But one Achilles heel of the Talgos is that they
are completely articulated. When one of these
Talgo sets gets into a grade-crossing collision
in the push mode, the entire trainset has to go
out of service, which is not what happens with
conventional passenger trains.

And does anyone have recent experience riding the
Talgos? What do you think of the ride quality?

I ask because the one and only time I rode in Talgo
cars was back in 1994 when a Talgo trainset came to
northern California for a public tour.

The train made one public trip, a San Jose- Oakland-
Sacramento-San Jose-Oakland round trip, which went to
Sacramento via the Cal-P and returned to San Jose via
Altamont Pass. My son and I rode this trip, but, because
I did not find out about it until pretty late, all the tickets
(they were free) were gone by the time I learned of it.

So we had to ride in the two SP streamliner-era cars --
their beautiful "French Quarter" Sunset Limited lounge and
their coach. Those two cars rode like a dream on track that
then was still jointed rail, but when we rode in the Talgo cars
on the way back to Oakland, the ride was pretty bad. Every
single bump made the cars sway annoyingly. And the seats
were cramped, compared to those wonderful streamliner-era
SP cars.

I also remember that the Talgo trainset had to get an FRA
safety waiver before it could be allowed to operate here
in the US because it did not meet our tough US standards.
Have these European trainsets all been given FRA waivers?

TIA for any info.