Transportation: some good news

In rail transportation, European manufacturers are having considerable success in selling their products in the United States -and this appears to be an accelerating trend. Take Amtrak, the quasi-Governmental U.S. corporation that operates most intercity passenger trains. This transportation giant is investing a billion dollars in Federal funds in French and Swedish traction equipment - and for track and roadbed improvements - rather than in equipment from U.S. companies. Why? The answer is that, in the early 1970s, when Amtrak started its search for a new type of high-speed train, none was available from domestic builders. In fact, consumer use of air routes in the U.S. had come to dominate rail travel to such a degree that U.S. locomotive builders either went out of business or concentrated their efforts on producing large, freight-hauling traction machines. Consequently, the door was opened to Swedish, French, Swiss, and Italian suppliers who are queuing up for an even larger share of the U.S. rail transportation pie - both in urban mass-transit and main-line routes.