"Alstom plans to open a railcar refurbishing plant on Mare island west of downtown Vallejo, California., Northeast of San Francisco on the east shore of San Pablo Bay. The site had been used by Kinki Sharyo. Ltd. to build light rail transit cars for Santa Clara Transportation Authority's LRT system centered in San Jose. Alstom plans to lease at least 112,000 square feet of space on Mare Island."
"Alstom's move could aid the company's plan to bid on at least a portion of California's $44,000,000 (fourty four billion dollar) high speed rail project now being developed, though initially the site would be used for railcar remanufacturing."
quoted: Railway Age Magazine, 12 May 2009
Detroit has millions of square feet of heavy manufacturing facilities ready-to-roll in a partnership with ALSTOM. Just take (formerly) the Chrysler Sterling stamping and Assembly---the facility is close to a square mile with rail inbound & outbound with an adjacent Conrail/Norfolk Southern yard. Large Locomotives, passenger and freight railcars, trolleys and trams could be built and outfitted ready to roll out on the existing tracks. American Axle in Detroit could re-tool to build rail-bogies. GM Powertrain in Warren could re-tool and become GM-RAIL-POWER-TRAIN. The former Warren US Army Tank Plant still has rail access and could provide a truly massive facility for large scale locomotive assembly and refurbishment. Many of the soon-to-close auto plants could be integreated into a total manufacturing system for various stages of fabrication and assembly. As demonstrated in World War II---Detroit 'THE ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY' can meet any demand or national emergency---as we all know, this present economic emergency should prompt us towards quick and decisive action. I could personally take anyone on a tour of hundreds of machine-tool & die shops that are now vacant ,but --- (SHOVEL READY) for the RAILVOLUTION.