spend here.

Best regards.

 

Commenting is now closed.