Railroad News

The Kansas City Streetcar Authority last week began passenger service on its newest streetcar, marking completion of the authority’s fleet expansion to six streetcars.

The addition of car No. 806 enables the authority to operate four streetcars every Saturday throughout the year. It also allows the authority to perform regular maintenance on the entire fleet, KC Streetcar officials said in a press release.

The Metropolitan Council, which serves Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, last week announced that Chair Nora Slawik will resign from her post as of Nov. 15.

In an Oct. 31 letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Slawik cited health issues related to the demands of the position as her reason for resigning. 

Virgin Trains USA LLC last week announced that Brightline will build a passenger-rail station at PortMiami by 2021.

The Brightline high-speed passenger-rail service to the PortMiami station also will serve the Orlando International Airport, making it the only intercity rail system in the United States to connect an international airport directly to a major cruise port, Virgin Trains USA officials said in a press release.

The North Carolina and Virginia Railroad Co. LLC (NCVA) has upgraded its 56-mile line to handle 286,000-pound rail cars.

The infrastructure improvements will enable customers to ship and receive 286,000-pound rail cars, which matches the capacity of national railroads and increases the short line's competitiveness, NCVA officials said in a press release.
 
NVCA's previous capacity was 271,000-pound rail-car loadings.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) last week issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking a contractor to assist in the early stages of development of the Sepulveda Transit Corridor Project.

The RFP calls for a pre-development agreement with up to two private sector contractors to assist the agency in the planning and design of a fixed guideway transit line connecting the San Fernando Valley to the Westside, and ultimately Los Angeles International Airport. 

Total intermodal volume fell 3.7 percent to 4,662,468 units during the third quarter compared with the same period last year, the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) reported late last week.

Year over year, international shipments (2,450,493) slipped 0.8 percent in the quarter, while domestic containers (1,915,342)  and trailers (296,633) dropped 4.9 percent and 17.6 percent, respectively.

Leaders of 10 rail unions announced late last week that their organizations will participate in coordinated bargaining in the round of national negotiations with freight railroads that began Nov. 1.

The unions comprising the Coordinated Bargaining Coalition are the American Train Dispatchers Association; Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen/Teamsters Rail Conference; Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; International Association of Machinists; International Brotherhood of Boilermakers; National Conference of Firemen & Oilers/SEIU; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Transport Workers Union of America; Transportation Communications Union; and Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.

Alstom will conduct a two-week test of its Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel cell-powered passenger train on track between Groningen and Leeuwarden, Netherlands, in first-quarter 2020. The test's objective is to demonstrate that hydrogen fuel cell technology is an appropriate way to achieve zero-emissions rail traffic on nonelectrified lines in the Netherlands diesel trains now operate, Alstom officials said in a press release.

The Andersons Inc. hired Christine Castellano as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, effective in February 2020. Castellano will succeed Naran Burchinow, who will retire in March 2020 after more than 15 years at The Andersons, company officials said in a press release. Castellano is the former SVP, general counsel, corporate secretary and chief compliance officer for Ingredion Inc.

American Public Transportation Association (APTA) President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas yesterday lauded the U.S. Senate’s adoption of an amendment that blocks a 12 percent funding cut to transit agencies in fiscal-year 2020. 

The U.S. Senate yesterday adopted Jones-McSally Amendment No. 1141 and passed H.R. 3055, a minibus appropriations bill that includes the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations bill. 

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) earlier this week launched a seven-day, systemwide inspection of its containment baskets that are installed under elevated structures to prevent debris from falling.

The inspection blitz follows an Oct. 29 incident in which a 15-pound metal D-wedge separated from an elevated structure on the A Line, fell into a containment basket that was not properly secured, and fell on a car, according to a local report. A D-wedge is a component designed to maintain correct spacing between running rail and a guardrail, NYCT officials said in a press release.

The National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA) last month presented Anacostia Rail Holdings Co. (ARH) with the Corporate Distinguished Service Award.

The award recognizes NDTA corporate members who have provided “outstanding support” for the association’s goals and programs that facilitate an environment where government, military and private sector professionals can address challenges in logistics and transportation, ARH officials said in a press release.

The Canadian province of Alberta will ease oil production limits on energy companies if they move the additional oil on trains, provincial government officials announced yesterday.

The announcement was made after industry representatives proposed shipping more crude by rail in exchange for curtailment relief.

Union Pacific Railroad implemented positive train control (PTC) on 1,113 route miles during the third quarter, bringing PTC-required route miles to 93 percent completion, including all passenger train routes, the Class I announced yesterday.

Nearly all UP trains operated on PTC-mandated rail lines are operating with PTC locomotives. UP expects to have implemented PTC on all required lines by the end of this year, a year before the federal deadline of Dec. 31, 2020, company officials said in a press release.

The National Railway Labor Conference (NRLC) announced today that its members, including the nation's largest freight railroads, are beginning a new round of contract bargaining with 12 labor unions representing nearly 125,000 railroad employees.

In their bargaining proposals, the railroads are seeking to “better align compensation to market conditions and pay levels of comparable industries;" make changes to health-plan design that would allow more cost sharing; and make changes to work rules, including those that affect train-crew staffing, NLRC officials said in a press release.

Two major rail industry suppliers this week announced acquisitions to expand their track work portfolios. 

Progress Rail yesterday signed an agreement to acquire the Cleveland Track Material (CTM) business from Vossloh North America.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) earlier this week began pre-revenue operations on the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) 10-mile BART Silicon Valley Berryessa extension in California. 

The milestone represents a final step before starting passenger service, which is on track to begin in December, BART officials said in a press release.

New Jersey Transit and the Middlesex County Improvement Authority (MCIA) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU), laying the groundwork for the development of the North Brunswick commuter-rail station, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced yesterday. 

The MOU calls for the design and construction of a train station at the North Brunswick Transit Village along the Northeast Corridor. Under the agreement, MCIA will serve as the project manager.

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) earlier this week awarded $15.3 million in grant funding to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA), which will use some of the funds for its rail-car replacement program.

Under the Ohio Transit Preservation Partnership Program (OTP3), the ODOT awarded to GCRTA $5 million toward rail-car replacement. With the additional funds, GCRTA now has a total $57.2 million committed from a mix of local grants, reserve funds and expected future federal grants for rail-car funding, agency officials said in a press release.