Railroad News

On June 15, the Metro Transit-St. Louis MetroLink light-rail system logged a record 100,000-plus boardings as passengers traveled to downtown St. Louis for a celebration honoring the St. Louis Blues' Stanley Cup Championship. 

In preparation of large crowds expected to take MetroLink to the championship parade and rally, the Metro Transit and MetroLink police scheduled extra security, dozens of additional transit operations personnel, customer service representatives and volunteer employee ambassadors to assist riders, Metro Transit officials said in a press release.

Norfolk Southern Corp. has recognized the Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad with the Class I's "Short Line of the Year" award.

A Genesee Valley Transportation (GVT Rail) subsidiary, the Delaware-Lackawanna was recognized by NS for its "conscientious customer service and commitment to growth," according to a GVT Rail press release.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) earlier this week announced the launch of a two-year study of potential improvements to the Blue, Orange and Silver (BOS) lines. 

The BOS lines all share a single set of tracks between the Rosslyn Station tunnel and the Anacostia River, creating a bottleneck that limits the number of trains that can cross between Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, WMATA officials said in a press release.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) Hartford Line between Hartford and Windsor, Connecticut, last week marked its first year of service. 

During its first year in business, the line logged 634,000 passenger boardings — about 51,000 more than originally projected for the first year, according to CTDOT report. 

House Democrats yesterday unveiled a bill that would renew several expired and expiring tax incentives, including the short-line 45G maintenance tax credit.

U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, introduced the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2019 (H.R. 3301), which would extend the short-line tax credit for three years through Dec. 31, 2020.

The American Pubic Transportation Association (APTA) will host a skills competition for rail transit operators and maintenance personnel later this week in Toronto, Canada. 

APTA’s International Rail Rodeo will have operators and maintenance teams from U.S., Canada and Japan transit agencies compete in timed skill-tests in several categories. 

A new Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) timetable took effect yesterday, reducing by five minutes the time it takes trains to travel  between Sacramento and San Jose, California. 

The change is a result of the Travel Time Savings Project, a $12 million rail infrastructure improvement project completed in December 2018 between the California Department of Transportation, the California State Transportation Agency and Union Pacific Railroad.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) will close two Expo Line stations this week as crews begin construction on the Blue Line improvement project's northern segment. 

The 7th Street/Metro Center and Pico stations will close June 22 and reopen August 21 so that crews can replace shared track at the junction of the Expo and Blue lines at Washington Boulevard and Flower Street in the 7th Street/Metro Center tunnel in downtown Los Angeles, LA Metro officials said in a press release.

North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) Secretary James Trogdon III has been named chairman of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Council on Rail Transportation.

Appointed secretary of the NCDOT in January 2017, Trogdon is a registered professional engineer with more than 30 years of experience in transportation alongside three decades of military service with the North Carolina National Guard, AASHTO officials said in a website post.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday published a preliminary report for its investigation of an April 24 derailment of a Union Pacific Railroad train near Fort Worth, Texas.

The 6,122-foot, high-hazard flammable, key train was carrying denatured ethanol in 96 loaded rail tank cars when 25 cars derailed on UP's Midlothian Subdivision. At least three tank cars leaked about 74,000 gallons of denatured alcohol, which then ignited. Some of the product entered a nearby tributary of the Trinity River, NTSB officials said in a press release.

The North County Transit District (NCTD) of San Diego announced that earlier this year the board authorized the purchase of two additional Siemens SC-44 Charger diesel-electric locomotives, pending receipt of funding from a source that has yet to be announced.

The procurement would be part of NCTD’s plan to increase Coaster commuter-rail service frequency. 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) yesterday announced an agreement to add 500 additional uniformed officers to the New York City Transit (NYCT) system to address transit-worker assaults and combat fare evasion.

Assaults on NYCT workers increased 15.2 percent between 2013 and 2017. Lost revenue from fare evasion rose to $225 million in 2018 from $105 million in 2015, according to a press release issued by Cuomo's office.

New Jersey Transit will create a video campaign to make passengers with mobility challenges aware of the accessibility accommodations available on its commuter- and light-rail services. 

NJ Transit was awarded a $60,600 Access and Mobility Partnership Grant from the Federal Transit Administration to complete the campaign. The agency will add $17,400 for a total project cost of $78,000, according to a NJ Transit press release.

TransLink last week completed upgrades at the western end of Joyce Collingwood SkyTrain Station in Vancouver, British Columbia. 

The station now offers increased capacity and greater accessibility options, including a new elevator and escalator; exterior real-time service information signs; improved lighting, an extended roof; improved integration of pedestrian, bicycle, bus, and SkyTrain transportation modes; glass partitions to support crime prevention; and universally accessible fare gates.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit's (DART) board last week approved a Victory Plaza development agreement with Anland North Commercial LP.

The pact covers the financing, design, engineering and construction of DART's planned 1-acre plaza in the Victory Park neighborhood in downtown Dallas. Following the project's completion, Anland North will maintain Victory Plaza for 10 years through the Victory Owners Association, DART officials said in a press release.

Amtrak has completed a project to refresh the interiors of its 20-trainset Acela fleet, the passenger railroad announced last week.

The project, which took 15 months to complete, is one of Amtrak's initiatives to improve Acela service along the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak officials said in a press release.

Howard Energy Partners (HEP) announced last week that it has completed expansions of its bulk terminal facilities in Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, Texas.

The projects were designed to increase HEP's Gulf Coast terminal storage capacity to 2.6 million barrels with three ship docks, three barge docks, unit train loading capacity for up to two trains per day and direct pipeline connections through wholly owned pipelines, company officials said in a press release.