Madison — Governor-elect Scott Walker reached out to a Milwaukee train manufacturer Friday, seeking to keep its operations in the state long-term as he advocates for stopping a passenger rail project involving the company.

"Governor-elect Walker is reaching out to leadership at Talgo to encourage them to stay in Wisconsin," Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader said Friday.

A spokeswoman for Talgo, the U.S. unit of the Spanish firm Patentes Talgo, said that Walker told company officials that his decision to stop a proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee passenger rail line is "not final."

Walker, a Republican, campaigned on an unambiguous promise to end the passenger rail line, funded with $810 million in federal stimulus money, which he has called a boondoggle. Bader said Walker was not backing away from that promise.

This week, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, a supporter of the project, halted work on that line temporarily after Walker's election.

That has thrown some doubt over jobs at Talgo, which is building two trains for an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago rail service and had plans to build two more for the proposed Milwaukee-to-Madison line. The company has a site at the former Tower Automotive property.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore said Friday during a briefing in her Milwaukee office that other states are clearly in line to take the funds if Wisconsin turns them down. A lack of public transportation is a significant cause of the high unemployment in the central city because residents there can't reach jobs in the suburbs, she said.

"Walker has a record of being anathema to public transportation," Moore said.

New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo made a pitch for the rail money that the governors-elect in Wisconsin and Ohio have pledged to reject. He sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking that the roughly $1.26 billion be redirected to pay for a rail project that would connect New York City, upstate New York, Toronto and Montreal.

"High-speed rail is critical to building the foundation for future economic growth, especially upstate," Cuomo said in a statement. "If these governors-elect follow through on their promises to cancel these projects, a Cuomo administration would move quickly to put the billions in rejected stimulus funding toward projects that would create thousands of good jobs for New Yorkers."

Walker has said repeatedly he wants to ask Congress to redirect the $810 million from the rail project to make it available for the state's pressing needs to upgrade its roads and bridges. But Doyle and the state transportation officials have repeatedly said that won't happen.

Operational costs

Even with the federal government picking up the line's full remaining construction cost, Walker has said he doesn't want state taxpayers to pay operating costs, projected at $7.5 million a year, starting in 2013. A state transportation official has said state taxpayers' share could be as little as $750,000 a year if federal aid covers 90% of operating costs, as it does for Amtrak's existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line.

Talgo spokeswoman Nora Friend said the company hopes that Walker can be convinced of the value of the project.

"He was very kind to explain that the decision is not final. He's just trying to understand the implications of the big project. He needs time, and we think that's fair," Friend said.

But Bader said Walker hadn't changed his mind.

"Scott remains opposed to the train. He reached out this afternoon to encourage Talgo to remain in Wisconsin," Bader said. "He needs time to have discussions next week with the Doyle administration on their intentions when it comes to this project, and will continue to examine all legal options to stop the train."

Friend emphasized that Talgo has work to keep its employees busy through 2012 and would not make any layoffs immediately. The company has already hired about 40 people for its current contracts and plans to have a total of 125 on board by next year. If it gets contracts to build trains for the Milwaukee-to-Madison line and for other states, it could keep the plant in operation beyond 2012 and expand it.

"This is a very challenging process, and we're in the hiring stage and we want to attract good employees from the area," Friend said.

Construction employment on the line itself was projected to peak at 4,732 jobs in 2012, with 55 permanent jobs to operate and maintain trains, stations and tracks.

Pat Goss, executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, and Joseph Strohl, a lobbyist for the union that represents heavy equipment operators, said they knew of no major effort to try to persuade Walker to change his mind on stopping the train.

"I think Scott was very clear where he stood on this, and he's also been very clear on how he stands on other transportation infrastructure," Goss said. "He's following through on the promise he made."

The Operating Engineers Local 139, which Strohl represents, endorsed Walker because of his strong support for road building.

Steve Baas, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said there had not been a consensus among the region's business community that the project needed to go forward.

"The business community was divided on the merits of the train," Baas said. "Quite frankly, we weren't consulted before any decision (to spend stimulus money for it) was made."

Cari Anne Renlund, executive assistant to state Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi, had no comment on Friday.

Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this article.