Cooper-Hewitt recognizes Vergara - Transit Update

Railway Age, May, 2003

A national review of "cutting-edge design" is recognizing the railway industry's own Cesar A. Vergara for his innovative work in railcar design over a 20-plus year career.

The "National Design Triennial," a series of exhibitions exploring contemporary design in the U.S., was inaugurated in 2000 by the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt' National Design Museum "to study and celebrate the technological innovations, artistic evolution, and cultural impact of design." Titied "Inside Design Now," the exhibit is on view through Aug. 3, 2003, in New York City. It reviews new ideas and future concepts from architecture and interiors to product design, fashion, graphic design, and new media.

Vergara's work is praised for "attempting to make the passenger train come to life again in Americans' imaginations." The museum specifically cites his installing a pair of seven-foot-tall fiberglass fins on the front and rear cars on Amtrak's Cascades Talgo trains as "resembling Chinese dragons." A model of the Vergara-designed Talgo train is on view at the exhibit.

Vergara is National Design Principal at Jacobs Civil Inc., New York, N.Y. He previously was Chief Designer at New Jersey Transit, where he developed the carbody shape for the Alstom-built PL42AC, a new diesel-electric locomotive that will enter revenue service in 2004. He also worked for Amtrak, where he designed the Cascades Talgo and the GE P42 Genesis locomotive, among other projects.