If a manufacturer could be assured a steady flow of orders over the period of years, I believe there are several companies that would be interested. To accomplish that would require both Congress and the Administration to abandon the current annual funding dance and make a long term commitment.
Just like it is a good idea that Washington State Ferries does not have a drydock big enough for their biggest boats at their Eagle Harbor base. Apparently they came up with this idea from the airlines, i.e. private sector that one size fits all will solve their problems. Problem is, it required the relocation of one terminal on Whidbey Island, to accomodate the bigger boat. Now I hope Amtrak does not wait as long as WSF did to replace 4 1927 Vintage Ferry Boats. It was another round of inspections and repairs to fix a hull corosion problem that had WSF just retire the boats, and wait for Olympia to fast track replacement. It worked, the bill sailed through the legislature pretty fast. That and they are taking some funding for beraucrats at WSF HQ and shifting it to the new boats, as well as terminal repair budgets. The terminals can be fixed later, they will not be serviceable anyway without boats. Just like the Airlines have prefered manufacturers, such as American and Continental have bought only Boeing planes in the last 10 years, and for the most part, Northwest is buying Airbus(being a Washingtonian, I say darn traitors, although I do admit, they had the best fare for the time when we were buying a ticket to go to D.C. lat year. It was the 757-200/300 to get there, came home on A320s), and since Day One of the Streamliner era, Burlington preffered BUDD cars, WSF had a preffered shipbuilder, and sought to try to disqualify several other area shipbuilders from bidding. That put costs up. I was listening to a podcast of Inside Olympia, TVWs Public Affairs Talk Show, and they had a debate among the Transportation Committee chairs and ranking members. Rep. Clibburn(D-Mercer Island, 3rd term in a Republican District, on the Eastside of Lake Washington) mentioned that there was one constituent that said, why not just privatize WSF. Even though 50+ years have passed, they never got rid of the private sector model that led the Puget Sound Navigation Company to bankruptcy in the late 1940s, and state takeover in 1951. One thing? Not sustaining their fleet, the newest boats at the time were used SF Bay boats, even the streamlined, one of a kind Kalakala. Apparently, they had some departments that could have been outsourced to other divisions of the DOT, or the private sector, including Vessel Design. Since the basic design has not changed much(other than adding an extra passenger deck on one class, loft lobe car decks on three classes(with the inner space on the main vehicle deck able to accomodate semis and RVs), and a small solarium deck on the newest class) since the Evergreen States of the late 1950s, I would say that department is redundant.
Any new Amtrak rolling stock should have a baseline outershell, but don't keep the number of floorplans down due to cost containment. Maybe it might work for a Diner-Lounge on some routes, but others still might work well with a traditional diner. Maybe something like the slumbercoach might work for an Economy Sleeper today, but the Deluxe Bedrooms of the Superliner bring in more revenue. The small windows of a Superliner Coach work good for short haul travelers, but on the long haul, where scenery sells tickets, wraparound windows like the old dome cars, and the ultradomes of Colorado Railcar would work better. Now a Genesis works good on some long-haul trains, but on short-haul trains, a Genesis could be overpowered, like on a TALGO train.(I have seen a few times where a Genesis was pulling one). On some routes, a DMU might work better than Locomotive-Hauled Rolling Stock.
One thing that might help revive the Pioneer, is possibly people who would drive to Salt Lake City from Boise, Pendleton to the Willamette Valley, or from Cheyenne to Denver(assuming that Cheyenne can be served by the Pioneer), is the fact gas prices are rising. 20 cents a gallon in two weeks here. It was looking like it would see regular drop below $3.00 a gallon here. Now when the Pioneer was discontinued, Gas Prices were very, very low. I think it was like 97 cents for regular around here. In fact, around here, the biggest complaint was car tabs were too expensive(they were, 2.2% of the Vehicle's value, formulated not on the Blue Book, but the depreciation schedule based on MSRP, I heard it was called the Red Book, or soemthing like that). The voters dealt with that one, and now one part of the state is paying a big price for it. Nothing like I told you so.(I thought the tax was too high, but abolishing it was a bad idea). Then again, whether it is rail or maritime, deffered maintenance does not mean it will fall apart immediately.
