Work begins Monday on a
massive logging project that will remove some 10,000 trees along Union
Pacific’s right of way through the center of Winter Park, Colo., Sky-Hi News
reports. On June 1, Winter Park Town Council approved a contract with Willow
Creek Logging for the removal of trees within the 200-foot wide right of way,
stretching from Kings Crossing to Moffat Tunnel.
Frankfort and Mokena,
Ill., could become quiet zones for passing trains, but it’s likely to take
months before residents get relief from the locomotives’ blaring horns, The
Herald News reports. The Federal Railroad Administration agreed in a letter to
allow the villages to go ahead with plans to make the necessary railroad
crossing safety upgrades needed before trains on the Canadian National Railway
line can be prohibited from sounding their horns. The upgrades may take until
next spring to complete, Frankfort Mayor Jim Holland said.
Building on a policy
shift announced earlier this year by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood,
the Federal Transit Administration today asked for public comment on how to
change the way major transit project proposals seeking federal funding are
rated and evaluated.
Infrastructure Ontario
has released a request for qualifications to pre-qualify and shortlist project
teams to design, build, finance and maintain a new maintenance and storage
facility for new light rail vehicles that will operate on the Sheppard East
Light Rail Transit and Scarborough LRT projects. The maintenance and storage
facility will be constructed on the corner of Sheppard Avenue and Conlins Road
in Scarborough.
The Metropolitan
Transportation Authority and New York Power Authority unveiled an advanced
rooftop-mounted solar thermal array that heats hot water used to wash subway
cars at New York City Transit’s Coney Island Overhaul Shop and Maintenance
Facility. By lessening New York City Transit’s need for electricity, the array
will lower the agency’s power bill by $94,000 and avoid 86 tons of carbon
dioxide emissions per year.
Having obtained the
required permits and made the appropriate notifications, The Kansas City
Southern Railway Company said that it would begin staging equipment for the
demolition of its former locomotive maintenance facility at 1700 Stilwell in
Pittsburg, Kan., next week. The entire demolition process is anticipated to
take approximately three months.
The list of potential
routes for California’s planned high-speed rail system in the San Joaquin
Valley grew slightly smaller June 3, the Fresno Bee reports. Meeting in
Sacramento, the state High Speed Rail Authority board approved further study on
three routes through Fresno. All of them adjoin the Union Pacific and all
include elevated tracks up to 60 feet high.
Fort Carson hopes to get
military equipment that soldiers need shipped overseas faster, local media
report. The Mountain Post wants to add a train track to an already existing
track. The new track would start at the Fort Carson rail yard and continue
about a half-mile off post.
Any prospect of bringing
rail service back to Owen Sound, Ont., is still getting back on track well down
the line, the Owen Sound Sun Times reports. While a north-south line linking
Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario "remains the company’s vision," progress
by the Highland Companies toward that goal has been sidelined by processes
sometimes beyond its control, Michael Daniher, the company’s spokesman, said in
an interview.
On Sunday, June 6, 2010, BART
construction crews will need to shut down one of the tracks at Balboa Park Station,
which may result in delays of up to 10 minutes in both directions. In addition,
customers heading east and getting off at any station on the Dublin/Pleasanton
line will need to transfer at 24th Street/Mission Station because trains going
to and from Dublin/Pleasanton will operate only as far as 24th Street/Mission Street
Station on that day.
On Saturday and Sunday,
June 12-13, there will be a two-day closure of the Downtown Seattle Transit
Tunnel for engineering work. Sound Transit will be providing a free bus bridge
between Westlake Station and the SODO Station for light rail passengers during
the tunnel closure. All Metro tunnel bus routes will use surface streets that
weekend.
CTA President Richard L.
Rodriguez and Chicago Transit Board Chairman Terry Peterson said the agency opened
a new entrance to the Red Line’s Cermak-Chinatown station. Located
approximately one block north of Cermak on Archer Avenue, the new entrance will
serve as the primary access point for customers while the main entrance to the
station on the north side of Cermak is reconstructed and made accessible. The
south entrance on Cermak also will be closed to customers beginning June 4 at
11 p.m.
Axion International received
its first two purchase orders for railroad crossties made out of Recycled
Structural Composite (RSC) from Moroccan National Railway Company (ONCF). ONCF
operates more than 1,100 miles of track throughout Morocco and carried more
than 29 million passengers last year.
The State of Alaska has
approved herbicide spraying along the Alaska Railroad tracks for the first time
in decades, but tribal and environmental groups from Eklutna to Seward are
asking the state to reverse its decision, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Calling it the right thing
to do, Teamsters Canada applauds the announcement from the Conservative
government of Stephen Harper to put the clamps on railways flouting safety
rules.
CSX Corporation has
obtained its first LEED® green building certification from the U.S. Green
Business Council. The LEED® certified building is a newly constructed
22,500-square-foot division headquarters in Florence, S.C., which includes 32
offices, a large conference room, a fitness center and a dispatch center.
The chairman of the
Surface Transportation Board said Canadian National Railway will have to stick
to the terms of his agency’s original decision on its acquisition of the
EJ&E Railway, including funding a rail overpass in Lynwood, Ill., Northwest
Indiana Times reports.
Based on a successful
three-month trial run, strong customer satisfaction and solid system
performance, Amtrak is making free Wi-Fi a standard service offering for every
passenger traveling on its high-speed Acela Express trains operating between
Washington, D.C., and Boston and is moving forward with plans to expand it to
other routes.
The State of Pennsylvania
has signed off on the final environmental cleanup of the former Lancaster
Brickyard dump that’s destined to be the new location for Norfolk Southern’s
rail yard, the Intelligencer Journal reports.
"
Tri-City Railroad Co.
filed a lawsuit against the Port of Benton in Washington State for refusing to
recognize its exclusive rights to use a 16-mile rail line, which caused a
significant financial loss to the company, The News Tribune reports. The
railroad and the port signed a 30-year agreement in 2002 for the leasing rights
of the rail line and parts of the 1171 building located in north Richland, Wash.
That agreement to operate and maintain the track gives Tri-City Railroad the
exclusive rights of use, said Nicholas D. Kovarik, an attorney for the company.