U.S. Department 

of Transportation 

Federal Railroad 

Administration 

Mr. Jeff Martin 

MAFI - 7 

Chief Logistics Officer 

Administrator 

?Oi? 

National Railroad Passenger Corporation 

30th Street Station 

Box 12, 5th Floor, SE Tower 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE 

Washington, DC 20590 

Re: Request for a Buy American Exemption for Acela Power Car Central Block 

Assemblies 

Dear Mr. Martin: 

I am responding to your July 22, 2011letter requesting an exemption from 49 U.S.C. § 

24305(f), the domestic buying preference statute applicable to the National Railroad 

Passenger Corporation ("Amtrak"). Amtrak's domestic buying preference statute 

requires Amtrak to purchase manufactured articles with a value exceeding $1 million 

dollars that are manufactured in the United States substantially from articles, material, 

and supplies mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States. "Substantially" has 

been interpreted by Amtrak and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to mean that the 

manufactured articles in Amtrak's purchases must have domestic component content 

greater than fifty percent (by cost). See 48 C.F.R. § 25.003 (domestic end product 

means-" An end product manufactured in the United States, if-(i) The cost of its 

components mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States exceeds 50 percent of 

the cost of all its components."). 

Amtrak has requested this exemption in order to purchase from Alstom Transportation 

Inc. ("Alstom"), two Power Car Central Block Assemblies ("Central Blocks") for the 

Acela high speed train sets. Amtrak uses 20 Acela high speed train sets to provide 

service along the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston, 

Massachusetts. There are 2 Power Cars per Acela train sets, thus 40 Power Cars are 

required for service. The purchase of two additional Central Blocks would provide two 

spares in order to minimize the down time for a train set if one fails. Amtrak's passenger 

rail operations in the Northeast Corridor are an important component of the transportation 

system in the northeast and the Acela equipment is the cornerstone of that service. 

The Central Blocks (the price of which will exceed $1 million dollars) will be 

manufactured by Alstom in Hornell, New York, but more than 50 percent of the Central 

Blocks' internal content by cost must come from France. 
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After carefully reviewing Amtrak's request, I have determined that Amtrak's request is 

consistent with the statutory requirements and should be granted. However, as has been 

discussed with Amtrak, this waiver is not unconditional. The FRA expects that Amtrak 

will continue to collaborate with Alstom and the U.S. Department of Commerce, 

National Institute of Standards and Technology, Hollins Manufacturing Extension 

Program (NIST-MEP) on increasing the domestic content of the Central Blocks. 

Furthermore, future requests for waivers for the Central Blocks will not be granted unless 

evidence of the required collaboration between Amtrak, Alstom, and NIST-MEP has 

been documented. 

The applicable exemption provision, 49 U.S.C. § 24305 (f)(4)(A)(iii), provides as 

follows: 

On application of Amtrak, the Secretary of Transportation [delegated to 

the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Administrator] may exempt 

Amtrak from this subsection if the Secretary decides that ... for particular 

articles, material, or supplies ... the articles, material, or supplies, or the 

articles, material, or supplies from which they are manufactured, are not 

mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States in sufficient and 

reasonably available commercial quantities and are not of a satisfactory 

quality. 

After reviewing Amtrak's request, additional information provided by Amtrak and 

Alstom, other information gained conducting our own independent investigation, and 

from ascertaining the opinion of a representative of the NIST -MEP, I find that Central 

Blocks which would comply with Amtrak's domestic buying preference statute are not 

currently available from any domestic source. 

Amtrak is the only customer for the forty Acela Central Blocks that have ever been 

produced. The Central Blocks are the heart of the Acela Power Car Propulsion System. 

The costliest and most significant items making up the Central Blocks are proprietary to 

Alstom, a French Corporation that originally manufactured the Acela equipment, and 

cannot be replaced with other manufacturers' equipment due to their technical nature and 

without a significant amount of retesting and redesign. There also could be operational 

issues associated with using parts from other manufacturers, as all of this equipment must 

work together seamlessly to provide the power and control for each Power Car of an 

Acela train set. 

The Central Blocks' most significant components are Power Modules, high speed Power 

Logic Controllers (PLCs), and Advanced Generic Alstom Transport Electronics 

(AGATE) controllers. The Power Modules are designed, manufactured, and tested by 

Alstom in France and cannot be reproduced by another entity due to their intellectual 

property and proprietary nature. The high speed PLCs and AGATE controllers, which 

are also Alstom's proprietary design, are not manufactured anywhere else in the world. 

Furthermore, the source code software which drives these computers is also Alstom's 

proprietary design. The coding and development of this software is done in France as 
well and is not available from any other source in the world, again, due to their 

proprietary nature. 

With the conditions set forth above, I am granting Amtrak's request for an exemption 

from the domestic buying preference requirements of 49 U.S.C. § 24305(f) to purchase 

two Central Blocks from Alstom. 

Sincerely, 

ac 

Joseph C. Szabo 

Administrator 

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