Railroad News

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner yesterday joined other public officials and rail industry representatives at a ceremony to mark the funding of the 75th Street Corridor Improvement Project in Chicago.

The $474 million project is a linchpin in the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) program, which aims to eliminate a chokepoint at a critical South Side Chicago junction for freight and passenger trains.

The Regional Transportation District of Denver (RTD) has teamed up with ride-sharing service Lyft and car-sharing service Zipcar in an effort to tackle the first-and-last-mile challenge of moving riders to and from transit stations without the use of their cars.

Participants who enroll and are selected to participate in RTD's new Ditch Your Car Program will receive various incentives toward the cost of using those services to travel the distance between their homes and workplaces to a train or bus stop. The incentives include credits for using Lyft, Lyft scooters and Zipcar, as well as a one-month RTD pass.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has begun a "hiring blitz" for engineers to manage a slew of major rebuilding projects.

The agency is recruiting engineers to rebuild much of BART's system after voters in November 2016 approved the $3.5 billion Measure RR bond measure.

Milwaukee will launch service on its new streetcar service, dubbed The Hop, on Nov. 2, Mayor Tom Barrett announced late last week.

City officials will host a grand opening ceremony Nov. 2 in Cathedral Square Park in downtown Milwaukee. The park is adjacent to the streetcar's eastbound and westbound platforms on Kilbourn Avenue in the downtown.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City has appointed Patrick Warren chief safety officer.

He'll work with MTA agencies on improving work practices and investing in new technology and equipment, MTA officials said in a press release.

North American railroads' growing interest in precision scheduled railroading has the potential to improve flagging service levels, according to a new report by Moody's Investors Service.

Last month, Union Pacific Railroad became the latest Class I to adopt precision scheduled railroading principles as part of a new operating model. Under UP's new Unified 2020 plan, the company will roll out precision scheduled railroading in phases across its network starting today.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) and city and county of Honolulu late last week issued a request for proposals (RFP) for a public-private partnership (P3) to help finish the area's planned 20-mile transit-rail system.

The chosen bidder would complete the City Center guideway and stations, as well as the Pearl Highlands Transit Center and Garage. The bidder also would sign a long-term operations and maintenance agreement for HART's rail system.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is relaunching the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) after a more than year-long hiatus.

The committee will be re-established with a new charter, which will go into effect two years from the date it's filed with Congress, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) has chosen an LTK Engineering Services-Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. joint venture known as C2K Partners to provide post-award consulting services for the new R211 subway cars. C2K will provide technical and program management support to NYCT during the design, manufacturing, delivery, testing and acceptance of the new cars, which will feature expanded doors aimed at reducing delays and speeding the boarding process. The R211 cars also will be equipped with monitoring systems that will transmit information about performance to the wayside, which will help crews examine trains before equipment failure, according to a C2K press release. The contract's value was not disclosed in the press release. In January, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board approved a $1.4 billion contract with Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. for 535 of the R211 units.

Spanish rail-car maker CAF has selected Teleste Corp.'s on-board solutions for metro projects in the Philippines and Italy. The order includes 30 metro units for Manila and 12 units for Naples. Deliveries are slated to start in 2019, Teleste officials said in a press release. The deployment will include a passenger information system and Ethernet network for Manila metro trains, and a passenger information system and closed-circuit television systems with an Ethernet network in Naples.

TNW Corp. this week unveiled a new design for the short-line and logistics company's locomotive fleet.

The new design features the railroad's classic red, black and gray colors divided by a wavy line of white and black. Because Texas Rock Crusher Railway (TXR) is part of the community in Brownwood, Texas, the city's logo was painted on the locomotive, company officials said in a press release.

Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) President Dorval Carter Jr. yesterday announced the start of construction to modernize the nearly 50-year-old Jefferson Park Blue Line Transit Center Terminal.

The $25 million rehabilitation project includes new bus and rail station canopies, new LED lighting and additional security cameras. Crews also will repair and refinish all station and platform surfaces, CTA officials said in a press release.

In August, tie production jumped 20.2 percent to 1,695,000 units and purchases rose 16.8 percent to 2,247,000 units compared with July levels, according to the Railway Tie Association's (RTA) latest market report.

On a year-over-year basis, production fell 15.2 percent and purchases dropped 10.7 percent.

Gulf Inland Logistics Park, a 1,050-acre industrial and commercial development near Dayton, Texas, has signed initial user land sales with two global chemical companies.

BNSF Railway Co. and Union Pacific Railroad serve the park, which eventually will include more than 10 million square feet of rail-served industrial facilities and storage for more than 1,850 rail cars.

The Phoenix City Council on Wednesday voted to build Valley Metro's two-lane South Central light-rail extension as planned.

The city approved the 5.5-mile project in spite of resistance from a grassroots group known as "4 Lanes or No Train," which formed earlier this year to stop the project, The Arizona Republic reported.

The Hoffman Team has been selected as the design-build "best value proposer" for the road portion of the Willmar Rail Connector and Industrial Access Project, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) announced this week.

Known as Willmar Wye, the project is a public-private partnership between BNSF Railway Co., MnDOT, Kandiyohi County and the city of Willmar to build a new rail line bypass on the city's west side.

Sound Transit's board yesterday selected an elevated light-rail alignment for its Link light-rail extension in downtown Redmond, Washington.

The move brings the Redmond Link extension one step closer to the start of construction in 2019, with service slated to start in 2024, agency officials said in a press release.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has approved a contract with Skanska-ECCO for the final phase of rebuilding MTA Metro-North Railroad's Croton-Harmon Shops and Yard complex in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

The final stage involves completing demolition and replacement of the main shop, where Metro-North previously performed most of its train maintenance. Slated to wrap up in 2022, the work will make room for a new electric car shop and support shop facility.

The growth in U.S. rail traffic continued unabated for the week ending Sept. 22, with railroads moving 567,078 carloads and intermodal units, a 4.9 percent increase compared with the same week a year ago, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR) data.

For the week ending Sept. 22, U.S. railroads moved 272,615 carloads, up 4.2 percent compared with the same week in 2017, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 294,463 containers and trailers, up 5.7 percent compared to 2017, according to an AAR press release.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) has completed and opened a second track on the CTrail Hartford Line between Hartford and Windsor.

The work marks the completion of 4 miles of track construction as part of the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield (NHHS) rail program, although some follow-up construction activity will occur through mid-November.