U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood and Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed an agreement
providing $46.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for
work to continue on the state’s aggressive high-speed rail program. The funding
is the latest installment from the $822 million that President Obama announced
for Wisconsin high-speed rail from the Recovery Act in January.
Late next year, the first
Tunnel Boring Machine will arrive at Pine Street from Capitol Hill. To prepare
for the TBM, ground stabilization (jet grouting) is needed in Pine Street, west
of the Paramount Theatre. Starting in early August and lasting through
September, a lane reduction is needed on Pine Street between 9th and Boren
avenues. The eastbound lane of Pine Street between 9th and Boren avenues will
be closed and traffic detoured to Pike Street. The two-westbound lanes will
remain open. In addition, the sidewalk on the south side of the Pine Street
between 9th and Boren avenues will be closed to pedestrians.
The completion of BNSF
Railway’s Chihuahuita Connection represents a "win-win" for the railroad, the
Chihuahuita neighborhood, the City of El Paso, Texas, and rail customers using
the El Paso/Juarez border gateway.
The Metropolitan
Transportation Authority released its 2011 preliminary budget and proposed four-year
financial plan for 2011-2014. The proposed plan reflects unprecedented internal
cost cutting initiatives undertaken in response to a $900-million shortfall for
2010 resulting from cuts to state assistance and dramatic downturns in tax
revenue. These shortfalls amount to more than $2.5 billion over the plan
period.
With intelligence
indicating that Al Qaeda and associated movements continue to express interest
in attacking U.S. mass transit systems, especially passenger rail and subway
systems, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a redacted version
of a classified report on "explosives detection technologies [that] are
available or in development that could help secure passenger rail systems,"
according to the Homeland Security Today Website.
The
state could buy 233 miles of northern Maine freight rail tracks slated for
abandonment within several weeks if it and track owner Montreal, Maine &
Atlantic Railway agree on a price, officials said July 28, according to the
Bangor Daily News. The railway and Maine Department of Transportation are
working to find common ground between DOT’s argument that the tracks and other
equipment are worth $18.1 million and MMA’s contention that they should fetch
$26.2 million as a whole or $23.7 million if broken into smaller pieces or
parcels.
The
Spanish fixed-track material manufacturer, Talleres Alegria, invested in a new
induction heating installation for increasing its competitiveness in the high-speed
turnout market.
The Greenville and
Western Railway Company has begun a track upgrade and maintenance project in
Williamston, N.C., local media report. The project is expected to be completed
by Aug. 15 and involves:
–Construction of two
retaining walls and roadbed stabilization near Gossett Drive;
–Replacement of bridge
timbers on the rail-highway overpass at Gossett Drive;
–Installation of new
ties south of Gossett Drive;
–Installation of 1/4-mile
of new and heavier-duty rail between the north end of the concrete bridge
behind Mineral Springs Park to just south of Prince Street; and
–The rebuilding of the
Prince Street rail-highway grade crossing.
Barrington, Ill., and other
communities and entities appealing aspects of Canadian National Railway’s
purchase of the Elgin, Eastern and Joliet Railway filed final briefs with the
U.S. Court of Appeals last week, the Barrington Courier Review reports. CN also
filed briefs, appealing certain aspects of the conditions for purchase set by
the federal government.
September 18-21, 2011,
marks the dates for Railway Interchange 2011, as Minneapolis hosts the first
North American event combining the technical conferences of AREMA (American
Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association) and CMA (Coordinated
Mechanical Associations), as well as the exhibits of RSI (Railway Supply
Institute), REMSA (Railway Engineering & Maintenance Suppliers
Association), and RSSI (Railway Systems Suppliers, Inc.).
Clean-up work on the
upper reach of the Whitefish River will have a completely different look this
year, as BNSF continues to remove sediments contaminated by diesel spilled at
the railroad’s locomotive refueling station, the Whitefish Pilot
reports.
Transportation officials
in Norfolk, Va., are working to make sure people are safe when the Light Rail
starts running, local media report. Preventing a crash between a Light Rail
train and a vehicle is what the city of Norfolk and HRT wants to work to
prevent before the trains roll across the tracks.
Network Rail has awarded
the Thameslink core area resignaling contract to Invensys Rail. On completion,
the project will provide a significant increase in route capacity, allowing 24
trains per hour to run from Loughborough Junction in the south, through central
London and on to Kentish Town in the north
LTK Engineering Services appointed
Michael A. Tagaras manager, South Central Region, based in Dallas. Tagaras has
served as manager for the firm’s South Texas area based in Houston and the New
England area based in Boston. He has also held project management positions
with several equipment suppliers and brings more than 21 years experience in
transportation systems including commuter rail, heavy rail, light rail,
streetcars, DMU, fare systems and BRT.
Metrolinx continues to move forward its bold 5 in 10 Plan, a vision to improve transit in Toronto, with the C$54-million contract with Lovat Inc. to purchase four tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) for the Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit project.
Wabtec Corporation has
completed the acquisition of G&B Specialties, Inc., from Global Railway
Industries Ltd. for about $35 million. On July 14, Wabtec said that it had
signed an agreement to acquire G&B Specialties and Bach-Simpson Corporation
from Global Railway Industries for about $45 million. The Bach-Simpson
acquisition is expected to be completed by Oct. 31. Wabtec expects the
transactions to be accretive in the first year.
"On behalf of all Metro
employees, I want to first express my condolences to the families of those who
lost loved ones and those who were injured in the tragic accident on June 22,
2009," said Richard Sarles, Washington, D.C., Metro Interim General Manager. "I
believe that the greatest honor that we can pay them and also our customers who
rely on us every day is to work to prevent such an incident from ever happening
and to become the safest railroad possible.
The National Transportation
Safety Board determined that last year’s fatal collision of two Washington
Metropolitan Area Transit Authority trains on the Red Line in
Washington, D.C., was a failure of the track circuit modules that caused the
automatic train control system to lose detection of one train, allowing a
second train to strike it from the rear. The NTSB also cited WMATA for its
failure to ensure that a verification test developed after a 2005 incident near
Rosslyn station was used system-wide. This test would have identified the
faulty track circuit before the accident.
Union Pacific employees achieved the
best first-half-of-the-year safety performance in company history. For the
period January 1 through June 30, Union Pacific’s employee reportable injury
rate was 1.31, a nearly 10 percent improvement over the previous company best
1.45 reportable rate for the first six months of 2009. Union Pacific’s employee
injury rate improved 50 percent from 2001 to 2009.
The U.S. House of
Representatives unanimously voted July 27, 2010, in support of a resolution
honoring America’s freight railroad industry and its employees.
