A very timely suggestion!  GM used to be very big in the locomotive business with their Electr-Motive Division at their LaGrange(?) plant near Chicago.  And GE is still a big factor making locomotives at their Erie, PA plant.  Pullman-Standard was big in the passenger car business at their South Chicago plant where they refurbished the heritage cars for Amtrak, and I imagine they could re-crank up their manufacturing capability for making new cars and bring some of this business back to the states.

The post:"PULLMAN Palace Car Co. shops in Detroit predate" auto. mfg. posted 05-27-2009 6:04 PM by RAILWAYIST segues nicely into my post of a little earlier.  Having visited the GM Research/Tech Center in Warren MI, near Detroit, I feel they have the talent, although recently focused on the automobile, to improve passenger railcars.

Pullman last built passenger cars in Chicago about 1974, and Bombardier now owns the rights to all Pullman designs and patents. General Motors no longer owns its former Electro-Motive Division. GM sold off Electro-Motive to an investor group in 2005.

I agree that the next generation of inter-city passenger cars should be built in the US, but Bombardier will most likely get the orders. They currently have the expertise and capacity to build new rail cars that General Motors doesn't have.

Just a note here.

The former land near Lagrange,Il. that EMD-GM used is now part of the UPS (United Parcel Service Complex) Complex,and even has it's own on/off ramp onto I-294.

And the last time I looked the pullman plant is gone for ever, a few years back now even the landmark clock tower was demo'd after a devasting fire.

Even with all of that you are right on, why not convert GM's loss of auto production into not only freight rail cars and loco's and passenger cars too. It could put many people to work or even back to work, whether it's in Detroit,or right here in Chicago,(by the way..the acrage formerly known as USS South Works has been remediated and is available...and is in close proximity of the proposed 2016 olympic site ...not a bad perk.)

Minor corrections; the UPS complex in Willow Springs is on the former sight of GM's Fisher Body Stamping Plant. Electro-Motive is over on 55th Street in McCook. The original Pullman Factory on the northeast corner of 111th and Cottage Grove Avenue in  Chicago was severely damaged by an arsonist's fire, but it is gradually being restored.

Could America's automotive industry be re-tooled to produce passenger rail cars? Possibly, but it would have to be able to compete in the world market with their products.

I think it's time for churlish again.  Detroit and its auto industry did just about everything they could to destroy the railroads.  They bet the farm on more highways to handle more cars and trucks.  GM got rid of EMD because it just didn't fit the business, even though EMD was the leading locomotive manufacturer  for many years.  The auto makers screwed up their businesses all by themselves.  No American should take any satisfaction from this -- we're all Detroiters, as far as that goes.  But let's not get carried away by what I shall charitably call artificial fixes for Detroit.  It has no particular expertise in building rail equipment, and any attempt to force a new industry in there would only take work and jobs away from those who now can do the work.