Advertisement for HSR Construction

Heard a rush hour ad on my local clear channel am station this afternoon for Siemens. Basically the ad said "We make HSR. We can make one for you too, right here in America." I live nowhere near a corridor and the radio show was purely local, so it wasn't a network feed.

I guess its worth a few bucks for Siemens to nip any Xenophobic objections in the bud.

Unfortunately, almost all equipment for high speed trains will come from overseas, with or without their advert. The main question on the table at this time is, "from where?" Siemens and others want to make sure that it is from Europe somewhere or other, and not from Japan, or possibly some other Asian location. We should also remember that in all cases these companies have both direct and under the table help from their governements and a directive to bring as much money back home to their own country as possible. What they also want very much to do is to sell the whole package, that is, insist that their trains must ron on track to their design and with their components, electrical and signal systems the same, and on and on.

They are quite willing to be very long term in their approach because such stuff in encouraged by their home governments.