The state's $47.5 million deal with a Spanish train manufacturer looks like a good idea, yet we don't know that because the contract was awarded without competition. That is not what the state should have done.

An absence of bidding is apparently legal under a 1997 state law that exempts passenger rail from state purchasing rules, but legal does not equate to right and proper. This deal was neither, and that opinion is buttressed by information uncovered by our sister paper, the Wisconsin State Journal.

As late as February, the state was apparently still intending to invite bids for the replacement of some aging equipment with two new high-speed trains. The state says it dropped bids because of a lack of interest from manufacturers. In March, Gov. Jim Doyle and some aides traveled to Spain and looked at the products of Patentes Talgo. All expenses were paid by the Spanish government. The state picked Talgo.

Even if the state's evaluations and decisions were honest, the coincidence of expense-paid junket with the abandonment of competitive bidding looks extraordinarily bad.

The new trains - and perhaps two more if federal stimulus money comes through - could become part of the envisioned Midwest high-speed rail network centered on Chicago and reaching speeds of more than 100 mph to connect Chicago with Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Oshkosh and Minneapolis. The trains from Talgo seem to have a good, simple technology that allows them to run at higher speeds on tracks designed for lower-speed freight trains. And the company has agreed to build a refurbishing facility in Wisconsin which will employ about 80 people, but it also gets a 20-year maintenance contract.

Although Talgo was the only company to submit a bid, the State Journal found that other companies had expressed interest. One had been expecting a formal request for proposal, although it missed a deadline for supplying information. Another said it had not been informed that the state was proceeding with the purchase. Bombardier, which has a subsidiary here, said it had no record of receiving a request for information. It's not reasonable to believe that companies stressed by a worldwide recession would be blasé about getting new business.

Eighty jobs are 80 jobs, but in comparison to the number lost in Kenosha or Janesville, that's minuscule. Another company might have agreed to put a whole manufacturing plant here rather than an assembly and maintenance facility. Another company may have better technology on the drawing board which we could have taken advantage of later. We will never know what may have been possible - wedge-nosed trains traveling at 150-plus mph - because we lack the information from a formal bidding process.

There is much to be gained from subsidizing intercity passenger rail along with highways and airports. For moderate distances, rail can provide shorter total travel times than aircraft or automobiles and at less cost. But we gain nothing if we're spending money ineffectively.

This is a case where the state should have taken more time and much more care. Given what's at stake, given the ease of modern communications, it would be nothing to send a few extra e-mails to the limited number of train manufacturers capable of supplying this equipment.

The state simply failed in its duty to be transparent and to ensure that money is spent wisely. And it banged together an odorous deal in the end. As we said, legal doesn't mean proper. This isn't.