Obviously it's good that another manufacturer is showing interest in the UK market, but Talgo is for all intents and purposes a one-trick-pony manufacturer. They have one basic design that they have used for all of their trains, but that basic design really doesn't seem suited to any current or future UK application. One thing the design can do really, really well is handling a break of gauge. That's useful in Iberia and Central/Eastern Europe, but not so much here, where it's loading gauge which is the meaningful restriction on trains. Here, the passenger saloon has to be above platform level as there's not enough width below it. That means there's a big chunk of dead space below, which you may as well fill with a standard bogie, especially when there's never a need to have the complexity of gauge changing axles. Ironically, HS2 won't even change this. It has now been agreed that the captive platforms will be 1155mm above rail level, even higher than classic ones. With the plan to use single deck stock for captive services, there would be no benefit in having the train floor lower down than the platform level, and so you may as well use standard high-speed bogies.
Of course, Talgo could come out with a totally different product. But, it would have to be so different to what they've done before, that I very much doubt they could ever be the cheapest and best supplier for them. If you want a standard configuration high speed set, why go with a company which has never made one before in its history, over the various companies which have made hundreds of units for rail networks around the world?
