DOT/RSPA/Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, 55 Broadway, Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA 02142

22 -- FOR THE PURCHASE OF RECONDITIONED 70 TON CAPACITY RAILWAY BOX CARS SOL DTRS-57-97-B-00011 DUE 070196 POC Guy Hillman, Contracting Officer, FAX (617)494-3024 or 3656. The Volpe Center intends to purchase up to 60, 70 ton capacity reconditioned railway box cars. The contractor shall provide the material, labor and equipment to recondition, inspect, test, deliver and warranty up to fifty rail box cars. Detailed specifications will be set forth in the solicitation. All requests for solicitation should be submitted in writing. Requests for copies of the solicitation shall be received no later than fifteen (15) calendar days after publication. Telephone requests will not be honored. The Volpe Center maintains a Home Page on the WWW at Uniform Resource Locator hhtp://www.volpe.dot.gov/ where synopses and competitive RFP's, IFB's and RFQ's may be viewed or downloaded. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has a bonding assistance program available which enables minority, women and disadvantaged business enterprise firms to obtain bid, payment, and performance bonds with a guarantee up to 80 percent against losses. In addition, a short-term loan program is available to provide working capital at the prime interest rate. For further information regarding these programs, please call the DOT Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at (202) 366-2852.The solicitation and any document related to this procurement will be available on the Internet, these documents will be available in text format and reside on a WWW server which may be accessed using Web browsers. The WWW address, or URL, of the Volpe Center Acquisition Division home page is: "http://www.volpe.dot.gov/procure.htm". Offerors desiring to receive electronic notification of the solicitation's posting and availability for downloading may register at the Volpe Center site. Requests for a hardcopy of the solicitation may be mailed or sent via E-Mail to [fill-in E-Mail address of specialist]. Telephone requests will not be honored. competitivtext (0008)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0213 19970113\22-0001.SOL)