[Mark11]

As of last week, 4771 had not been delivered - waiting for a couple parts still (per comments from the owner). Pictures from HST two weeks ago showed 4772 as a painted shell and frame without any other meaningful parts on it. I doubt it's done by now. 4774 may have been done out of sequence - but if you are seeing it, its one less to wait for. 4773 and 4775 were built in Vegas a while back and have been delivered. 4768 and 4769 were just delivered to Vegas in the last couple weeks. These were rollers sitting on the HST floor 5 months ago when I visited. So things have been slow.

When cars are delivered, its a big event for those in line, because that means we move up a notch in the queue. I'm not sure if 4770 has been delivered yet, but based on my count it's 4771 (any day now), then 4772. After that 4776 and the balance should follow sequentially.

I hear reports that HST is hopefully ramping up to 2 cars per week within a month. Based on that schedule of 8 a month, we're probably looking at 4780 by end of March, 4788 by end of April and 4796 by end of May. I'm 4794, so maybe I'm looking at 3 months.

4814 and 4819 would probably work out to be in the August (2005) timeframe under this analysis.

Whether this schedule is met or not, its tough to say, but that would make adoption at $4,500 below market and a much shorter wait pretty attractive. I think they are through 4840 in terms of orders.


Mark
CSX4794