It is interesting to see how relations between talgo and WaDOT aren't very good right now. I suspect Amtrak providing the other 2 trainsets for service and Oregon's (completely correct) insistence on keeping their two sets in service might eventually nudge WaDOT to order talgo sets in the name of keeping the rolling stock all the same. Otherwise you'll end up with two completely separate contracts for trainsets and that makes very little sense.
You hit on one of the biggest challenges Talgo faces. Talgo insists that if an agency purchase its trainsets, it must also agree to a service contract for the life of the trainset. That means paying for Talgo supervisors who oversee Amtrak employees as they maintain the trainsets, and paying to keep a Talgo technician on every train as it runs (which entails both salary and travel expenses).
By comparison, Siemens offers this "white glove" maintenance service as an optional add-on. Brightline (now Virgin Trains) signed up for a 30-year service agreement with Siemens.
The NTSB has mess up the Talgo brand, when does the lawsuit get filed?
There's no doubt that the NTSB has some blame when it comes to hurting Talgo's brand in the USA.
But Talgo deserves most of the blame for itself, in large part because the company is stubborn.
The most visible example of the company's stubbornness are the ugly cab cars. IIRC, the story goes, Talgo didn't study up enough on the FRA's CEM (crash energy management) rules or (
as you pointed out) the needs of their customers and had to ditch their ill-suited aerodynamic design, and with no time left to do a proper re-design, go with a form-follows-function pug nose.
They also have the mandatory service contracts (as I mentioned above).
My other favorite stubborn Talgo example is that even though the older Series VI trainsets have power doors, they aren't wired for train lined operation. A conductor can not open all doors from one operating panel. This was a feature that had existed for *decades* on North American trains when the Series VI trainsets were built in 1998.
Meanwhile Siemens has taken the opposite approach, totally flexible.
California and the midwestern states are buying on the same contract. California wanted semi-permanently coupled trainsets, while the midwestern states wanted traditional couplers, so Siemens is doing both. California wanted a cab car, the midwestern states want to use a locomotive on both sides, so they are built both ways. Agencies can buy them with or without a service contract.
Siemens takes the exact same approach with their Charger locomotives and light rail vehicles (to my knowledge, there are more than a dozen variants of their venerable S70 LRV).
I don't say all this because of any vested interest in Siemens. I say it because in the last five years, Siemens has inked three deals to deliver 61 trainsets to North American customers, while Talgo has inked zero deals.
