Well said, PMC.

Much ado about nothing.

Exprail

Trial is currently set in this matter for February 14, 2022.

Thanks for the update.

I've heard he thinks it's a joke and is treating it as such.

Trust me, this is far from a joke. Once you're in the system on a charge such as this against a Gov't. entity you're in VERY deep do-do.

The NPS has endless time, endless resources, endless lawyers and once they get the bone in their teeth endless determination.

It will be interesting to see how the trial proceeds.

Ross Rowland

Yes, but it's also equally common.

It's not just rail preservation, it's nearly everything that involves public money that can erupt in a dispute of epic proportions. Trains included, well, trains in particular.

The Alstom Acela II ran into some significant catenary contact issues in actual testing on the NEC. It's not like Amtrak doesn't know their railroad, or Alstom hasn't run these in Europe, but 'something' went wrong with the combination, and after a public and embarassing delay, may be fixed. It looked bad this summer, looks better now...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/am ... ar-AAQqbv6

That could have erupted in a legal dispute, maybe it still will, but it would appear to me that cooler heads prevailed working toward a solution. And that's the difference here. You only read about this kind of thing when both parties reach enough of an impasse that it goes legal. And having worked on enough similar issues myself, the likelihood of settlement increases as discovery evidence is mutually presented. You really have to get somebody dug in deep to push it to a trial.

It's also become increasingly prevalent to have disputes go to binding mediation and that is in contract language. So what's happening here is really unusual (therefore newsworthy), which is actually a good thing. You don't hear about the hundreds of times that things go haywire and they are resolved.

The solution the Alstom engineers devised was ingenious. They essentially put a spoiler on the pans which pushes up rather than down. I've heard that this will allow them to extend that 165 mph track speed to areas that wouldn't have seen it before without cat upgrades.

One thing I will never understand about this field is how every shop around the country is so quick to crap all over any other operation. Regardless of if they've had one mistake or hundreds.

I don't believe that criminal charges get settled. They are either dropped, dismissed, or the suspect is found guilty or not guilty. I also understand that in the Federal system, there is no such thing as parole. The sentence handed down is the sentence served.

Hence the phrase, "Let's not make a Federal case out of it."

The only real "settlement" in criminal litigation is a plea agreement, or an outright dismissal.

Of note, I checked because I was curious, federal prosecutors as a whole have a 96% conviction rate, which includes plea bargains. About 90% of federal criminal cases resolve with a plea of guilty by the defendant, while the rest go to trial.

Agreed, but there it is.
I don't think I've ever had a discussion about preservation with anyone that didn't turn into a bashing in some way - no matter how small- of others.

Isn't it amazing how things can be resolved if the parties want to be successful rather than RIGHT!!

By the way if you look at pictures of the CTA cars which used bow collectors where there was no third rail you'll see that the same upside down spoiler below the collector.

> I've heard he thinks it's a joke and is treating it as such.

While not a joke, I do agree that this is an infernal waste of time and the public's money for the government to pursue. Per the docket, the government seems intent on showing there was asbestos in the shop which Wasatch is already agreeing with. It’s a lousy $50K and far more than that has already been spent on multiple expert witnesses. Wasatch may face debarment for some period of time, but I can not imagine it would be more than that. I have only seen jail time in such cases when the fraud is in the $300K and above level.

J.R. May

So given that enforcing the terms of the contract and federal law are unreasonable, I wonder what conditions should the government be bothered to enforce the terms of any contract or the law. If I came by your place and signed a contract, was paid for work to be performed a certain way and did not do it by what you said here you should not sue me. Do you have any contracts for me to sign as I always like easy money with no repercussions.

Charges have been made and there is still more to learn. Let the courts determine the facts as the process intends.

Robby Peartree

The whole mess raises lots of interesting questions,to wit:

1. How on earth did Rimassch convince the NPS to pay $ 800K + to rehab a run of the mill day coach??

2. The car has evidently been at a Wasatch shop facility since 2016 sitting on shop trucks out in the open....what's been done to it. ?

3. How much of the $ 800k + has the NPS paid to Wasatch??

4. Will the NPS be instituting another legal action to recover it's monies paid to date??

5. Will the NPS be instituting another legal action to recover the car??

I'm sure answers to the above issues will eventually surface as they always do.

Time will tell. Ross Rowland