Railroad News

Efforts to better manage congestion across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and increase GO rail service will advance with the opening of a new station in December and the upgrade and expansion of the Don Yard.

The Oklahoma City Council has selected Herzog/Stacy and Witbeck to install the rail for the Oklahoma City Streetcar.

Phase One of the 10-Year Vision for Metro Vancouver Transit and Transportation has been approved and is set to roll out in January 2017.

The number of stations and the associated cost have grown for a proposed 41-mile light-rail system in Montréal, Québec.

CDPQ Infra, a subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has added three new stations to the Réseau électrique métropolitain (REM) project that organizers say will "significantly improve downtown Montréal service and further integrate the REM into the métro system."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Metro-North Railroad has completed restoration and upgrade work on its Fordham Station.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) of Denver, Colo., marked its first delivery of rail to be used in its Southeast Rail Extension.

The 2.3-mile long extension will require 1,000 tons of rail to complete the project. RTD took delivery of about 20 percent of the total rail needed in November. The rail was supplied by Progress Rail from its Pueblo, Colo., plant.

Canadian government and transportation officials gathered last week to celebrate the completion of updates to the New Westminster SkyTrain in New Westminster, British Columbia.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has proposed updates to current U.S. passenger train safety standards as the nation aims to add high-speed trains capable of traveling as fast as 220 mph and replace its older passenger fleet.

Canadian Minister of Transport Marc Garneau celebrated the debut of a new container terminal in the Viau sector in Montreal, Quebec, Nov. 18.

Norfolk Southern's safety train provided free training to 1,926 first responders in 18 cities in 13 states across the Class 1's network during its 2016 tour.

The rolling classroom trained firefighters, police officers, emergency management personnel and other first responders with hands-on activities on how to safely respond to a rail-related hazardous materials incident.

JAXPORT’s $30 million Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF) has officially opened for business.

Union Pacific (UP) has appointed Eric Butler executive vice president and chief administrative officer and Beth Whited to executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

Caltrain is gearing up to perform pre-construction work immediately that will continue through the end of February within the right-of-way as part of the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project (PCEP).

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) General Manager and CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld has ordered the prompt removal from service of all 4000-series railcars from the lead position of trains following the identification of a possible safety issue.

New York-based global manufacturing company ITT Inc. has announced an agreement through which it will acquire Axtone, a leading manufacturer of highly engineered and customized components for railway and other harsh-environment industrial markets.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Board has approved a design-build contract for Halmar International Inc., an engineering and construction company based in Nanuet, N.Y., to replace a new bridge carrying the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) tracks at the Westbury LIRR station.

The Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) Board has approved a $1.524 billion operating budget that maintains current fares and preserves bus and rail service levels.

A new report from the OneRail Coalition highlights the decline in rail accidents during the past decade and calls for more people and goods to travel by rail to continue the positive safety trend.

The report, "Rail Safety in the United States," highlights a 31-percent decline in rail accidents during the past 10 years, which OneRail says makes rail transport significantly safer than other transit modes. The coalition notes that the positive safety trend occurred even as passenger rail traffic grew and freight rail traffic remained steady over the same time frame.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has found a broken rail, due to an undetected defect led to the October 2014 derailment of a Canadian National Railway (CN) freight train near Clair, SK, Canada.

The investigation determined that the train derailed when a sudden and catastrophic failure of one of the rails occurred under the train, due to the presence of an undetected defect. Poor rail surface conditions had masked the presence of this defect and reduced the effectiveness of visual inspections and ultrasonic inspections. Including this occurrence, the TSB has investigated seven occurrences in the past 10 years involving a rail break due to a pre-existing rail defect that was not detected by ultrasonic testing.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is calling on Congress to appropriate funds toward the commuter rail industry’s positive train control (PTC) implementation initiatives in light of the progress the association says the industry has made in these efforts so far.